Why does salt make everything taste better? Why do humans like it?

Question

Why does salt make everything taste better? Why do humans like it?

In: 4614

Answer 1

Salt is important for a hunter gatherer because it’s both directly involved in some signaling and makes your body retain water which is far more important than food for keeping you alive. So people whose brains trigger a very strong reward when salt is consumed survived to reproduce if water was even a little bit scarce.

This means salt still triggers some very important reward systems even though most people have very little danger of consuming too little salt.