In a message dated 12/22/99 3:08:51 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< About salt -- I wonder why human beings have such a taste for salt?  The
purpose
 of the taste for sweet is to encourge us to eat as ripe as possible fruit,
or so
 the common theory goes.  But we have a taste for bitter, sweet, salty, and
 sour.  Maybe the salt taste was to encourage us to eat meat, or even fish?
Any
 ideas? >>
Maybe it is because we emerged from the sea and the salt content of our blood
and lymphatic fluids is quite similar to that of seawater.