We have two separate salt-taste systems
nautil.us
nautil.us
Recently? Come, now.
> If an animal takes in too much salt, the body tries to compensate, holding on to water so the blood won’t be overly salty. In many people, that extra fluid volume raises blood pressure. The excess fluid puts strain on the arteries; over time, it can damage them and create the conditions for heart disease or stroke.
This flawed narrative was debunked years ago.
The correct one is something like this: the body can get used to a wide range of sodium intakes. Sodium-following fluid movement is temporary effect. Only certain individuals have a sensitivity linking blood pressure and sodium.
If yes, why is it that a very common advice from doctors and all kinds of “health information sites” is to cut salt and sodium to manage or reduce high blood pressure? Is the sensitivity to sodium not easy to detect or is it actually more prevalent in the population?
While generally true, I don’t think this holds good everywhere. I recall watching some episodes of “Salt Fat Acid Heat” where the amount of salt used seemed to be quite high for day-to-day cooking (even leaving aside the salt that gets drained out with water).
I can imagine a future scenario where, in the interests of public health, someone figures out how to transliterate the 'too much salt' genes to 'too much sugar' genes.
Of the various ways that I could see human augmentation play out for the better rather than the worse, I'd rank that right behind tetrachromacy and hypoxia genes (particularly for Martians and Lunatics)
Doing it for the masses “for their own good” is quite dystopian. But doing it for yourself is easy and no gene therapy is required. Just cut out sweet foods and after not too long normal foods like bread will taste sweet, and sweetened foods will taste unnaturally toxic.
It was easy to uncondition myself again accidentally though, haha
I don't really eat (or drink) that much sweet stuff at all, but I assume this is not-great industrial-scale bread you're talking about - with sugar added, not just a little salt, as a preservative; or for a shiny glazing.
There's no sugar in the regular bread I bake every few days/week, and unsurprisingly it doesn't taste sweet.
I really don't think any less sugar in my diet would change that (I'm not 'cutting' it, I just don't at all often have pudding, never sugar in my coffee, etc. I'd have to drop chutneys, fruit, wine to have much less).
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/get-naked/experiments/whi...
Cut out enough sugar from your diet as you can start to notice the sweetness without exaggerated mastication.
The link was chosen arbitrarily, you can find plenty of other examples if you’re concerned about its authenticity. But, it’s not a very strong flavor so you do want a bland bread.
This has already been contemplated as a way to reduce consumption of red meat. [1] Just make people allergic to it. All in the name of fighting global warming of course.
1: https://twitter.com/bitcoinorthobro/status/14072586753587159...
When I asked a friend if they thought the cup cake was sweet. They said that isn't cup cake supposed to be sweet? And they don't think it's overly sweet since all the cup cakes they have had were like that.
> the population size could reduce significantly
The latter is a foregone conclusion of the former.
Teach
your children well
Their father's hell did slowly go by
Feed them on your dreams
The one they pick's the one you'll know by
...
And know they love you
Khalil Gibran
Also one of my favorite science thought experiments from the last few years: What ~~does hydrogen~~ do protons taste like?
Spoiler (rot13): Lbhe fbhe erprcgbef qrgrpg npvqf. Npvqf ner zbyrphyrf juvpu unir serr cbfvgvir ulqebtra vbaf (nxn cebgbaf). Cebgbaf gnfgr fbhe.
Well, hydronium ions (H3O+). Naked protons aren't really a thing in aqueous solution.
Turns out they taste like burning (acid, in particular).
Not at all, it‘s disgusting. The idea of replacing NaCl with it is laughable.
For people with hypertension it's a fantastic replacement. Or even if you're concerned about low potassium.
I mean, Morton sells it as salt replacement in little salt shakers in the grocery store. It's pretty mainstream.
Also how do you tell your friend that his wife is kind of a lot and maybe his hypertension is cortisol and not congenital?
many such cases
They also sell margarine in cute butter-like packages and sweet ‘n low or stevia in the same single-serve packets as sugar. Doesn’t mean they don’t taste absolutely foul.
Don't wanna call it deceiving.
People, who followed their doctors advice, and switched to margarine after a heart attack, more often had another one than those who stayed with butter.
Hm, just thought: Maybe it has to do more with the anxiety of those individuals than the trans fats in margarine. Still, i keep those plastic fats out of my body.
My speculative guess would be that the salt sensor just senses ionic strength, so any substance which readily splits into ions will taste salty.
(obviously i wrote this comment before reading the article, which talks about all this stuff in modest detail!)
You can't _just_ take out the Na. You'd have to do some kind of reaction, and then it'd really just depend what you put in instead.
The closest thing I can think of to "take out all the Na atoms" would be https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloralkali_process , where yeah you get a lot of Chlorine and lye.
/s