Low-Salt Meat Products

Common salt (sodium chloride) is commonly added in the processing of meat products as food additives. It has important role in improving taste, palatability, flavor, structural properties and microbial safety of meat products. The higher consumption of salt is associated with several metabolic diseases, hypertension and renal diseases. Although as such meat is low in sodium content, the added salt makes processed meat products a significant source (up to 20%) of dietary sodium intake. Thus, meat industry is focusing on the development of low-salt meat products. Various salt replacers/substitutes, chloride, lactate, and phosphate salts, altering the physical state (size and shape) of ice crystals, plant powders, flavor enhancers, plant hydrolyzates, yeast extracts, spices, herbs and natural extracts are used to replace sodium chloride in the low-salt meat products. A combination of various alternatives or salt mixtures had synergistic effects, thereby could be a suitable strategy in the production of low-salt meat products. In addition to this, novel non-thermal processing technologies such as ultrasound application, high-pressure processing, pulsed electric field, and basic electrolyzed water are gaining popularity in the development of such products by improving salt diffusion, improving flavor and texture. There is a need to conduct further in-depth studies to optimize the application of these novel processing technologies for the production of good-quality meat products with improved microbial safety.