Triumphing over cravings for salt, fat with porous foods
Where willpower continues to fail us, science prevails in a new study that suggests tweaking porosity during food manufacturing could mean the end of infamous cravings for salt and fat.
Manipulating the number and size of pores during the processing could enable manufacturers to use less salt and consumers to enjoy it that way, according to the research team from the University of Illinois.
What's more, controlling the pore pressure in foods during frying reduces oil uptake, which results in snacks that offer the same texture and taste with lower fat content, according to the study that was published in the Journal of Food Science.
It might seem like a painstaking, persnickety process, yet the food industry is well schooled in the art of working tirelessly to create the "bliss point," the exquisite balance of additives that makes each product so tasty, according to Michael Moss, author of the book "Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us."
The research team from Illinois points out that 70 percent of the salt consumed in the US comes from processed foods and that six in 10 US adults have borderline or high blood pressure.
If that sounds familiar, what food scientist Youngsoo Lee of U of I has to say about salt could come as a surprise.
"Much of the salt that is added to these foods is not released in our mouths where we can taste it, and that means the rest of the salt is wasted," he says.
Everybody wins
"Then food manufacturers won't have to add as much salt as before, but the consumer will taste almost the same amount of saltiness," says Lee.
Highly porous foods crumble finely when chewed, exposing more surface area and therefore more salt, according to the paper.
Lee's co-author Pawan Takhar shares some secrets about frying which, in the food industry is a wildly complicated and technical process that involves more than 100 equations.
Forty seconds is all it takes to fry gently processed foods such as crackers.
"That's the cracker's peak texture," he says. "Any longer and you're just allowing more oil to penetrate the food."
Fans of home-fried cuisine might do well to remind themselves that it doesn't take much to create that throat-tickling texture.
"The trick is to stop when pore pressure is still positive -- that is, when oil has had less penetration," says Takhar. "Of course, other variables such as moisture level, texture, taste, and structure formation, must be monitored as well. It's an optimization problem."
While the food industry appears to have long hours of frying science in its future, it appears individuals would do well to apply shorter fry-times in their kitchens.
