Can low salt food taste good?
Too much salt in our diet is linked to serious health problems such as hypertension and cardiovascular disease. But removing salt from food can affect its flavour.
Improving the taste of low-salt food
Which is why recent research has given us an important breakthrough. It shows that the enjoyment of reduced-salt food can be improved if the product smells saltier.
This is an exciting discovery because it might just point us to the answer to this age-old problem. If we can reduce the salt content of our products without impairing their taste, we’ll make a significant contribution to improving the health of our consumers.
Associating smell with taste
The study’s experiments were designed to understand whether people’s perception of the saltiness of food could be affected by their sense of smell.
Participants were asked to rate the saltiness and taste intensity of cheese cubes which had been flavoured with different but tasteless aromas. The first two aromas are usually associated with salt – sardines and the French cheese, comté. The third was the non-salty smell of carrot. All samples contained the same amount of salt.
The research found that participants rated the cheese which had been flavoured with the sardine or comté cheese odours as significantly more salty and taste-intense than the cheese in its original state. The sample which had been flavoured with carrot odour was reported to taste less salty than the original.
Helping consumers keep below 5 grams per day
For several years we’ve worked hard to successfully reduce the salt content of our food products. But it’s a delicate balance to ensure that consumers don’t ultimately turn their back on the product because they don’t like the new lower salt taste.
Since 2003 we have reduced the amount of salt across our food portfolio by up to 25%. Now, as part of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, our ambition is to help consumers not to exceed the recommended level of 5g of salt per a day – based on globally recognised dietary guidelines. We aim to do this by reducing salt levels in our products by a further 15–20 % by 2020.
Reference: International Dairy Journal 2001, 21(2), 103-110
