As the “finishing touch” of cooking food, salt not only increases the salty taste, but also plays a vital role in the human body, such as improving the body’s water balance, regulating the body’s nutrient absorption and so on.
If a person does not consume enough salt, there will be various adverse reactions, but why can animals living in the wild not eat salt? Is there anything “special” about human body tissue? In primitive times, there was no salt, how did they survive?
Do animals really need salt?
Salt is what we call sodium chloride. Whether it is humans or animals, it is actually necessary to supplement salt, because sodium ions are the main cations in all mammalian extracellular fluids, so salt is an indispensable part of all animals to maintain vital signs. a nutrient.
It’s just that humans eat salt “generously”, while animals eat salt “secretly”. On the surface, it seems that they never eat salt, so people are misunderstood.
So how do animals “secretly” eat salt?
The intake of salt is mainly closely related to the diet of animals, such as carnivores, especially animals that only eat meat like tigers and lions.
Because their food, that is, meat, contains a certain amount of salt, there is no need for additional salt supplementation.
But herbivores don’t have such an easy time, because the roots, stems and leaves of plants are low in sodium chloride, so such animals need to supplement salt through additional channels.
If it is an animal living in the wild, the way to obtain salt is usually by licking the sodium chloride in natural saline-alkali land or minerals, which has already achieved what it needs in its body.
If it is a captive animal such as horses, cattle, and sheep, people will buy special salt licking bricks. If they need to add salt, they can just lick them directly.
In fact, no matter which method of obtaining salt is used, it shows a problem, that is, whether it is human or animal, it is inseparable from the intake of salt, but the frequency and intake of human beings are relatively large.
Why is the human need for salt so “special”?
The health organization recommends that an adult should not consume more than 5 grams of salt per day, but according to the survey, most people’s salt intake is seriously exceeding the standard, almost twice the standard amount. Why?
In fact, this is due to our well-developed sweat glands. It is very easy to sweat after the weather is hot or after exercise. Sweat will take away a lot of salt in the body, so it needs to be replenished. Only in this way can the body maintain a balance.
Another point is that with the development of human beings, there is an instinctive pursuit of high-salt foods, and people are consuming more and more salt, resulting in higher and higher tolerance to salt.
How did primitive people survive without salt?
This is actually the same as wild animals. Because they have never been exposed to salt at the beginning, the demand for salt is not so high. The meat they eat usually contains a certain amount of salt, which can ensure normal survival.
But primitive people basically lived in the tropics, wouldn’t they lose salt by sweating a lot? How to add it? There are two aspects, one is licking natural mineral salts like wild animals, and the other is “heat adaptation”.
Heat adaptation means that when sweating a lot, the sweat glands can make adaptive changes. Even if you sweat a lot, you will not lose too much sodium, just like those professional endurance athletes today.
