Historically, the main reason for the addition of salt to food was for preservation. Because of the emergence of refrigeration and other methods of food preservation, the need for salt as a preservative has decreased (He and MacGregor, 2007), but sodium levels, especially in processed foods, remain high. As discussed in Chapter 3, the tastes and flavors associated with historical salt use have come to be expected, and the relatively low cost of enhancing the palatability of processed foods ha...
