Reducing the amount of salt in your daily diet certainly makes a great impact on your health, but what if you really, REALLY like it in your foods? Korean scientists may have found a tasty, healthy alternative in bamboo salts.

Used in Korea to promote better health, bamboo salts were prepared long ago by putting sea salts in bamboo shoots and baking it two to three times with pine tree firewood, although the modern baking process has been lengthened to at least nine times. Researchers compared the culinary effects of bamboo salts baked twice and nine times, respectively, to commercial table salt by preparing meat-based batters with each condiment.

From a chemical standpoint, meat batter made with ordinary table salt scored the lowest of the three substances in terms of color and flavor, very important measures when you're making a gravy from tasty bits of meat.

Conversely, bamboo salts possessed higher pH levels (due to elevated levels of alkali, calcium and potassium), and better viscosity, texture, cooking yield, emulsion stability and water-holding capacity. Perhaps, these results will lead to further research on potential uses for bamboo salts in processed meat products, researchers say.

Meat Science, Vol. 86, No. 4, p. 960-965, December 2010

FoodNavigator.com September 24, 2010