Taste salts

Only salts are salty however, not all salts are salty. Some are sweet, bitter, or tasteless. The salty taste is exhibited by ionized salts, and the greatest contribution to salty taste comes from the cations (29). The salt taste is produced by monovalent cations (15). 

Heck, G. L., Mierson, S. and DeSimone, J. A. Salt taste transduction occurs through an amiloride-sensitive sodium transport pathway. Science 223 403-405,1984. 

Lyall, V. et al. The mammalian amiloride-insensitive nonspecific salt taste receptor is a vanilloid receptor-1 variant. /. Physiol. 558 147-159, 2004. 

The role of these tastes has been nicely summarized Taste is in charge of evaluating the nutritious content of food and preventing the ingestion of toxic substances. Sweet taste permits the identification of energy-rich nutrients, umami allows the recognition of amino acids, salt taste ensures the proper dietary electrolyte balance, and sour and bitter warn against the intake of potentially noxious and/or poisonous chemicals. ... 

Reduction of the sodium chloride level can result in taste problems and flavour shifts. There are several approaches to maintain salt taste. Most often, potassium chloride is used, because it shows the most prominent salty taste of those applicable inorganic salts. Lithium chloride is the most salty salt but cannot be used for toxicological reasons. Most consumers, however, complain about the bitter, chalky taste of KCl-containing formulations. Development of sodium-reduced products using mineral salts is a challenge and the whole product formula has often to be adapted [25]. Therefore, the main focus of the research was the search for masking compounds or technologies to cover the bad taste of KCl, e.g. phenolic acids and derivatives [26] and lactisol [27]. 

Salty taste enhancing preparations or compounds besides KCl were described. For example, a mixture of certain amino acids based on L-lysine were used to increase the saltiness of a NaCl-reduced preparation [34] y-aminobutyric acid (4) was also used as a salty taste enhancer [35]. Some dipeptides such as N-l-ornithyl taurine hydrochloride or N-L-lysinyl taurine hydrochloride were described as very salty with a clean salt taste [36]. Additionally, choline chloride was suggested as a salt enhancer [37]. 

Salty tastants act directly on Na+ channels in the PM of cells on the tongue surface. Direct passage of Na+ through these channels causes depolarization and thence signalling to the CNS. Much (but not all) salt taste perception is inhibited by the voltage-sensitive Na+ channel inhibitor amiloride (see Chapter 4) and evidently some salt perception also occurs via amiloride-insensitive channels. 

PROP White crystalline powder hygroscopic with a faint salt taste. Sol in... 

During the last few years, the field of taste research has been progressing with enormous speed. Current research addresses structural details on receptor agonist interactions for bitter and sweet taste receptors. For the other taste modalities, including salt taste, where definite proof for the proposed roles of candidate sensor molecules is still missing, more questions still need to be answered. A next big step in taste research will be to understand how taste information is processed along its... 

Kitada Y, Mitoh Y, Hill DL. Salt taste responses of the IXth nerve in Sprague-Dawley rats lack of sensitivity to amiloride. Physiol. Behav. 1998 63 945-949. 

Spector AC, Guagliardo NA, St John SJ. Amiloride disrupts NaCl versus KCl discrimination performance implications for salt taste coding in rats. J. Neurosci. 1996 16 8115-8122. 

Salty tastants are not detected by 7TM receptors. Rather, they are detected directly by their passage through ion channels expressed on the surface of cells in the tongue. Evidence for the role of these ion channels comes from examining known properties of sodium channels characterized in other biological contexts. One class of channels, characterized first for their role in salt reabsorption, are thought to be important in salt taste detection because they are sensitive to the compound amiloride, which mutes the taste of salt and significantly lowers sensory neuron activation in response to sodium. 

The salt taste is thought to have different mechanisms than the sweet and bitter tastes. It is the presence of sodium ions, Na, in the sodium chloride, NaCl, of table salt that causes the taste. The interior of a salt taste cell is negatively... 

To Biatinguisb. Oxalic Acid from Epsom Salts. Oxalic acid has occasionally been mistaken for Epsom salts, with fatal results. They may be easily distinguished. Epsom salts taste extremely bitter and mme its oxalic acid tastes extremely sour. It is safer to taste a wea solution in apply-... 

Codamine is tasteless while its salts taste bitter ferric chloride and concentrated nitric acid give a dark-green color while the solution in concentrated sulfuric acid turns green, and then violet on heating. Its optical rotation has never been determined, but since it can be methylated to L(- -)-laudanosine, its configuration must be L(-t-)-codamine (87). This was corroborated by mixing l(- -)-laudanosine from the methylation just mentioned with a sample of levorotatory laudanosine from the solution of this mixture DL-laudanosine crystallized on cooling (33). 

Definition Sodium salt of lactic acid Empirical C3H5O3 Na Formula CHsCHOHCOONa Properties Colorless orylsh. syrupy liq., odorless to si. odor, si. salt taste misc. in water, alcohol m.w. 112.07 m.p. 17 C dec. 140 C anionic Toxicology LD50 (IP, rat) 2000 mg/kg mod. toxic by IP route eye irritant TSCA listed Precaution Combustible Hazardous Decomp. Prods. Heated to decomp., emits toxic fumes of Na20... 

The influence of flavor potentiators on the basic taste sensations is controversial. Early studies suggested that MSG intensified the sweetness or saltiness of a food when these tastes were near their optimum level while sourness and bitterness were found to be suppressed in some food systems [24]. However, Lockhart and Gainer [25] found no enhancement of either sweet or salt tastes by MSG. Mosel and Kantrowitz [26] also found no enhancanent of either sweet or salt tastes but substantial reductions in the sensory thresholds of sour (2x) and bitter (30x). Van Cott et al. [27] found the opposite that sweet and salt thresholds were lower, and sour and bitter showed no change. Yamaguchi and Kimizuka [28] found no significant influence of MSG on any of the basic tastes. 

The salty taste is stimulated by ions. In comparison with the sour taste (cf. 8.10), the cation and the anion are significantly involved. The pure salt taste is only produced by NaCl. In fact, the very next chemical relative, KCl, has a sour/bitter aftertaste. 

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