Reducing salt and fat while maintaining taste: An approach on a model food system

Unbalanced diets with an excess consumption of fat, salt and low‐size sugars contribute to the development of pathologies such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes. As a consequence, worldwide healthcare authorities advocate salt, fat and sugar reduction in food. However, the multifunctional roles of these ingredients in both food composition and perception prevent a simple reduction of their content. Several strategies are currently investigated to design healthier food while maintaining its taste and consumer acceptability. Among these strategies, the one relying on crossmodal sensory compensation is tested within the framework of the EU‐TeRiFiQ research project. The main objective is to evaluate whether a modification of texture, taste or aroma perception could help to maintain especially salt or fat perception in low‐fat‐salt food. Here we set out to examine whether a modification of texture, sourness and/or aroma could modulate the perception of salty taste and fat perception but also consumer liking. Model cheeses were prepared according to a full‐factorial design with two fat levels (20 and 40%), two salt levels (0.5 and 1.5%) and two pH levels (5.0 and 6.2). In addition, cheeses were flavoured with either a sardine aroma (associated to salt), a butter aroma (associated to fat) or not flavoured (control). Thirty two consumers participated in 7 sensory sessions and were asked to rate taste, texture and aroma attributes, as well as their liking for the 24 model cheeses. The results confirmed that the modification of salt and fat content as well as pH value induced differentiated texture perception at a sensory level (p<0.0001). In addition, the comparison of salty taste intensity between flavoured and unflavoured model cheeses with the same salt content showed a significant saltiness enhancement (p<0.0001) induced by the sardine aroma. Butter‐flavoured model cheeses were found to have a higher perceived fat content and also obtained a higher liking score compared to sardine‐flavoured model cheeses (p