Baking&Snack - February 2013 - 85

FORMULATIONS
Ingredient App

Salt-reducing Salt
Prepared as hollow microspheres, salt cuts
sodium content of baked foods and snacks.
by Donna Berry

According to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC),
Atlanta, most of the US population
consumes sodium in excess of daily
guidelines. This overage is associated
with raising blood pressure, a major
risk factor for the nation’s first (heart
disease) and fourth (stroke) leading
causes of death. Thus, there’s an overwhelming consensus that if Americans
reduce sodium intake to more acceptable levels — the 2,300 mg per day
CDC recommends — they could live
healthier and longer lives.

Bakers respond
In early 2012, CDC issued a report
identifying the Top 10 categories of
foods responsible for 44% of people’s sodium intake. Both bread/
rolls and savory snack foods were
on that list. Snacks got on the list
because many tend to be highly
salted. Bread and roll products,
however, are not necessarily high
in sodium on an individual item
basis, but because they tend to be
frequently consumed, the category
collectively contributes significant
sodium to the diet.
The agency estimated that if manufacturers of these foods reduced
their sodium content by 25%, they
could help prevent an estimated
28,000 annual deaths. In response,
these food processors have been
trying to un-salt their offerings, but
this is not an easy feat because salt
is often a crucial ingredient. Its roles
range from influencing safety, qual-

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ity and integrity to impacting taste
and flavor.
For bakers, reducing sodium
while maintaining product quality
and taste can be challenging because
they rely on numerous sodiumcontaining ingredients from basic
table salt to leavening agents. Most
bakers are learning the key to reducing a product’s total sodium content
requires controlled partial replacement of all sodium-containing ingredients with those that have similar functionality but less sodium.
Finding a suitable substitute for
salt has been quite difficult because
of its unique, clean, salty taste and
flavor-enhancing properties. Tate &
Lyle, Hoffman Estates, IL, believes
it has the solution with SODA-LO
Salt Microspheres, a salt-reduction
ingredient made from salt.
“Salt is a necessity in most baked
grain-based foods — not just for
taste but function, too. It acts as a
preservative and texturizing aid, for
example,” said David Lewis, Tate &
Lyle’s director of health and wellness
product management. “SODA-LO
tastes, labels and functions like salt
because it is salt. It does not contain
any of the bitter compounds that
some salt replacements rely on to
keep sodium content low.”
Sourced by the company’s Open
Innovation team, Tate & Lyle negotiated an exclusive licensing agreement
with Eminate, the technology arm of
Nottingham University, the ingredient’s creator. “Using a patent-pend-

ing, spray-drying technology, we are
able to turn standard salt crystals
into free-flowing, hollow salt microspheres,” said Andrew Hoffman,
PhD, the company’s director of
health and wellness innovation. “The
microsphere structure is facilitated
by the all-natural hydrocolloid gum
acacia. In most applications, the residual gum acacia level is extremely
low. Thus, when SODA-LO is used
in most applications, it is declared on
the ingredient legend as simply ‘salt’
or ‘sodium chloride.’ ”

It is salt
SODA-LO is salt, just in a slightly
different configuration than traditional salt. Typical salt particles
range from 40 to 800 microns in
diameter and are solid. SODA-LO
Salt Microspheres are smaller in size

Magnified 3,000 times, salt microspheres reveal their hollow interior.
This structure maximizes surface area in relation to volume to give more
salt taste impact at lower levels of actual salt content.

February 2013 / Baking & Snack / 85

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Baking&Snack - February 2013

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