Smelling Flavor

Unilever Food and Health Research Institute wants to put chemical odorants in your food, so you will perceive it as a healthy food option.

Here’s the article.

Their researchers picked commercially available odorants that corresponded to 15 salty food tastes.

These included:
sardine, bacon, anchovy, peanuts, tuna, Roquefort cheese, ham, chicken, Compte cheese, soy sauce, sotolon, concentrated cheese, tomato, goat’s cheese, and carrot.

The goal was to make the food smell like something salty, fool your tastes into thinking there was less salt in the food, which would allow food processors to put less actual salt in the product.

They found that their odors do in fact influence taste. So, in the processed food product world of the future, when the label says Low Salt … it may also mean High Odorant.