
In Raising the World’s I.Q., the Secret’s in the Salt (2006) - nabla9
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/16/health/16iodine.html
======
Symmetry
If you're interested in doing more here's Givewell's page on salt iodization
and it's benefits as a charity.

[https://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/sa...](https://www.givewell.org/international/technical/programs/salt-
iodization)

They don't consider it as good an investment as anti-malarial work but it's
close enough to be worth mentioning which makes salt iodization charities a
much, much more efficient use of your money than most charitable causes if
you're just trying to minimize human suffering.

~~~
pilom
Seems like the only reason Salt Iodization doesn't make the list of "top"
charities is because it is much harder to prove benefits back to the charity
level. If a charity lobbies the local supermarket to label iodized salt which
people want which causes better health, it is nearly impossible to prove that
it was the charity that caused the better health. Malaria nets are much
easier: How many nets went out, did the nets make it to the people we
intended, how many fewer people got malaria? Iodization is much more difficult
to track because so much money needs to be spent at the lobbying level instead
of the "buying iodine" level.

Malaria nets also score extremely well in their ranking system because those
charities can accept a TON of money before diminishing returns start to kick
in. Against Malaria has said "we could easily accept >$50 million in
donations" where the two Iodization organizations GiveWell tracks have said
they could probably only accept $2-5 million without major changes (even
though both of them lost their primary funding sources in the past few years
and are thus decreasing their programming).

This all doesn't mean GiveWell is wrong in their current recommendations. They
are up front about disclosing the problems with their methodology, but you
should keep it in mind when choosing which charities to donate to.

~~~
lostlogin
Anything with an instant or quick return is easier, and that’s what it boils
down to.

------
acdanger
> In many places, like Japan, people get iodine from seafood, seaweed,
> vegetables grown in iodine-rich soil or animals that eat grass grown in that
> soil. But even wealthy nations, including the United States and in Europe,
> still need to supplement that by iodizing salt.

Where did Western people get iodine before it was necessary to add it to salt?
Has our soil been so depleted that iodine is no longer present in the
vegetables grown in it?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Where did Western people get iodine before it was necessary to add it to
> salt?

Some lived near the sea and had high seafood diets, but most were just iodine
deficient, which doesn't stop a population from surviving, though it leads to
suboptimal outcomes in a number of dimensions.

There is this wierd pervasive mythology that before modern times people lived
in an ideal state (at least in terms of nutrition), so any present deficiency
from the ideal must reflect a difference between modern and premodern society.
Past conditions were at least minimally adequate for survival and
reproduction, or we wouldn't be here, but there's no real basis for assuming
that they were in any way ideal.

~~~
BurningFrog
You can make a good argument that before agriculture, people lived in a
"steady state" hunter gatherer society for at least hundreds of thousands of
years, to which they were extremely well adapted adapted evolutionarily.

Let's repeat that because it's important and counterintuitive: Those
conditions were ideal for us because _our species changed_ to fit the
conditions.

What's happened since is a crazy rollercoaster ride of life conditions changin
much faster than evolution has any chance of keeping up with, and premodern
society in the sense of preindustrial can in no way be presumed to be ideal.

~~~
dragonwriter
> for at least hundreds of thousands of years, to which they were extremely
> well adapted adapted evolutionarily.

Hundreds of thousands of years is not a really long time in evolutionary
terms, and evolution doesn't necessarily, even given a long time, get out of a
good-enough local optimum to “extremely well adapted”.

It's also debatable whether conditions in which humans evolved are really a
steady state.

More to the point, humans being ideal for the conditions—what the argument
from evolution suggests—is not the same as the conditions being ideal for
humans.

~~~
BurningFrog
I thought about responding to these critics, but they don't really say much
beyond "you never know!"/"don't be too sure!", so I'll leave things as is.

------
carlob
Funnily enough there is an Italian phrase: "avere sale in zucca" (to have salt
in one's head (literally pumpkin here)), which means to be smart.

