Recent advances in implicit salt reduction innovative technologies: Innovative strategies and future challenges

Salt plays distinct roles in enhancing saltiness, releasing volatile compounds from food matrices, and altering microflora composition. Excessive salt intake remains a leading dietary risk factor for cardiovascular disease globally, underscoring the need to reduce dietary salt intake for public health. Therefore, advancing salt reduction technologies is an urgent priority for the food industry and a critical public health issue. In this review, salt reduction strategies were categorized into salt substitutes, emerging physical technologies, and sensory enhancement technologies to facilitate understanding of their mechanisms and to explore the prospects and challenges of applying these approaches across various food systems. Notably, some emerging implicit salt reduction technologies have been emphasized, including encapsulation, 3D printing, and application of intelligent algorithms to modulate complex salt distribution patterns. This review provides comprehensive theoretical support and practical guidelines for the food industry, thus promoting further development of food salt reduction and attributing to public health.