#and so i did not catch this pro-salt propaganda being just totally fake

[secondwhisper]

The salt lick test post is fake / not true at all

Hey anon, thanks for letting me know. I've deleted my reblog.

(The "salt lick test" post claimed that if you put a pinch of salt on your tongue, and it tastes too salty and gross, you're not sodium deficient, but if it tastes really good, you should keep eating a pinch of salt every few hours, until you hit the point where you have enough / salt tastes too salty and bad. I could not find this test corroborated on any reputable sites.)

I do want to preserve some of the useful, verifiable information from that post. Low sodium is more common in people who are taking antidepressants, diuretics, and some painkillers; being underweight, pregnant, menstruating, and elderly are additional risk factors; drinking too much water or being very active can also affect this. Symptoms do in fact include nausea/dizziness, fatigue, and headaches. Source:

In past research on this topic I recall seeing that one of salt's functions is to improve water retention (relatedly, the original post claimed somewhere that a low-sodium symptom is "drinking water doesn't seem to actually hydrate you") but I don't think the mayo clinic article mentions that and I couldn't be assed to dig up a second source sorry, so count that claim as a maybe.

I would also like to preserve my tags from that post, because I did spend a while chasing CDC citations to glean that info on where the oft-repeated "everyone eats too much salt" figure comes from.

Anyway, thanks for pointing out that the original post was bullshit. I fell into the confirmation bias trap on this one.