Ingesting foods that are both salty and sweet activates a distinct ensemble of neurons different from those activated by pure salty or pure sweet tastes.

“We also talked about the perception of salt, meaning the perception of salty tastes and how the perception of salty tastes and the perception of other tastes, like sweet, can interact with one another to drive things like increased sugar intake when you're not even aware of it, and indeed, how the combination of salty and sweet taste can bias you towards craving more, for instance, processed foods, and why that might be a good thing to avoid”

“if you mask some of that with sweet, well, because of the interactions of these parallel pathways, you somewhat shut down your perception of how much salt you're ingesting, or conversely, by ingesting some salt with sweet foods, you mask some of the sweetness of the sweet foods that you're tasting, and you will continue to indulge in those foods”

“when foods or fluids are ingested that are both salty and sweet, you get a yet entirely different ensemble of neurons activated”

“So if you ingest something that's very very salty, pretty soon your appetite for salty foods will be reduced. But if you mask some of that with sweet, well, because of the uh interactions of these parallel pathways, you somewhat shut down your perception of how much salt you're ingesting.”

“And indeed, how the combination of salty and sweet tastes can bias you towards craving more, for instance, processed foods and why that might be a good thing to avoid.”

“And it it's that combination of salty and sweet, which can actually lead you to consume more of the salty sweet food than you would have it if it had just been sweet or it had just been salty.”