~~~
nkrisc
I tried Googling but most results were in Italian (which I don't speak). How
old of a phrase is that?

~~~
carlob
One source I found says the expression is probably Latin in origin and that
the pumpkin was literal back then. So dried pumpkin skins were used as purses,
and salt as money, then the original sense might have been to be rich, rather
than smart. But it was some random website, so take this with a grain of salt
:)

~~~
DFHippie
That seems unlikely. Pumpkins were as rare as potatoes, chocolate, and chili
peppers in the Roman Empire.

~~~
pklausler
But as common as maize, tomatoes, and turkey, IIRC.

~~~
euyyn
Wait, why did Latin have a word for gourd?

~~~
carlob
Not all gourds come from the new world

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabash)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1311910/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1311910/)

------
crispweed
Just saw this on the french wikipedia page for iodised salt, not included on
the english language version:

> Toxicologie : en 2012, l'Autorité européenne de sécurité des aliments
> (AESA)7 fait remarquer que alors que la plupart des aliments ont un taux de
> plomb qui a régulièrement diminué, parmi 734 catégories d'aliments consommés
> en Europe et analysés (145 000 analyses au total), 87 présentent encore des
> taux de plomb préoccupants. Le sel iodé est l'un de ces 87 aliments, il
> serait source - pour un consommateur moyen - de 2,4 % des apports
> alimentaires quotidiens en plomb. Le rapport de l'AESA ne pose pas
> d'hypothèse sur l'origine de ce contaminant toxique et indésirable, source
> de saturnisme.

So that is saying that there are some concerns, reported by 'AESA', with
iodised salt containing lead.

Couldn't find any original source for that, though, so far (looking here:
[http://www.efsa.europa.eu/](http://www.efsa.europa.eu/)).

~~~
wavegeek
Translate:

>Toxicology: In 2012, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) 7 notes that
while most foods have lead levels that have steadily decreased, among 734 food
categories consumed in Europe and analyzed (145 000 analyzes in total), 87
still have lead levels of concern. Iodized salt is one of these 87 foods, it
would be source - for an average consumer - 2.4% of daily intake of lead. The
EASA report does not make assumptions about the origin of this toxic and
undesirable contaminant, a source of lead poisoning.

------
Amorymeltzer
Can we get a (2006) added to the title?

Surprised nobody has yet mentioned Mark Kurlansky's truly excellent book Salt.
It's a fascinating read, and really clues you in to just how central salt was
to human life for most of our history.

~~~
mark-r
Given the age of the article, does anybody have an update?

------
mitchtbaum
I'm trying to understand their logic here:

```Iodine is good. Therefore adding iodine to something makes something else
that is also good.```

Is that right? Why not add iodine to anything other than salt? Iodized pepper,
iodized milk, iodized iodine... Why salt?

~~~
oseibonsu
Salt is generally consumed in small quantities and does not spoil, making it a
good carrier. You could use anything else, but it's hard to find things that
won't spoil without refrigeration and that are widely consumed in small
amounts.

Note: I previously worked on an iodated salt program in West Africa for the
World Food Programme.

~~~
mitchtbaum
Wouldn't it make more sense grow spirulina or something else with iodine that
people there can produce and consume?

~~~
delinka
How do you get people to consume spirulina? Preference and taste get involved.
Everyone eats salt. Salt was used to preserve things. Salt is used as a flavor
enhancer. Salt is consumed far more ubiquitously than anything else. And, it
doesn’t spoil if you dont consume it all in a couple weeks.

~~~
mitchtbaum
Again, __by that logic __, you could justify anything.

"How do you get people to ____" is a fundamental question in life with many
approaches to answering it, ie marketing, public relations, missionary
studies, theater, etc.

~~~
fhood
Your question has been answered explicitly twice. Perhaps you are actually
asking something else?

~~~
mitchtbaum
Yes. How can we help improve nutrient availability, generally?

