The Salt Appetite and its role in Human Physiology
Ionic balance is essential to physiological and biochemical functions of humans. By regulation of blood pressure and membrane potentials, sodium and potassium play an extremely important role among all the ions. In the form of salt in fried foods, modern diets contain a high amount of sodium On the other hand, fruits and vegetables – rich sources of potassium find reduced importance in today’s diets. Diets high in sodium and low in potassium lead to hypertension. Why then do we crave sodium? For millennia, herbivorous have always consumed diets high in potassium and low in sodium. This induced the development of a ‘regulatory drive to consume salt’ in order to provide the body the necessary of sodium. Wild herbivores still depend on ‘salt licks’ – natural pools of mud with incredibly high amount of salt – to sustain their body sodium. These animals visit these salt licks a few times a week to consume large amounts of salt to make up for their otherwise salt poor diets. Tribes li...