Perspective of sodium reduction based on endogenous proteases via the strategy of sodium replacement in conjunction with mediated-curing

Abstract

NaCl is the main curing agent in dry-cured meat products, and a large amount of NaCl addition leads to high salt content of final products. Salt content and composition are important factors affecting the activity of endogenous proteases, which in turn could affect proteolysis as well as the quality of dry-cured meat products. With the increasing emphasis on the relationship between diet and health, reducing sodium content without sacrificing quality and safety of products is a great challenge for dry-cured meat industry. In this review, the change of endogenous proteases activity during processing, the potential relationship between sodium reduction strategy, endogenous proteases activity, and quality were summarized and discussed. The results showed that sodium replacement strategy and mediated-curing had a complementary advantage in influencing endogenous proteases activity. In addition, mediated-curing had the potential to salvage the negative effects of sodium substitution by affecting endogenous proteases. Based on the results, a sodium reduction strategy that sodium replacement in conjunction with mediated-curing based on endogenous proteases was proposed for the future perspective.

Keywords:

• Dry-cured meat products
• endogenous proteases
• sodium replacement strategy
• mediated-curing

Author contributions

Mingming Li: conceptualization, investigation, writing—original draft preparation; Xin Zhang: conceptualization, resources, writing—review and editing, funding acquisition; Yantao Yin: writing—review and editing; Jiapeng Li: resources; Qu Chao: resources; Linggao Liu: investigation; Yunhan Zhang: investigation; Qiujin Zhu: writing—review and editing, funding acquisition; Shouwei Wang: resources, funding acquisition.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported herein.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [32001728, 32172248]; Guizhou Science and Technology Plan Project (Guizhou Science and Technology Joint Support N[2020]2206), the Guizhou High-level Innovative Talent Training Project (Qianke Cooperation Platform Talent number [2016] 5662).