From what I pointed out below, this salt processing seems to have
underappreciated trade offs. But most importantly, the overarching picture of
nutrient availability, not just for iodine, seems to have a bigger challenge
at hand worth solving than simply using salt as a vehicle for one - which
spirulina would help with in terms of protein and mercury / biotoxin removal,
for example.

~~~
buttcoinslol
You fortify staple foods with nutrients. Such as SALT, bread, milk, etc.

The point is that you don't go looking for a new thing for people to consume
to get them the nutrients they need, you fortify what they already eat.

------
jhoechtl
What about adding lithium to water? I remember of a statistics claiming that
in regions of very low natural lithium occurence, suicide rate to be
significantly higher

~~~
UMadBreaux
I'd think that lithium toxicity would be enough of a danger that it wouldn't
work out. People taking lithium as a mood stabilizer need routine blood
testing to ensure safe levels of the drug are in their body.

~~~
exhilaration
Therapeutic doses of lithium are almost certainly thousands or millions of
times higher than what's found in sea water.

------
cellularmitosis
I just looked it up and found out that Morton Kosher salt is not iodized,
which is what I've been using for a few years now. A health issue has lead me
to avoid processed foods and eating out. I wonder if I'm at risk of being
deficient?

~~~
tptacek
You almost certainly aren't at risk; the American diet is generally high in
iodine. Dairy, eggs, and meat are particularly strong sources of it.

User kosher salt.

Consider getting your vitamin D levels checked every once in awhile; that's
the one you might be low on.

~~~
wahern
The American diet is high in salt, not iodine. The vast majority of salt in
the American diet comes from processed foods, and that salt is _not_ usually
fortified with iodine. This has been exacerbated by medical advice to lower
salt intake, which means people are using less iodized table salt at home.

Iodine intake by Americans has dropped considerably over the past few decades.
So much so that many pregnant women are borderline deficient or actually
deficient. There have been several recent, high-quality studies in the U.S.
and U.K. showing that pregnant women especially should be taking additional
iodine supplements, and that supplementation beyond table salt could result in
measurable increases in average IQ even in the U.S. and U.K.

When my wife was pregnant three years ago none of the nutritional supplements
I examined (e.g. USP certified products like Nature Made) contained iodine.
Partly because of the research and partly because she just doesn't like to
cook with much salt, I searched high-and-low for a supplement. The research
recommended 80-100 micrograms (mcg). The only supplement I found with such a
small amount was a Whole Foods brand product, which I bought with some
apprehension given the lack of certified quality control. Too much iodine can
have similar deleterious effects as too little iodine, as it likewise screws
with thyroid function.

When my wife was pregnant the second time around I bought another bottle of
iodine supplements, as well as the exact same Nature Made prenatal vitamins.
It wasn't until a few months later did I actually read the list of ingredients
on the Nature Made bottle to discover that, sometime in the intervening two
years, they began adding iodine! D'oh! So of course she stopped taking the
separate iodine supplements.

Presuming the Whole Foods-brand pills were truly in the 100-microgram range,
then all was good. The supposed safe upper limit of iodine intake (for
pregnant and non-pregnant adults) as recommended by American doctors is
actually far below the average intake for many Japanese populations, for whom
no known bad effects are known. That said, most of the iodine supplements on
the market I saw just had ridiculous and possibly dangerous amounts of iodine.
It's a good development that Nature Made (and presumably other reputable
prenatal supplements) have begun adding iodine.

For the record, my son turned out to be the smartest kid in the whole, wide
world. ;)

~~~
wahern
You can downvote me all you want but in 2014 even the American Academy of
Pediatricians began recommending iodine supplementation, presumably based on
the same research I had been reading at the time: [https://www.aap.org/en-
us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages...](https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-
aap/aap-press-room/pages/Pregnant-and-Brestfeeding-Women-May-Be-.aspx)

Having a high-quality, upper middle-class diet isn't a simple answer. For
example, cruciferous vegetables like broccoli inhibit the uptake and use
dietary of iodine. Whatever the causes of the recent regression in wealthy
societies, the fact of the matter is that the more modern studies 1) actually
measured iodine levels, 2) measured outcomes, and 3) used large, randomized
controlled studies. It's a good thing prenatal manufacturers are adding
iodine, because even smart people (or perhaps _especially_ smart people) are
stubborn and think they know better.

