Salt: Why do we crave it so?

Salt has always been more than a seasoning. Wars have been fought over it. At one point, it was used as currency. Salt was so important that cities were create around locations rich in salt. In many ways the history of human is the history of salt. 

So why is salt so important? 

Every cell in our body depends on sodium and chloride. These are the ions that make up salt. Together they help maintain fluid balance, generate nerve impulses, and contract muscles. 

Without salt, life as we know it would collapse. 

So how did early humans obtain salt before it became widely and commercially available? 

In nature, salt is not evenly distributed. Some lands are barren of it, while others hide it in rocks or concentrate it in sea water. 

Early humans often discovered salt through natural salt licks. Salt licks were mineral rich patches of ground where wild animals gathered.

Humans followed herds of animals travelling long distances to find salt. They then dug and scraped the earth to find salt.

If humans found themselves along the sea coast, they collected sea water. Then they allowed the water to evaporate. 

Where they found salty springs, they harvested the water. Boiling allowed the salt to be left behind. Human beings used all the ingenuity they had in the early days to discover and hunt for salt. 

You could ask why did the human body not evolve to store salt? 

Unlike fats or sugar, which can be stored, sodium is lost through sweat, urine and tears. You need to put some back in. When the body was deprived, a primordial urge arose. 

I need more salt. 

This drive explains why we crave salt or salty foods the way we do. Of course, today, salt is abundant.

When something becomes abundant, we need to evolve to suppress our urge to over consume it. 

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