Empirical testing and salt

I have come to the conclusion that salt poured into the water before the pasta is boiled does a lot more for the taste of the food than salt poured on top of the food when it is ready. I decided to try to cut down on my salt, and one way of doing this was to skip the pre-salting of my food. This culinary experiment resulted in a tasteless disaster. Having gone without pre-salted food for about a month, and then accidentally switching back the other day, I can proclaim that I have seen the light, and it is salt in the pot before the pasta goes in!
You would think that putting the salt on the surface of the food instead of infusing it into the food would taste more, since your taste buds would touch the surface of the food more than the inside, but apparently that is not the case. Chips and cookies, for instance, have stuff on the outside that will hit your tongue first and trick you in to believing that the entire cookie or chip tastes the way the outside tastes. Things like cookies would be even more unhealthy if they tasted as delicious all the way through.

Salt is delicious, and so is sugar. I can imagine very few things in the world I would be less likely to give up.