------
juanmirocks
Funny enough for most people, I suffered the problem of drinking too much
water. I could easily drink 8+ liters a day. This brought me terrible
headaches and killed my productivity. I did not find the reason for a long
time since in that period I was experimenting with different diets and I could
not figure out the cause.

The condition is called "Hyponatremia": too low levels of sodium in blood
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia)).

I make sure now to drink less water and add a bit more of salt to my food.

------
jcasman
Small factoid: I visited the Tobacco and Salt Museum in Tokyo and found out
that Japan was forced to develop domestic salt technology due to isolation
plus climate factors (cool temperatures and heavy rainfall). It's not just a
historical topic. With increased use of soda and soda derivatives in modern
industry salt now has an important role to play in advanced technologies.

[https://www.jti.co.jp/Culture/museum_e/collection/salt/index...](https://www.jti.co.jp/Culture/museum_e/collection/salt/index.html)

------
qwerty456127
Why eat iodized salt? Wy not just take iodine supplement or just eat kelp? Or
iodize some other foods perhaps?

By the way I could never understand why do people add salt to everything, I
personally don't like it much. Also, isn't it supposed cause cardiovascular
health issues?

~~~
phkahler
I agree with you. Iodized salt is a terrible way to get Iodine. The US RDA is
150mcg which many have found to be rather low. I started Iodine more than 5
years ago with around 1mg and also 250mg of Magnesium - this combination cured
my asthma (or perhaps it's an ongoing treatment since I never stopped).
Nowadays I just use Lugol's Iodine solution - several drops in a few ounces of
water say twice a week. It's also great for healing wounds or skin
irregularities (strange moles).

Read about Iodine and apoptosis. Iodine and heart disease. Iodine and cancer.
It seems to help with a lot of things. Why? Because it's good for the
mitochondria among other things.

~~~
qwerty456127
Cool info, thanks! I didn't knew taking actual iodine solution like Lugol's is
safe but now I'm going to explore this (though I am still not sure it's a good
idea - isn't it better to take potassium and sodium iodides and/or iodates?).

BTW I have started taking 1125 mg (300% RDA) of magnesium a day about a month
ago (still taking) and it has changed my life instantly: almost cured chronic
fatigue, sleep disorders and a heart condition I have had since childhood (but
as soon as I stop taking this much and try lower doses it comes back).

------
unitboolean
What else can I consume to improve my brain function except salt and low dose
lithium?

~~~
phkahler
>> What else can I consume to improve my brain function except salt and low
dose lithium?

Try glycine - 1 gram minimum per day. You may be able to find it as Magnesium
Glycinate sold strictly as a Mg supplement. The thing is it contains 6-7 time
more Glycine that Mg. so if you take 200mg of Magnesium in this form you'll
get about 1.3 grams of glycine. It's a neurotransmitter and helps sleep among
other things.

------
rbongers
The spice expands consciousness

~~~
ForRealsies
Well, it'll de-calcify the bromide/chloride around your pineal gland.

~~~
qwerty456127
Seriously? Do you mean real table salt (sodium chloride) will do this or just
kidding (yes, I have read, watched and played Dune, all of them)? If yes, can
potassium chloride do the same?

------
seele
If Flynn effect was real, we would expect to see average SAT scores improving
(which we don't see):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#History)

[https://www.erikthered.com/tutor/historical-average-SAT-
scor...](https://www.erikthered.com/tutor/historical-average-SAT-scores.pdf)

[https://www.infoplease.com/us/higher-education/average-
sat-s...](https://www.infoplease.com/us/higher-education/average-sat-
scores-1972-2007)

Flynn effect is a result of misunderstanding of IQ scale: "The basic
misunderstanding is assuming that intelligence test scores are units of
measurement like inches or liters or grams. They are not. Inches, liters and
grams are ratio scales where zero means zero and 100 units are twice 50 units.
Intelligence test scores estimate a construct using interval scales and have
meaning only relative to other people of the same age and sex. People with
high scores generally do better on a broad range of mental ability tests, but
someone with an IQ score of 130 is not 30% smarter then someone with an IQ
score of 100. A score of 130 puts the person in the highest 2% of the
population whereas a score of 100 is at the 50th percentile. A change from an
IQ score from 100 to 103 is not the same as a change from 133 to 136. This
makes simple interpretation of intelligence test score changes impossible."
Source:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3950413/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3950413/)

Also worth reading:

[http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/rodgers1999.p...](http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/rodgers1999.pdf)

[https://newrepublic.com/article/115787/rising-iq-scores-
dont...](https://newrepublic.com/article/115787/rising-iq-scores-dont-mean-
greater-intelligence)

[https://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/11/08/linda-s-
gottfredson/...](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/11/08/linda-s-
gottfredson/shattering-logic-explain-flynn-effect)

