Salt (NaCl) is a key component of the human diet because it provides the sodium ion (Na+), an essential mineral for our body. Na+ regulates extracellular fluid volume and plays a key role in many physiological processes, such as the generation of nerve impulses. Na+ is lost continuously through the kidneys, intestine, and sweating. Thus, to maintain proper bodily balance, losses have to be balanced with foods containing this cation. The need for salt explains our ability to detect Na+ in foodstuffs: Na+ elicits a specific taste sensation called “salty”, and gustatory sensitivity to this cation is crucial for regulating its intake. Indeed, the widespread use of salt in food products for flavoring and to improve their palatability exploits our sense of taste for Na+. When consumed in excess, however, salt might be detrimental to health because it may determine an increase in blood pressure—a major risk factor for many cardiovascular diseases. Understanding how salt taste works and how it affects food preference and consumption is therefore of paramount importance for improving human nutrition. This book comprises cutting-edge research dealing with salt taste mechanisms relevant for nutrition and health.

Concerns have grown that consumption levels of salt are well above those needed for nutritional purposes and that this can lead to adverse effects on health, in particular cardiovascular disease. Consumers are increasingly looking to reduce their salt intake, making salt reduction a priority for food manufacturers. This is not straightforward, though, as salt plays an important role in food preservation, taste and processability. Written by a team of international experts, Reducing salt in foods provides a unique review of current knowledge in this field.This book is divided into three parts and discusses the major issues concerned with salt reduction and how it may be achieved. Part one reviews the key health issues driving efforts to reduce salt, government action regarding salt reduction and the implications of salt labelling. Consumer perception of salt and views on salt reduction and are also discussed. The second part focuses on the technological, microbiological and sensory functions of salt and strategies that can be taken to reduce salt. The final part of the book outlines strategies which have been taken to reduce salt in particular food groups: meat and poultry, seafood, bread, snack foods, dairy products and canned foods.Reducing salt in foods is an essential reference for health professionals, governments and food manufacturers. - Discusses methods to reduce salt while maintaining food sensory quality, shelf-life and processability - Provides a unique review of current knowledge in this field - An essential reference for health professionals, governments and food manufacturers

Reducing the intake of sodium is an important public health goal for Americans. Since the 1970s, an array of public health interventions and national dietary guidelines has sought to reduce sodium intake. However, the U.S. population still consumes more sodium than is recommended, placing individuals at risk for diseases related to elevated blood pressure. Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States evaluates and makes recommendations about strategies that could be implemented to reduce dietary sodium intake to levels recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The book reviews past and ongoing efforts to reduce the sodium content of the food supply and to motivate consumers to change behavior. Based on past lessons learned, the book makes recommendations for future initiatives. It is an excellent resource for federal and state public health officials, the processed food and food service industries, health care professionals, consumer advocacy groups, and academic researchers.

The sensation of flavor reflects the complex integration of aroma, taste, texture, and chemesthetic (oral and nasal irritation cues) from a food or food component. Flavor is a major determinant of food palatability—the extent to which a food is accepted or rejected—and can profoundly influence diet selection, nutrition, and health. Despite recent progress, gaps in knowledge still remain regarding how taste and flavor cues are detected at the periphery, conveyed by the brainstem to higher cortical levels, and then interpreted as a conscious sensation. Taste signals are also projected to central feeding centers where they can regulate hunger and fullness. Individual differences in sensory perceptions are also well known and can arise from genetic variation, environmental causes, or a variety of metabolic diseases, such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, and cancer. Genetic taste/smell variation could predispose individuals to these same diseases. Recent findings have opened new avenues of inquiry, suggesting that fatty acids and carbohydrates may provide nutrient-specific signals informing the gut and brain of the nature of the ingested nutrients. This Special Issue, Taste, Nutrition, and Health, presents original research communications and comprehensive reviews on topics of broad interest to researchers and educators in sensory science, nutrition, physiology, public health, and health care.

What if everything you know about salt is wrong? A leading cardiovascular research scientist explains how this vital crystal got a negative reputation, and shows how to lower blood pressure and experience weight loss using salt. The Salt Fix is essential reading for everyone on the keto diet! We’ve all heard the recommendation: eat no more than a teaspoon of salt a day for a healthy heart. Health-conscious Americans have hewn to the conventional wisdom that your salt shaker can put you on the fast track to a heart attack, and have suffered through bland but “heart-healthy” dinners as a result. What if the low-salt dogma is wrong? Dr. James DiNicolantonio has reviewed more than five hundred publications to unravel the impact of salt on blood pressure and heart disease. He’s reached a startling conclusion: The vast majority of us don’t need to watch our salt intake. In fact, for most of us, more salt would be advantageous to our nutrition—especially for those of us on the keto diet, as keto depletes this important mineral from our bodies. The Salt Fix tells the remarkable story of how salt became unfairly demonized—a never-before-told drama of competing egos and interests—and took the fall for another white crystal: sugar. According to The Salt Fix, too little salt can: • Make you crave sugar and refined carbs • Send the body into semistarvation mode • Lead to weight gain, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and increased blood pressure and heart rate But eating the salt you desire can improve everything, from your sleep, energy, and mental focus to your fitness, fertility, and sexual performance. It can even stave off common chronic illnesses, including heart disease. The Salt Fix shows the best ways to add salt back into your diet, offering his transformative five-step program for recalibrating your salt thermostat to achieve your unique, ideal salt intake. Science has moved on from the low-salt dogma, and so should you—your life may depend on it.

