Lowered sodium is more than a flash-in-the-pan trend, and bakers are taking note.

Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration stated that it hasn't yet made the decision to regulate the amount of sodium in foods, other wording in its announcement certainly drew the attention of the processed food industry.

In response to the FDA's reaction to the American Heart Association's (AHA) data that links high-sodium diets and cardiovascular disease, bakers are turning to a number of methods to rein in sodium levels.

The AHA asks food manufacturers to reduce the amount of sodium in foods by 50 percent over a 10-year period. In 2006, the American Medical Association called for the food and restaurant industry to lower the sodium levels of the U.S. food supply by 50 percent.

The FDA's April statement came in reaction to a report from the Institute of Medicine that said national players must work together to reduce the sodium content of foods to reduce Americans risk of hypertension and heart attacks.

“Over the coming weeks, the FDA will more thoroughly review the recommendations of the report and build plans for how the FDA can continue to work with other federal agencies, public health and consumer groups, and the food industry to support the reduction of sodium levels in the food supply,” the statement read. “The Department of Health and Human Services will be establishing an interagency working group on sodium at the department that will review options and next steps.”

Also in April, General Mills Inc. said it plans to cut sodium levels by 20 percent across many of its product lines over the next five years. Sara Lee, ConAgra Foods, Unilever and Kraft Foods have all announced similar salt reduction targets during the past year or so.

Those statements — taken in conjunction with Americans' continued embrace of healthful eating — prompted wholesale bakers to introduce a range of low- and reduced-sodium products.

But reformulating a product, particularly a baked one, is not usually as easy as simply cutting its salt levels, experts say. Bakers are now at work testing new formulas, trying new ingredients and tinkering with leavening agents in an effort to reduce sodium levels.

Fine tuning

Sodium reduction requires experimentation, says Janice Johnson, applications leader at Cargill, Minneapolis.

“You want to understand what the function of salt is in the product,” she says. “It adds flavor, and in yeast-leavened breads, it controls yeast fermentation and also develops gluten within flour to further hold air cells in place.”

To lower salt levels while retaining flavor and function, bakers must look to ingredients that have what Johnson calls a “similar personality” to salt.

“Potassium chloride serves the functionality purpose, but it doesn't quite give you the same flavor,” Johnson says.

Cargill offers a potassium chloride product, used as a salt replacer, and in conjunction offers SaltWise, a product aimed at helping re-establish flavor in low-sodium formulas. But bakers will need to look at the big picture when they examine sodium levels, Johnson says.

“You can't rely on any one ingredient to solve this; it's a balancing act. You can try to reduce the salt, but the flavor is hard to bring back. And when you switch from sodium to potassium chloride, it doesn't quite behave in the same way,” Johnson says. “For bakery products that rely on chemical leavening like baking soda or powder, those are also a source of sodium. We're trying to get food manufacturers to understand you need to look at all the sodium sources in a product, including the leavening agents.”

Adjust leavening

Up to 50 percent of the sodium in a bakery product can come from the baking powder, says Nita Livvix, research and development manager for Clabber Girl, Terre Haute, Ind. “That's not just a little bit of sodium, that's matching the amount of actual salt that goes into the item,” she says.

In response, some bakers have looked to cut the sodium levels in their products by reducing the sodium introduced through leavening agents. To help, Clabber Girl introduced InnovaBake, a reduced-sodium baking powder earlier this year. The product joins InnovaFree, a sodium-free product the company brought out last year.

The sodium in these products is replaced by Cal-Rise, from Cranbury, N.J.-based Innophos, and is what Livvix calls a drop-in replacement. This means bakers can simply substitute the same amount of low or no-salt Innova in place of their usual baking powder. The substitution will not affect the baking process or product profile and removes the need for bakers to reduce salt levels in their formulas, which can affect flavor, Livvix says.

Reducing sodium via the leavening agents also is an economical choice, says John Brodie, technical service manager, baking, at Innophos. “That's because when you look at the prices of salt replacers, they're significantly more expensive than going the route of using calcium-based leavening,” he says.

Cal-Rise, used in Clabber Girl's Innova products among others, is a mixture of calcium acid pyrophosphate and monocalcium phosphate, anhydrous. It is designed as a 1:1 replacement for the leavening agent sodium acid pyrophosphate.

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