Editor's Note: The above video was created as part of KING 5's Children's Health Link in 2017.
There may be a way to keep the satisfying taste of salt in your food while reducing the actual amount of salt you consume, Washington State University researchers have found.
Humans need salt but people in the United States tend to eat more of the mineral than they should, as sodium chloride has been linked to poor health.
On average, adult women consume 2,890 milligrams of salt per day and adult men consume over 4,000 milligrams per day. Less than 2,300 milligrams of salt per day is recommended by the U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
Low sodium food options are typically not as tasty as their salty counterparts. The researchers tried adding two other salts, calcium chloride and potassium chloride, as a way to make a salt blend that had less sodium chloride in it.
“It’s a stealth approach, not like buying the ‘reduced salt’ option, which people generally don’t like,” Carolyn Ross, a food science professor at WSU, said. “If we can stair-step people down, then we increase health while still making food that people want to eat.”
Researchers tested many solutions like salt mixed in water or salt mixed in tomato soup by using an electronic tongue and tasting panels to find the acceptably tasty ratio. The ideal ratio is approximately 96 percent sodium chloride, 1 percent potassium chloride and 2 percent calcium chloride.
It is easier to reduce the amount of salt a person eats over time as opposed to making drastic changes if a person wants to reduce their salt consumption.
