Proteins, polysaccharides, and their complexes used as stabilizers for emulsions: Alternatives to synthetic surfactants in the pharmaceutical field?

Sodium is an essential nutrient with important functions in regulating extracellular fluid volume and the active transport of molecules across cell membranes. However, recent estimates from NHANES III (Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) data show that over 95% of men and over 75% of women exceed the recommended daily tolerable upper intake of sodium. Since these high levels of dietary sodium are associated with a high prevalence of hypertension, prehypertension and, possibly, other adverse effects on health, many national and international health organizations recommend that sodium intake be significantly decreased. Traditionally, salt (sodium chloride) has been used as a food preservative that kills or limits the growth of foodborne pathogens and spoilage organisms by decreasing water activity. Salt also performs other important functions in foods by adding flavor and masking bitter tastes, controlling growth of yeast and fermentative bacteria, and promoting binding of proteins and other components in foods to achieve desired textures. Many processed foods contain high levels of salt and several countries have developed national programs for significantly reducing the sodium chloride content in many processed foods and encouraging a decrease in discretionary salt use. This review considers published data on the apparent adverse health effects of excess salt intake as well as the important functions of salt in different foods and possible strategies for reducing sodium levels in processed foods while still producing safe foods that consumers find acceptable.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1541-4337.2009.00096.x

Sodium Reduction and Its Effect on Food Safety, Food Quality, and Human Health

https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/8b04ce90-5c57-4479-a50b-856faf27e3de/view/a87dd65f-4ca9-47ea-882f-ce3ecd401de0/Food%20Res%20Intern%2089%2039%20to%2047.pdf

Formation of taste-active amino acids, amino acid derivatives and peptides in food fermentations - A review.

Sodium is an essential micronutrient and, via salt taste, appetitive. High consumption of sodium is, however, related to negative health effects such as hypertension, cardiovascular diseases and stroke. In industrialized countries, about 75% of sodium in the diet comes from manufactured foods and foods eaten away from home. Reducing sodium in processed foods will be, however, challenging due to sodium’s specific functionality in terms of flavor and associated palatability of foods (i.e., increase of saltiness, reduction of bitterness, enhancement of sweetness and other congruent flavors). The current review discusses the sensory role of sodium in food, determinants of salt taste perception and a variety of strategies, such as sodium replacers (i.e., potassium salts) and gradual reduction of sodium, to decrease sodium in processed foods while maintaining palatability.

http://dro.deakin.edu.au/eserv/DU:30040064/keast-reducingsodium-2011.pdf

Reducing Sodium in Foods: The Effect on Flavor

Along with compounds from terrestrial microorganisms, the constituents of higher plants have provided a substantial number of the natural product-derived drugs used currently in Western medicine. Interest in the elucidation of new structures of the secondary metabolite constituents of plants has remained high among the natural products community over the first decade of the 21st century, particularly of species that are used in systems of traditional medicine or are utilized as botanical dietary supplements. In this review, progress made in the senior author’s laboratory in research work on naturally occurring sweeteners and other taste-modifying substances and on potential anticancer agents from tropical plants will be described.

/pdf/the-relevance-of-higher-plants-in-lead-compound-discovery-3ypfmzkxfz.pdf

The relevance of higher plants in lead compound discovery programs.

Combating bitter taste in food, pharmaceuticals, and beverages remains a huge challenge. In the past, bitterness reduction was focused on pharmaceuticals and drugs; however, more recently, the most intense research is performed on the reduction of bitter or astringent taste in functional food or beverage applications. These foods and beverages possess inherent off-tastes due to fortification with healthy but poor-tasting actives. During the last 10 years, tremendous progress in the elucidation of bitter taste reception and transduction on the cellular level was made and many new molecules and compounds to reduce bitter off-tastes were reported. The following review will be focused on the advances, in the area of bitter-masking molecules, during the last 10 years. It will not cover other debittering strategies such as process optimization or biotransformations to reduce the amount of bitter ingredients, encapsulation, and other physical formulation technologies. The review will close with a short comparative study of various bitter maskers and some suggestions for flavor development of poor-tasting ingredients.

Jakob P. Ley

Papers

Masking Bitter Taste by Molecules