Salt: how to cut back without losing that delicious flavour

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Salt: how to cut back without losing that delicious flavour

November 7, 2018

AuthorJane Parker

Associate Professor, University of Reading

One of the targets of the UK government’s new health strategy is salt. Your body needs salt to function normally, but an excess leads to raised blood pressure and an increase in the risk of stroke and heart disease. Since prevention is better than cure, the government has ambitious plans to get the public to consume less salt.

The recommendation for salt intake is to limit it to only 6g a day (about a heaped teaspoon). However, the average intake is closer to 8g a day. The statistics suggest that if the 6g a day target is achieved, it will prevent over 8, 000 premature deaths each year and save the NHS over £ 570m, annually.

But food without salt is bland, and low-salt products are often bland compared with their standard counterparts. Salt in food gives us that highly desirable lip-licking taste on the tongue that makes food interesting and enjoyable. It also boosts the flavour of food, which is what we experience when we combine the tastes from the tongue with the aromas we detect with our nose.

So, can we reduce the salt in our diet yet keep all the delicious flavours we crave? This is a problem the food industry has been working on for years.

Over the last 15 years, a concerted effort by industry and public health campaigns has seen the nation’s average salt intake decrease by 10%. Part of this decrease is down to the fact that we are slowly becoming more accustomed to food with less salt, and part of it is down to the fact that scientists now understand more about the perception of saltiness.

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