Salt!

Salt is one of the most common food seasonings and is used in multiple culinary ways. It can be added to enhance flavors of foods, in desserts to intensify sweetness, it can be used to preserve food, and it can even cook foods! It comes in a variety of forms including unrefined salt (sea salt), refined salt (table salt), and iodized salt. The flavor of salt is one of the five basic tastes, along with sweet, sour, bitter, and umami.

Salt is an important part of the diet as well. Too much or too little salt intake can lead to muscle cramps and/or dizziness. The Food and Drug Administration suggests that people should intake no more than 2,300 mg of salt per day.