why does salt make food taste better?
In: Biology
We don’t fully know why. We know there are neural circuits in the brain that give us an urge to ingest salty substances. We know salt makes our brains feel a bit of a reward, and makes us want it more. So salt certainly has a hedonic value, we like it. Why? The most likely explanation is evolution. Back in the day, salt wasn’t so easily accessible or found naturally. This is to the extent that our salt wasting (getting rid of extra salt) mechanisms are less developed than for other ions and compounds. So it is likely we evolved to take salt on whenever we can, because we’d die without it. Now it’s everywhere, and we just can’t stop taking it. In fact a few studies showed that withdrawal from addiction can give you a salt craving, and it is hypothesized to be due to activating ancient neural circuits that make you feel you’re missing something and salt is the answer.
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