What is the Role of Salt in Taste?

Table salt (sodium chloride) is used as a flavoring agent in the cuisines of many cultures. Despite health advisories, maintaining a no-salt or reduced-salt diet has proven difficult for many. A common complaint is that foods taste bland and insipid without sufficient salting. It is widely believed that salt intensifies the desirable flavors in food. For example, salting a slice of watermelon appears to make the watermelon taste sweeter. Another view holds that the value of salt is in its ability to mask undesirable flavors, and in this way, the food tastes better. This laboratory exercise investigates the effect of salt upon taste by using a simplified model. The students participate in a blind taste test. Bitter (e.g. urea), sweet (sucrose), salt, bitter/salt, and sweet/salt solutions are prepared prior to class time. Invariably, bitterness is no longer detected when the salt is combined with urea yet the sucrose /salt solution is always ranked as not as sweet as the sucrose alone. Salt is shown to make food taste more palatable by suppressing unpleasant flavors. This exercise can be readily incorporated with the standard taste mapping exercise taught in most Anatomy and Physiology laboratory classes and adds an experimental approach to the study of taste. Procedur