Reducing Salt in Foods, Second Edition, presents updated strategies for reducing salt intake. The book contains comprehensive information on a wide range of topics, including the key health issues driving efforts to reduce salt, government action regarding salt reduction and the implications of salt labeling. Consumer perceptions of salt and views on salt reduction in different countries are also discussed, as are taste, processing and preservation functions of salt and salt reduction strategies. Final sections discuss salt reduction in particular food groups, including meat and poultry, seafood, bread, snack foods, dairy products and canned foods, each one including a case study. This updated edition also includes a new section on the future of salt reduction, the development of new ingredients to replace salt, salt reduction in catering, and how to teach new generations to adjust salt levels from an early age. - Completely revised and updated with an overview of the latest developments in salt reduction - Presents guidelines to help with reducing salt in specific product groups - Presents a new section on the future of salt reduction, development of new ingredients to replace salt, salt reduction in catering and how to teach new generations to adjust salt levels from an early age - Contains new chapters on preservation issues, taste issues and processing issues when reducing salt in food, along with case studies that illustrate salt reduction

Salt, Fat and Sugar Reduction: Sensory Approaches for Nutritional Reformulation of Foods and Beverages explores salt, sugar, fat and the current scientific findings that link them to diseases. The sensory techniques that can be used for developing consumer appealing nutritional optimized products are also discussed, as are other aspects of shelf life and physicochemical analysis, consumer awareness of the negative nutritional impact of these ingredients, and taxes and other factors that are drivers for nutritional optimization. This book is ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students and academics, food scientists, food and nutrition researchers, and those in the food and beverage industries.

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at The New York Times comes the troubling story of the rise of the processed food industry -- and how it used salt, sugar, and fat to addict us. Salt Sugar Fat is a journey into the highly secretive world of the processed food giants, and the story of how they have deployed these three essential ingredients, over the past five decades, to dominate the North American diet. This is an eye-opening book that demonstrates how the makers of these foods have chosen, time and again, to double down on their efforts to increase consumption and profits, gambling that consumers and regulators would never figure them out. With meticulous original reporting, access to confidential files and memos, and numerous sources from deep inside the industry, it shows how these companies have pushed ahead, despite their own misgivings (never aired publicly). Salt Sugar Fat is the story of how we got here, and it will hold the food giants accountable for the social costs that keep climbing even as some of the industry's own say, "Enough already."

As essential nutrients, sodium and potassium contribute to the fundamentals of physiology and pathology of human health and disease. In clinical settings, these are two important blood electrolytes, are frequently measured and influence care decisions. Yet, blood electrolyte concentrations are usually not influenced by dietary intake, as kidney and hormone systems carefully regulate blood values. Over the years, increasing evidence suggests that sodium and potassium intake patterns of children and adults influence long-term population health mostly through complex relationships among dietary intake, blood pressure and cardiovascular health. The public health importance of understanding these relationships, based upon the best available evidence and establishing recommendations to support the development of population clinical practice guidelines and medical care of patients is clear. This report reviews evidence on the relationship between sodium and potassium intakes and indicators of adequacy, toxicity, and chronic disease. It updates the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) using an expanded DRI model that includes consideration of chronic disease endpoints, and outlines research gaps to address the uncertainties identified in the process of deriving the reference values and evaluating public health implications.

A lively and important argument from an award-winning journalist proving that the key to reversing North America’s health crisis lies in the overlooked link between nutrition and flavor. In The Dorito Effect, Mark Schatzker shows us how our approach to the nation’s number one public health crisis has gotten it wrong. The epidemics of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are not tied to the overabundance of fat or carbs or any other specific nutrient. Instead, we have been led astray by the growing divide between flavor—the tastes we crave—and the underlying nutrition. Since the late 1940s, we have been slowly leeching flavor out of the food we grow. Those perfectly round, red tomatoes that grace our supermarket aisles today are mostly water, and the big breasted chickens on our dinner plates grow three times faster than they used to, leaving them dry and tasteless. Simultaneously, we have taken great leaps forward in technology, allowing us to produce in the lab the very flavors that are being lost on the farm. Thanks to this largely invisible epidemic, seemingly healthy food is becoming more like junk food: highly craveable but nutritionally empty. We have unknowingly interfered with an ancient chemical language—flavor—that evolved to guide our nutrition, not destroy it. With in-depth historical and scientific research, The Dorito Effect casts the food crisis in a fascinating new light, weaving an enthralling tale of how we got to this point and where we are headed. We’ve been telling ourselves that our addiction to flavor is the problem, but it is actually the solution. We are on the cusp of a new revolution in agriculture that will allow us to eat healthier and live longer by enjoying flavor the way nature intended.