Why does salt make food taste better?
In: 84
Essentially, we need salt to survive. It’s rare in most natural foods, but our brains are hard-wired to go, “Hell yeah, give me more of that.” It’s the same with sugars.
Without salt, you would die. Same reason sugar and fat tastes good. Without fat or sugar, you would also die. So the body gives you an incentive to seek salt out so you won’t die.
Salt is made of sodium and chlorine which can easily dissolve into sodium and chlorine ions, which do a good job of binding with food molecules that may be particularly bitter. This means instead of you tasting the bitterness of the food, salt ensures the food molecules that would bind with your bitter taste receptors aren’t able to do so anymore and the food overall now tastes better to you
It works in a few ways:
* Even small amounts of salt reduce your sensitivity to bitter tastes. “Bitter” is an evolutionary early warning system for potential poison, so you’re hard-wired to dislike bitterness. Suppressing even minor bitter notes makes things taste better.
* Salt pulls out moisture, which brings flavor with it, which then has an easier time getting to your tongue.
* The whole reason you have a taste detector specifically and solely for salt is that we need salt to live – so you’re hard-wired to like salty flavors.
I don’t salt a lot of food myself.
I find a lot of food, especially at restaurants and processed food WAY too salty. I then end up spending a lot of the evening trying to get rid of that taste. The sheer amount of salt top end restaurants use is disgusting to me.
I personally dislike a lot of salt on steaks as well as other things. That said, I love salty popcorn and other foods, but that is specifically to taste the salty in that particular food.
The reality is, you actually get used to salty foods. Once your taste buds get used to salty items, they require salt to taste right.
So, technically, salt doesn’t make food taste better for everyone.
Animals, having neurons working with the exchange of sodium and potassium ions (the [“sodium-potassium pump”](https://www.britannica.com/science/nervous-system/Active-transport-the-sodium-potassium-pump) as it’s called) need both electrolytes.
But while potassium is very common in plants, hence food, sodium is rare. And so our taste buds have evolved to make the taste of table salt – *sodium* chloride – pretty pleasant, insuring an adequate supply. (Or even an excessive supply nowadays. Salty tastes good and the product sells well. And each gram of cheap salt adds to the weight of, say, expensive *prosciutto*.)
Latest Answers