Novel way to reduce sodium

In recent years, a lot of research concerning the linkage between salt uptake and high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease was done. The main challenge for manufacturers when reducing salt is the loss of palatability.

21/12/07 Salt (sodium chloride) is the world’s most-established food additive. In former times it was mainly used as a preservative for the curing of meat, fish and vegetables. Today, salt has various functions – e. g. it enhances natural flavours to make bland foods more palatable. In processed foods, salt improves texture and mouthfeel. In many food production processes, salt is an important functional ingredient. Still the main reason for using salt is its function as a taste carrier.

In recent years, a lot of research concerning the linkage between salt uptake and high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease was done. The main challenge for manufacturers when reducing salt is the loss of palatability. The lesser addition of salt is no option as the taste characteristics will not be same anymore.

With the growing market of salt/sodium reduced food products, there is also an increased demand for salt substitutes or salty taste enhancing agents. Most of the existing salt substitutes do not match the taste characteristics of pure sodium chloride at a significant sodium reduction level and respectively have bitter or metallic off-notes.

sub4salt is a new salt substitute from Jungbunzlauer to reduce the sodium content up to 50% in many food products without losses in taste. At the same time, sub4salt also holds up the functionality of salt in food products and offers four main advantages compared to other salt reduction systems:

• comparable salty taste characteristics
• no metallic off-flavour
• similar usage level to salt
• easy handling due to similar physical properties

The central part of the daily salt uptake of 12 g per day in western diets comes from processed foods. This is far more than what is said to be healthy.The Food Standard agency in the UK for instance is recommending not more than 6 g salt per day because research showed that there is a linkage between salt uptake and high blood pressure and cardiovascular diseases. The main challenge when reducing the salt content is the loss of palatability. Simply adding less salt is not a good option as the taste characteristics will no longer be the same. Additionally, reduced sodium content influences the processing technology of some foods.

With the growing market of salt/sodium reduced food products, there is also an increased demand for salt substitutes or salty taste enhancing agents. Most of the existing salt substitutes do not match the taste characteristics of pure sodium chloride at a significant sodium reduction level and respectively have bitter or metallic off-notes.

sub4salt helps to reduce sodium without compromising product quality. It is a new, patent-pending mineral salts blend which can reduce the sodium content up to 50% whilst achieving identical taste profiles in final products.

sub4salt is claimed to help to reduce sodium without losses in taste.