Plant-derived seasonings as sodium salt replacers in food

[Background]: Reduction of the consumption of sodium salt (i.e., NaCl) is widely recommended for the prevention/treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Many substitutes of sodium salt have been proposed, although their technical requirements, aptitudes and/or sensory attributes might not be yet attractive enough for effective sodium replacement in the diet.

[Scope and approach]: The objective of this review is to give a critical overview of the use of plant-derived seasoning products in order to reduce salt content in foods. For that, we have compiled knowledge about the sensory properties and health benefits of main classes of dietary plants, herbs, spices, and their blends that have been previously categorized in the literature as salt replacers. We also report data about grape-derived extracts that are currently seen as promising food ingredients for this purpose.

[Key findings and conclusion]: Several plant-derived seasonings (i.e., garlic, deadnettle family, herb blends, saffron and hot spices) have demonstrated good consumer acceptability when used as sodium replacers. In contrast, there is still scarce information about the sensory impact of grape-derived products when incorporated into food/recipes. Bibliography also shows that these plant-derived seasonings seem to have positive effects ameliorating biomarkers of hypertension, which makes them an interesting approach to decrease sodium salt consumption in hypertensive individuals. Future trends in low sodium diet with seasoning incorporation should also pay attention to the acceptability at the different stages of the food product/recipe development. Moreover, there is a need for well-designed and easy consumer analysis, that could be achieve by incorporating quantitative consumer sensory techniques that are currently available such as Just About Right Scale, Check All That Apply questions or napping technique.

The authors of this work were funded by the projects AGL2015-64522-C2-R-01 and RTC- 2016-4556-1 (Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation), ALIBIRD2020-CM P2018/BAA-4343 (Comunidad de Madrid) and FOODIO-EIT/0387 and AnnualFoodAgenda (H2020 EIT Food). Author Laura Laguna thanks the Spanish “Juan de la Cierva” program for her contract (IJCI-2016-27427).

Peer reviewed