Why can't I stop eating salt?

I bet you haven't heard that one!!!

I love salt! Potatoe chips, bacon, chicken noodle soup, cheez, shrimp... If someone told me I would never eat sweet again I would be fine, but take any of those away and I would cry. I even eat salt crystals like candy sometimes! I drink a ton of water, a few liters a day, I eat organic, no MSG or nitrates and nitrites, I have slightly elevated BP 125/75, I had a heart scan, the one where they take pictures from every side and it was fine. I know this has got to be bad for me, but I have no idea how to stop. HELP!

[Roger Gould, M.D.]

You are right...I haven't heard this one,but I still have a few comments to make. I assume this is learned and acquired taste, not a neurological anomaly.  If so, all that means is that these are your comfort foods...probably intimately related to what you ate as a kid, or learned to assosicate with safety, nurturance, and love.  If that is so, and if you do not have a weight problem, then enjoy it, as long as your internist tells you there are no long term effects on your kidney's and heart.  But if you have a weight problem, or this eating leads to bad health, then you will have to confront this as an emotional eating problem, a  bad habit that can be broken, still allowing you some of what you love, but not in the obsessive proportions that you now suggest you are taking....