Low-sodium meat products: retaining salty taste for sweet health

There is a positive correlation between excessive intake of sodium and incidence of hypertension. As diet is the main source of sodium, awareness among people regarding its possible role upon health has driven demand for various low sodium foods including meat products. Meat products contribute a significant amount of dietary sodium, thus maligning their own image. However, this is not an easy task as common salt affects taste and flavor, functional attributes, stability, and food safety of meat products. The various properties such as taste and flavor, binding, as well as microbiological characteristics should be given due care while developing low salt meat products and accordingly different approaches have been proposed for processing of such products. Potassium chloride has been mostly used to replace sodium; however, a number of other salts, flavor enhancers, bitter blockers and water, as well as fat binders have also been attempted either alone or in different combinations. A number of low sodium meat products have been developed but their economy and consumer acceptability are the major concerns needing proper attention. In future it is anticipated that these challenges would be overcome to provide well acceptable and cost-effective healthier meat products to the consumers.