If salt loses its flavour

Pleasant aromas enhance salty and sweet foods.

More than 2/3 of technologically processed food products, such as light snacks, bread and cheesc, contain salt, according to the WHO. In other words, consumers can only control approximately 20% of the amount of salt they consume. Seeing as most people have no idea how much salt ends up in their systems from the food they eat, it is difficult to control the amount. Moreover, some fast food chains sell meals that are not only rich in salt, but also in fats and sugar.

This is why the WHO European Office and medical organizations on other continents are requiring companies operating in the public catering business to reduce the content of salt in their products. Experts at the WHO say that cutting salt consumption by half (to 5 g daily - the daily recommended level for adults) would reduce the number of strokes by 24% and the number of cases of heart diseases by 18%. The question is how can salt levels be reduced so that consumers don't notice? "Anybody who has had a bad cold knows that food is tasteless when their nose is stuffed up," says Thomas Hummel, a professor at the University of Dresden. A group of scientists that he heads tried to find out whether there is an inverse relation - is it possible to "fix" tasteless food with strong flavoring and aromatic substances? In order to find the answer to this question, different concentrations of salt and sugar solutions were administered in drops on the tongues of volunteers, and then they were asked to smell bacon and wild strawberry aromas. The volunteers had to judge the intensity of salty and sweet flavors of the liquids and say whether they liked the tastes. The results of the experiment were impres­sive: the volunteers thought that solutions with low concentrations of salt and sugar were 20% sweeter or saltier due to their aromas. Scientists compared this effect with film subtitles – viewers notice them more when there is something wrong with the sound.

The researchers noticed another interesting detail: while consumers are technically willing to accept flavoring agents as substitutes for sugar, this trick does not work with salt. Indeed, the volunteers thought that liquids flavored with the aroma of wild strawberries were not only sweeter, but even tastier. At the same time, they found the solution with bacon flavor to be saltier, though nevertheless unpleasant. The sci­entists explained that people simply enjoy eating rather than drinking something salty. Symrise, a producer of flavoring agents, which financed this research, suggested using onion extract as a salty taste booster and potassium chloride as an alternative salt. Apparently, this will allow for lowering thesalt content in foodstuffs by 30 - 50%. However, alternative salt has an unpleasant aftertaste.

Critics say today a huge number of taste boosters and flavoring agents arc used in the production of foodstuffs and that additional flavoring agents can give people an excessive appetite, which results in overeating and obesity. This means that the problem of consuming less salt must be solved using some other tricks. One of them was invented by the Dutch company Ni/o, which conducts surveys about food technologies. The main idea is to boost taste sensations with the help of the contrast effect, which appears when receptors are irritated by strong and weak tastes in turn. For example, Nizo suggested toasting bread made in layers from two kinds of dough - one less and one more salty. The company's experts shared their experience of baking such bread in the Journal of Cereal Science. They believe the technology is promising, as it helps reduce the content of sodium chloride in bread without detracting from its flavor. Be that as it may, they still cannot explain the mechanism of the taste contrast effect, saying it could be related not to the activity of taste receptors, but rather to the activity of the human brain.