Same great taste, less sodium
Dr. Rickey Yada
Dr. Dérick Rousseau
Researchers are looking for ways to reduce the sodium in food without losing its benefits
The negative health effects of excess dietary sodium are well-known. Rising blood pressure, increased risk of heart and kidney disease and escalating healthcare costs have all been linked to diets high in sodium. The remedy would seem simple: since most sodium is consumed as salt, eat less salt. But there's a catch – salt doesn't just taste great; it's also a vital ingredient in many of the foods we eat.
At a Glance
Who – Dr. Rickey Yada, Scientific Director, Advanced Foods and Materials Network; and Dr. Dérick Rousseau, Ryerson University
Issue – Foods often contain more salt than necessary, and this excess sodium has negative health impacts.
Approach – Dr. Rousseau is working to create foods that target salt receptors in the mouth more efficiently, so that food manufacturers can put less salt in food. Dr. Yada and AFMNet are bringing a food science perspective to Canada’s sodium reduction efforts.
Impact – By developing innovative sodium reduction solutions, researchers, policy makers and industry can help Canadians cut back on the amount of salt they eat, without compromising the quality or flavour of processed foods.
Dr. Rickey Yada, Scientific Director of the Advanced Foods and Materials Network (AFMNet) and a Professor in the Department of Food Science at the University of Guelph, is working with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to mobilize a group of researchers to develop innovative ways to reduce the amount of salt in processed food. AFMNet is one of Canada's Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCEs), and it is funded in part by CIHR, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). It began as a multidisciplinary group of scientists looking to study food science and nutrition. Now they have set their sights on sodium.
"The main issue for food scientists is that if you remove sodium it has an impact on taste, which is one of the primary drivers of food purchases. But salt also plays an integral part in things like food safety and properties such as texture," says Dr. Yada. "So you have all of these complexities around sodium reduction."
When Health Canada formed its Sodium Working Group to address the high sodium content of Canadians' diets, they wanted a food science perspective, so they asked Dr. Yada and AFMNet to provide input.
"I told the working group that as part of our new round of funding, we would look at developing new platforms for reduced sodium delivery, with the intent of creating foods that would still provide the taste of saltiness while retaining safety and quality, but the (sodium) payload would be a lot less," says Dr. Yada.
One AFMNet researcher in particular, Dr. Dérick Rousseau at Ryerson University, has been focusing on ways to reduce sodium content without altering the saltiness, texture or safety of the food. His team's goal is to decrease the sodium content in food and have the remaining salt "work harder".
"Foods often contain more salt than they need to in order to elicit a satisfying salt response in our mouths," says Dr. Rousseau. "And there's an obvious health impact associated with consuming too much sodium, in terms of hypertension, cardiovascular disease and stroke."
Basically, Dr. Rousseau's team is trying to create foods that are designed to target salt receptors in the mouth more efficiently, so that food manufacturers and consumers get "more bang for their sodium buck". According to Dr. Rousseau, this will require a food-by-food approach to sodium reduction.
"Consider chicken-noodle soup and potato chips. In the soup, the salt is dissolved in the liquid and evenly distributed throughout the entire food, so that when you take a spoonful of soup, you have a general saltiness that lingers for a little while," says Dr. Rousseau. "With the potato chip, you have solid salt crystals at the surface of the chip that give you an immediate salt hit that dwindles very quickly. There are huge differences in the texture, appearance and sensory perception of these two foods, and they both require specific sodium reduction strategies."
According to Dr. Yada, both the food industry and consumers are concerned about the health impacts of dietary sodium and are interested in finding ways to reduce sodium content without compromising the quality or safety of food. Therefore there is great potential for collaboration in this area of research.
"Because AFMNet is an NCE, there's an expectation that the research we conduct will be targeted, translational and transformative. We expect there to be a government, industry or NGO partner on each of our research projects," says Dr. Yada.
"In working with policy makers, I think success for us will be (to generate) an appreciation of the notion that one size does not fit all. So to make a blanket statement that, 'we need an x% reduction of sodium for all products' is probably not useful, because we're going to have to look at different products individually." – Dr. Rickey Yada