~~~
kerbalspacepro
i dont think this has anything to do with the article.

------
peterwwillis
> civil libertarians demand a right to choose plain salt, with the result that
> the iodized kind rarely reaches the poor

How is it minorities of extremists keep holding back progress in health,
education and transportation around the world?

------
iamgopal
When I was young, iq was calculated as intelligence devide by average
intelligence multiplied by 100. By that logic, world's iq could never
increase. So, what's new definition ?

~~~
einarvollset
It is re-normalized over time. See Flynn Effect.

------
DoreenMichele
I am all for addressing deficiencies and glad to hear of such successes, but I
hope we get better at making such things _available, but not mandatory._

I have a serious medical condition. If they wanted to make this mandatory, I
would need to campaign against it in order to protect my health and life. It
bothers me to see the desire for options tarred as if that desire is mere
prejudice and cannot have legitimate concerns behind it.

~~~
thriftwy
I think they'll definitely have better results in 3rd world countries if they
didn't try to deliver it the hard love way.

------
casebash
Should we be eating iodised salt as well? Or is it only important for
children/pregnant women?

~~~
Kluny
Yes, we should, and if you live in Canada or the US, you probably do. If your
diet is mostly fast food, you may not get enough, because fast food contains
lots of salt that isn't iodized. I did a little reading about it for a blog
post I wrote a while ago, and learned about something called the "Goiter Belt"
in the USA.

[http://rocketships.ca/blog/vitamins-and-
anarchy/](http://rocketships.ca/blog/vitamins-and-anarchy/)

------
wolfpwner
Good news for Bilo!

------
aleyan
> In fact, Kazakhstan has become an example of how even a vast and still-
> developing nation like this Central Asian country can achieve a remarkable
> public health success.

> Even moderate deficiency, especially in pregnant women and infants, lowers
> intelligence by 10 to 15 I.Q. points, shaving incalculable potential off a
> nation’s development.

> All of them — Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrghzstan —
> saw their economies break down with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Yes, Kazakhstan is a developing country according to the IMF and those who
have seen Borat. Using it as an example of the public health success going on
in Central Asia is disingenuous however because Kazakhstan is remarkably
wealthy compared to its neighbors[0]. It's GDP PPP per capita at $25,263 is
only a little behind the digital darling Estonia's at $29,364. Kazakhstan's
neighbors like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have theirs at $3,551 and $2,980
respectively.

A lay western reader not knowing is particularities of Central Asia could
easily make assumptions and walk away from this article with erroneous ideas.
The article, in my reading and without the context, suggests a
iodine->health->wealth causality. In Kazakhstan's case oil->wealth->health
would be more apt.

[0]
[https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gnp_pcap_pp_cd&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_pp_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:EST:KAZ:KGZ:TJK:UZB:TKM&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false)

~~~
adventured
PPP is a laughably bad approach to measuring the economics and well-being of a
nation.

If you go by PPP, you'll be falsely led to believe Iraq is on par with Iran
and just a little behind Turkey. Iraq is a barely functioning, destroyed
nation, in the midst of a full rebuild.

According to PPP, in 2016 Puerto Rico was just barely behind Japan. New
Zealand is below Puerto Rico.

According to PPP, Equatorial Guinea is approximately on par with Finland,
France, Canada, Japan, UK, Belgium.

Oman and Saudi Arabia are above Belgium. Saudi is above the Netherlands and
Sweden. Is PPP aware of the actual living conditions in Saudi Arabia at the
median? What the median income is in Saudi Arabia? Nope.

