Reprinted with permission from the June 2010 issue of the Ester Republic.

Salt is a central feature of the human diet, with a distinct and important place in human history, but a contested reputation in the contemporary world. Today, salt is a common commodity, easily and cheaply attainable, and one of the most important items in the American food system. Its ubiquity is not without its ramifications, however; numerous studies dating back to the early 1900s have linked salt to rising problems of hypertension, and organizations such as the American Heart Association and the Institute of Medicine campaign quite strongly against high-sodium diets. And yet, salt has long played an important role in the foodways of a variety of cultures for thousands of years. Now, food giant ConAgra is pushing back against low sodium campaigns, with a PR campaign of their own. Is salt friend or foe? The answer really is not that simple.

Salt’s importance to human societies has been significant. People in Europe have been processing salt water in vessels made out of a course ceramic called ‘briquetage’ since 6000 B.C.E. Many anthropologists have noted that salt played an important role in human adaptation to a variety of natural environments, and some have suggested it was a key ingredient for the rise of civilizations. Without salt as a preservative, seasonal food storage and food surplus, both necessary for population growth and urbanization, would have been virtually impossible to achieve. Indeed, so valued was salt in the ancient world, it was often traded as currency; the english word ’salary’ is derived from the latin word for salt, and the phrase “worth his salt” was meant quite literally as an assessment of high regard.

Sodium also plays an essential role in our bodies, though our actual dietary requirements for the mineral are quite small, about 1,500mg of sodium, or 3/4 of a teaspoon of table salt per day. Many so-called pre-historic peoples throughout the world subsisted quite healthily with only the naturally-occurring salt in their foods and the salts added by food preservation. Today, the few people who need be concerned with salt deficiency include only people with medical conditions such as Addison’s disease, and perhaps those rare vegans who shun processed foods of all kinds.

What of salt’s role in food and flavor? Many argue that salt helps foods taste better, amplifying good flavors and masking bad ones. In some cases, this is entirely true. Salt can react chemically with other ingredients to “bring out” certain flavors. My grandmother enjoys salt on watermelon, for example, claiming it makes it taste sweeter. Salt achieves this by bringing more of the watermelon juices to the surface of the slice before you take a bite. Clinical tests have also shown that salt helps to mask unpleasant, bitter flavors, and this is supported by the widely prevalent practice of using salt to cover the taste of spoiling meats. Salt is also essential in many recipes for its chemical properties; it helps promote moisture balance in baked foods, and aids in getting your pasta to a perfect al dente.

However, much of the reason that people think foods with low salt are bland is because they have developed a psychological taste for it. Salt is what is called an “appetitive” flavor; it directs us, in a psychosomatic way, toward sources of essential nutrients. Our stomachs actually contain receptors that can “taste” substances in the foods we eat—glucose, carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and sodium glutamate—and these trigger a kind of palatability response in the brain, linking nutritional value of foods to their orally determined tastes. In the context of a diet based on factory foods that are characteristically high in many or all of the above as well as salt, saltiness becomes linked in our minds to our stomach’s identification of essential foods. The result is that we enjoy and even crave these ultra-salty foods over all others.

Here, then is the proverbial (salt) rub. Salt makes factory foods possible, and these foods are produced by large companies with deep pockets to devote toward PR and discrediting science. In defense of their copious use of salt, factory food producers campaign to all the wonderful aspects of salt, but misdirect the public from the real problem, which is the irresponsible yet calculated way in which they use salt to make these factory foods flavorful and nearly addictive. The maximum recommended intake for sodium is 2,300mg per day, yet on average, Americans consume between 3,100 and 4,700. The new, bun-less Kentuckty Fried Chicken “sandwich” has 1,380. If we want to lick the hypertension epidemic, the solution is not to eliminate salt from our diet as something unnecessary, but to change where and how we make our foods.

Salt should have a place in every kitchen. As a preservative, salt is especially important given the need to move towards a more sustainable, seasonally-adapted diet. As a flavor additive, it can hardly be questioned for its ability to add to the enjoyment of a meal. Using too much salt is amateur, but to not use it at all is to leave many dishes unfinished, and enjoying a meal is something we should never be ashamed of.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 8th, 2010 at 5:07 am by Philip Loring and is filed under Feature Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.