New way to give food a salty taste but with less sodium chloride

Researchers at Washington State University have found a way to give a salty taste to foods, but with less sodium chloride linked to poor health.

"It's a stealthy approach, not like buying the" reduced-salt "option, which people generally do not like," said Carolyn Ross, a professor of science and technology. food science at the WSU. "If we can bring people down, we improve health while preparing the foods that people want to eat."

In an article published in the Journal of Food ScienceRoss and his colleagues examined mixtures of salts that use less sodium chloride and include other salts such as calcium chloride and potbadium chloride.

Both of these salts do not have any adverse effects on people's health, Ross said. Potbadium can actually help lower blood pressure. Unfortunately, they are not very tasty.

"Potbadium chloride, in particular, tastes really bitter and people really do not like it," Ross said.

The researchers used tasting panels and WSU's electronic tongue to see how they could add replacement salts to standard sodium chloride before people find the food unacceptable to eat.

Some tasting panels tested different salt or salt solutions in water, while others tested different combinations of salt in a tomato soup.

Using electronic tongue and panels, they found that a mixture containing approximately 96.4% sodium chloride, 1.6% potbadium chloride and 2% calcium chloride constituted the ideal reduction.

They had a greater reduction when they added only calcium chloride, achieving acceptable levels with a combination of 78% sodium chloride and 22% calcium chloride.

"This combination of the two salts does not differ significantly from 100% sodium chloride," Ross said. "But when we added potbadium chloride, consumer acceptance decreased."

While humans need salt, Americans consume much more than necessary or even healthy. According to the US Bureau of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, the recommended maximum amount of salt consumed per day is less than 2,300 mg. The average American adult woman consumes 2,980 mg per day, while men average more than 4,000 mg per day.

Recent discoveries suggest that progressive salt reductions over several years are the best way to reduce salt intake. The use of one of the new mixes for a given period could result in larger reductions in the future.