Glad to hear of your success with salt supplementation, Lex. I researched salt some time ago and found that carnivores that consume fresh raw meat
and blood from animals with sufficient salt levels don't need to supplement their diet with salt licks or springs:
"Wild herbivores, like deer, who eat a completely plant-based diet, have to supplement their diet with salt to get the sodium they need. These animals find salt in brine springs, or in natural outcroppings of salty rock, called salt licks. Wild carnivores, or animals that eat only meat, do not have to eat salt. Their sodium needs are met through the flesh and
blood that they eat." taken from:-
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/HumBio_p026.shtmlSo humans that ate like carnivores probably didn't need much, if any, salt supplementation when wild game was plentiful. But as consumption of fresh, raw, salt-rich blood and bloody meat declined (including the modern practice in some nations like the USA of bleeding all meats) and mineral-depleting cereal grain intake increased, humans reportedly had to supplement their diets with more and more added salt:
"The history of the world according to salt is simple: animals wore paths to salt licks; men followed; trails became roads, and settlements grew beside them. When the human menu shifted from
salt-rich game to cereals, more salt was needed to supplement the diet. But the underground deposits were beyond reach, and the salt sprinkled over the surface was insufficient. Scarcity kept the mineral precious. As civilization spread, salt became one of the world's principal trading commodities." (
A Brief History of Salt, Monday, Mar. 15, 1982)
The modern Western tendency to not eat blood, organs and cartilage may contribute to deficiencies in sodium and other nutrients: "It is the bones, blood, cartilage, etc. that contain many of the minerals that are needed by carnivorous animals. Humans who eat only the flesh of animals thus receive a diet very poor in sodium, calcium, sulfur, magnesium and iron." (Lesson 10 - The Role Of Minerals In Human Nutrition > 4. Mineral Deficiencies,
http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/minerals/mineral-deficiencies.html)
Research reveals a J/U-shaped curve that suggests health benefits from moderate salt consumption. (Salt and our Health, By Morton Satin, PhD,
March 26 2012,
http://www.westonaprice.org/vitamins-and-minerals/salt-and-our-health)
Excessive restriction of salt may pose dangers:
http://www.westonaprice.org/press/fda-warned-dangers-salt-restriction.Years ago my father was in Paris and greatly enjoyed the coq au vin he had been served at a gourmet restaurant. When he asked why the chef's coq au vin was so much richer, darker and tastier than American versions, the chef explained that the difference was that Americans bleed out their chickens and discard the blood, whereas the French didn't bleed them (and reserved and used the extra blood that did bleed out on its own--which is a tradition still practiced in France today, according to Clifford A. Wright in The Best Stews in the World: 300 Satisfying One-Dish Dinners, from Chilis and Gumbos to Curries and Cassoulet, 2012). Also, because American chefs don't thicken the stew with blood, they tend to use a roux that contains wheat flour to thicken it, which further depletes the body of iron, sodium and other minerals.
Here, Nenets add even more salt, lots of it, to fresh raw blood, to keep it liquid in the cold (and maybe also for taste or health benefit?):
Bruce Parry eats raw reindeer - Tribe - BBC
