Why We Love Salt

All taste buds are not alike. But chances are, yours are a lot more like your parents' than your neighbors'. That's because a taste for salt is in your genes, and genes are why some people just can't stop eating those chips, while others can pass them by. That's right, you can blame your parents for that addiction to salt-and-vinegar potato chips.

Fans of chips and pretzels, Penn State researchers recently discovered, are supertasters. (Not just of salt but of bitter, sweet, fizzy, and spicy flavors, too.) If you're a salt-loving supertaster, not only do you like salty foods more than "nontasters" do, but you also need salt to block out what you taste as bitter undertones in certain foods (like cottage cheese). In taste-bud land, salt balances bitter. You may not realize you're doing this; you just do. To you, these foods taste bad without salt.

So whether you're a supertaster or a nontaster, like most Americans, you're probably getting two to three times the salt you need. That's like waving hello to high blood pressure and stroke. Simple fix: Cut back. Eating a little less than 1 teaspoon of salt a day lowers your stroke risk 23% and could add years to your life. Avoid highly processed foods (they're sodium swamps). Eat whole, fresh foods, and swap mustard, herbs, curry, and balsamic vinegar for that table salt, which you will now take off the table. You can even use curry on popcorn. Try it before you put this paper under the new puppy.