To produce more healthy food the food industry is challenged to change the formulation of their foods, that is they are encouraged to reformulate their foods. From a nutritional point of view, the emphasis on food reformulation is mainly on sugar and salt reduction.

Changing recipes has large effects for the food industry. Originally salt and sugars were added not only for taste but also to preserve fresh foods and to lengthen shelf life. Adding sugar and salt osmosis is used to dehydrate foods so to prevent the growth of bacteria and fungi. Foods that are reformulated can only be a success if consumers buy them. So food technologists are developing strategies on how to produce foods that taste similar and are equally liked by the consumer. The products that have the greatest impact are the products that are consumed by a large part of the population in large quantities and therefore deliver a substantial contribution to intake.

lowering salt

Bread, meat products, cheese, and ready-to-eat meals have the largest contribution to salt intake in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, great effort has been put into lowering salt levels in bread without informing the public. This has been a great challenge as salt also has a function in yeast activity, strengthening the gluten network, and thus the airiness of the dough. It has been argued that optimal salt concentrations can be shifted by lowering the intensity of salt very slowly. That is, preferences for salt concentrations shift when people are gradually exposed to lower levels of salt. Other strategies may be by replacing NaCl for KCl, however this has a metallic taste. Other options are to make use of the multimodal nature of our sensory systems and add aroma or other tastes to mask the lower salt levels.

lowering sugar

Sweetness is an inborn preference and it is not so clear if sweetness preferences can be changed by gradually lowering the exposure to sweet tastes. Several alternatives to replace sugar exist. Low-calorie sweeteners can be divided into two groups: sugar alcohols and intensive sweeteners. For sugar, the foods that have the highest impact are sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), dairy, bakery products, and confectionery (cookies/cakes/sweets). Like salt, sugar has other functional roles in foods, for example during heating it forms flavors and gives color to foods (Maillard reactions), it gives viscosity and mouthfeel, it affects the gluten network in bakery products, but it also provides bulk (volume).