Multidimensional exploration of the interactions and mechanisms between fat and salt: Saltiness perception, and taste perception and oxidation of fat

Abstract

Background

The combination of fat and salt is widely applied in foods. However, understanding the correlation and the mechanism between the two is an important prerequisite for the development of low-fat and low-salt foods.

Scope and approach

The synergy of fat and salt, the relationship between the two and correlation mechanism, and available mathematical statistical-tools to explore their relationship were reviewed.

Key findings and conclusions

Fat influences saltiness perception through three primary mechanisms: modulating effective salt concentration, altering food texture, and interacting with taste receptors, with effects varying by food matrix. Salt affects fat in terms of fat-taste perception and oxidation. The regulation mechanism of salt on fat-taste perception is not clear. Fat-taste perception and saltiness perception involve cross-modal interactions between taste receptors and neural signaling pathways. The principle that salt promotes or inhibits fat oxidation is mainly related to characteristics of food systems (water activity, pH, etc.), catalytic ability of metal ions, and redox balance of pro-/antioxidants. Salt can indirectly affect fat-taste perception by influencing fat oxidation, which mainly involves the destruction of structure and physicochemical properties of oxidized-fat, the masking effect of oxidized-products and their interference on taste-receptors. Correlation analysis, regression analysis, partial least squares regression analysis, principal component analysis and deep learning have been used to investigate the relationship between fat and salt. Next, cutting-edge methods such as gene editing technology and high-resolution neural imaging are needed to deeply analyze the interaction details between taste-receptors for saltiness and fat-taste, as well as between their neural signals.