"Why So Salty?" - Reducing Salt in Meatballs with Heterogenous Distribution

Abstract: Processed food is a big contribution to the increasing intake of salt among the population, which today is the double of the recommendation stated by the World Health Organization. This high intake of salt affects the human health in such a way that it can increase blood pressure, which in turn can lead to cardiovascular diseases, which are already the main cause of death cause among the world’s population. A step forward in trying to decrease the intake of salt is thus to lower the salt content in processed food, though this is challenging since the salt both affects the acceptance of the product and other important food characteristics, such as the texture. The aim of this thesis was to investigate if the salt content in meatballs produced by Orkla Foods Sweden, could be lowered without affecting the salt intensity, and moreover how this decrease would affect the texture and the overall flavour. The strategy used was to immerse the meatballs in a salt solution, leading to an uneven distribution of the salt by resulting in a higher concentration of salt on the exterior than in the interior of the meatball. This should, according to hypotheses, increase the perception of salt, and thereby it was thought that the salt intensity of the meatballs could be retained. Trials were performed to get an understanding of how the immersion would affect the perception of salt of a neutral meatball and how different concentrations of salt in the batter would affect the texture. Thereafter, meatballs with different salt-in-batter and salt concentration in the solution were combined, resulting in a meatball with around 0.6 \%-units less than a reference. The meatballs that best could achieve the aims of this thesis were then evaluated in a sensory evaluation together with a reference meatball and a meatball which has not been immersed in a salt solution but have the same salt content as the combined meatballs. The result of the sensory evaluation concluded that the heterogeneous distribution of salt in the meatball would not increase its salt intensity, and thereby should not be used as a method for salt reduction in meatballs. It was also concluded that texture parameters, such as cohesion, would be affected, but the juiciness of the meatball and its overall flavour would not be affected when regarding a decrease of salt of 0.6 \%-units and less.