Like I said, it's laughable.

PPP purports to enable a better comparison stick. It fails entirely in all
cases. Belgium & Denmark are below Saudi? The only proper response to that is:
bullshit.

PPP is not only universally wildly inaccurate, it leaves out dozens of
critical economic factors that are derived from objective economic capability
rather than what the price of a hamburger is from one nation to the next.

PPP is a subjective measurement, and a particularly bad one. Who is on the
ground doing the perfectly objective comparisons in every nation
_simultaneously_ , living there for a decade to really get a sense of things
across the whole economic landscape? Nobody. PPP leads to mediocre guess-work,
which gets you to New Zealand being below Puerto Rico.

What is your military capable of defense wise? Try basing that on subjective
economic relativism, see how it works out for you in a war.

What kind of medical technology can your nation afford? What's the level of
medical technology that your people have access to at the median? That
collapses under PPP, because the best and latest medical equipment is
expensive.

Can you buy a BMW or a $4,000 poorly made car that is guaranteed to fall apart
and have far more problems than eg a Lexus? While simultaneously, who would
confuse the standard of living impact of driving an extraordinarily mediocre
$4,000 vehicle vs a Mercedes or BMW?

If your GDP per capita (non-PPP) is eg $35,000, then I can stack you right up
against Japan or New Zealand and immediately have a good idea of what your
national income potential is far more often than not, and I can tell a lot
more about your nation's real capabilities at the median.

The medtech & car examples are representative concepts, they apply to pretty
much everything else that defines standard of living. PPP is a _dumb_ (its
simplistic nature ignores almost everything that's actually important to the
standard of living of actual humans) economic concept in the best of cases; in
most cases, it's entirely worthless.

~~~
cgmg
You raise some good points. What's a better measure, in your opinion?

~~~
credit_guy
A better measure is the straight GDP/capita. Here's the numbers for the 3
countries mentioned, to which I added the US, China and Estonia (source World
Bank [1]):

US: $57.6k Estonia: $17.6k China: $8.1k Khazakhstan: $7.5k Kyrgystan: $1.1k
Tajikistan: $0.8k

GP's argument stands with the straight GDP/capita, except for the comparison
to Estonia, which was a side remark anyway.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:EST:KAZ:KGZ:TJK:USA:CHN&ifdim=country&tstart=535352400000&tend=1482123600000&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false)

------
danielam
"In neighboring Turkmenistan, President Saparmurat Niyazov — a despot who
requires all clocks to bear his likeness and renamed the days of the week
after his family [...]"

I'm pretty sure both claims are false.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
Niyazov's renaming of the days is quite real [1].

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaming_of_Turkmen_months_a...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaming_of_Turkmen_months_and_days_of_week,_2002)

~~~
danielam
Yes, but I'm not contesting the renaming. The way its phrased led me to expect
that all of the days were renamed after his family members. Perhaps an
ambiguity.

Also, can you confirm that clocks must bear his likeness? I've seen a
purported Turkmen deny this claim.

------
givan
Salt as far as I know is the only mineral (non plant) spice we use, it's only
purpose is to enhance taste.

There is a common confusion between salt (sodium chloride) and sodium, many
falsely believing salt is not used only for taste but it's essential for
health.

Sodium is a vital element that is found in almost all plants and animals and
there is no need for an extra sodium intake because our food has plenty.

Sodium and potassium balance in the body is essential for cell physiology and
our health

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%2B/K%2B-ATPase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%2B/K%2B-ATPase)

~~~
yipopov
>it's only purpose is to enhance taste

No.

>there is no need for an extra sodium intake because our food has plenty

Depends on the food and other environmental factors. The reason why a
preference for salt evolved in the first place was because we didn't get
enough salt in our food, especially warm climates, which is incidentally where
we started out. Same reason why herbivores frequent salt licks, their normal
diets don't contain enough sodium or other minerals.

What you said would have been true if we were carnivores.

~~~
walshemj
Its also still used to preserve foods and much much more so in ancient times

