Most lovers of heavy taste love to eat salty, hot pot, barbecue, spicy hot, a mouthful full of salt.
Eating like this is very lively, but eating too much salt is not good for the body, but you want to eat, what should you do?
Japanese scientists have the answer:
Invent a chopstick that makes the taste salty, but the food itself remains light.
Professor Yoshiaki Miyashita of meiji University's Faculty of Science and Technology has partnered with a Japanese beverage manufacturer to develop this magical chopstick.
It consists of metal pointed chopsticks, a three-meter-long wire, and a miniature computer worn on the wrist.
While the user is eating, the microcomputer generates a weak electric current that is transmitted to the food through wires and chopsticks. The electric current can move the sodium ions in food (which are also an important part of salt) to the tip of the chopsticks, and the user can feel a stronger salty taste when eating.
Professor Miyashita did the experiment. He recruited 36 volunteers and first asked them to eat the ordinary salty gel with ordinary chopsticks, and then rate the saltiness of the gel after eating.
He then asked the volunteers to eat a gel with a 30% less salt content, eat it with ordinary chopsticks and charged chopsticks, and score it again after eating.
After counting everyone's data, Professor Miyashita found that the effect of charged chopsticks was very obvious, and the salty taste felt was 1.5 times higher than that of ordinary chopsticks.
It is even saltier to eat light gel than ordinary chopsticks, even if the salt in the food is much less.
What makes the professor even happier is that regardless of the salty taste, the umami taste and overall flavor of the food are also strengthened, because the current can affect the ions in the MSG.
Volunteers use electric chopsticks to eat low-salt miso soup, which contains pumpkin and white radish that is more delicious than ordinary miso soup.
Professor Miyashita himself tested it and found that miso soup and sweet and sour meat were particularly delicious. He told the media that now he uses these chopsticks every day.
"The current we use is very weak, it does not affect the human body, it can regulate the ions in sodium chloride and sodium glutamate, making the food taste more concentrated than it actually is." The richness, sweetness and overall taste of the dish have all been improved. Professor Miyashita said.
"When you put food in your mouth with chopsticks, you can feel salty. Even if you don't pinch food and press chopsticks directly on your tongue, you can feel salty. ”
Within a second, the tongue can feel the ions brought by the current, and the actual eating does not feel the delay.
Miyashita and the beverage maker said they plan to bring charged chopsticks to market sometime in 2023 or 2024.
A few days ago, we wrote about a Japanese scientist who invented the "TV that can lick the screen", and it just so happened that this person was Yoshiaki Miyashita.
But compared with the licking screen TV, the actual significance of the charged chopsticks is much greater, because too many people in the world eat salt and eat sick.
Salt is an essential food for the human body, and the sodium in it is an element that people must ingest, which can maintain the balance of water and electrolytes, help nutrient absorption, conduct nerve impulses, contract and relax muscles, etc.
People need 0.5 grams of sodium per day to maintain these important functions, coupled with taste, nutrition and other reasons, the World Health Organization recommends that an adult should eat 5 grams of sodium per day.
But the reality is not that sodium intake is not enough, but that it is too much.
According to the 2019 National Health and Nutrition Survey, Daily Sodium Intake for Japanese is 10.9 grams for men and 9.3 grams for women, double the WHO recommendation.
In China, Healthy China Action 2019-2030 shows that Chinese eat 10.5 grams of salt per day, but healthy daily salt intake should be less than 5 grams.
The U.S. eats less salt, but still exceeds the government's recommended amount. In the Dietary Guidelines for U.S. Residents, the U.S. government recommends that adults consume no more than 2.3 grams of sodium per day, and actually eat 3.6 grams of sodium per person per day.
In short, most countries eat too much salt, which leads to frequent heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure.
Harvard's School of Public Health explains that most people have an excess of sodium in their blood and that it is difficult for the kidneys to process it. With the accumulation of sodium, the body can only dilute sodium by increasing water.
This leads to an increase in the amount of fluid around the cells and blood flow in the blood vessels. More blood means the heart has more work to do, and the pressure in the blood vessels becomes greater. Over time, these extra efforts and stresses can harden blood vessels, eventually leading to high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes. It can also lead to heart failure.
"Evidence suggests that too much salt damages the heart, aorta and kidneys, and is also bad for bones because it can drain calcium from it." Written on the College website.
According to WHO, heart disease and stroke claim about 3 million lives each year. They have repeatedly warned against excessive sodium intake and set a goal of reducing global sodium intake by 30% by 2025.
In Japan, where 25% of people have too much salt, their blood pressure is too high, and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare reduces the recommended amount every year.
According to 2020 data, there are also 300 million people with hypertension in the mainland, and controlling it is also a major challenge.
Representatives of beverage companies working with Miyashita say they are happy to have made charged chopsticks so that people with high blood pressure don't have to endure light food and don't eat more salt.
Miyashita said his invention was "the world's first chopsticks to enhance saltiness." This is true, but in fact, the concept is not unusual, and someone made cups and forks that add flavor a few years ago.
In 2015, the media reported that engineers at the National University of Singapore had developed the Taske+ device, a set of taste-enhancing cups and cutlery to help taste-impaired elderly and cancer patients taste food.
Taste+ is made of silver electrodes that transmit electrical impulses of varying frequencies and amplitudes to the tongue, simulating salty, sour and bitter tastes.
The tableware is equipped with buttons or dials, and users can adjust the blue, green and red colors to quickly switch between different tastes.
In 2016, Yumi Nakamura, a Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo, developed an electric fork that stimulates the tongue with electricity when eaten with food, making people feel salty and sour.
Hiromi Nakamura said it took her six years to adjust the current little by little so that the electricity just felt salty when it touched her tongue.
The fork can run for six hours after charging, it has three levels of current, and can taste different degrees of taste depending on the age and eating habits of the user.
Some researchers ate unsalted pork chops and unsalted sauce with a charged fork, and after pressing the button on the fork, the pork was significantly saltier and the sauce was more sour. Of course, these increased taste sensations are simulated.
If you push the current level too high, there will be a metallic smell.
Hiromi Nakamura joined the University of Tokyo's "Unsalted Restaurant" project, which serves no salt in all of its food and relies only on an electric fork to enhance the flavor.
Although it sounds very dull, the response from customers is good, and many people who can't eat more salt get a normal food experience there.
The cost of making a charged fork is only 2,000 yen (about 100 yuan), and Nakamura hopes to bring it to the market and help more people.
Unfortunately, for various reasons, it has not been listed until now, and future commercialization can only rely on the palace.
Use tableware to enhance the taste, although at first glance it sounds a bit strange,
But considering the health factors behind it, it is still necessary...