Are your meals nothing more than a large dish of salt? Electric chopsticks might be the key to lowering your salt intake while yet preserving all of the flavorful flavor. These future utensils are powered by a wristband-mounted computer that generates an electrical current too faint to harm the human body but strong enough to transport you to flavortown.
They were created in partnership with experts from Japan’s Meiji University and Kirin, a food and beverage corporation. According to a news statement issued by the two, the study was presented on March 2 at the 26th Information Processing Society of Japan conference. Researchers enlisted the help of 36 participants who were either seeking to reduce their salt intake or had done so in the past. They were subsequently given a gel containing two samples, one with 0.80 percent salt and the other with 0.56 percent salt.
The less salty gel did, indeed, taste less salty, according to the participants. When eaten with electric chopsticks, however, the 0.56 percent salt gel was thought to be 1.5 times (or 50%) saltier than it actually was, surpassing the 0.8 percent salt gel. People also said that eating reduced-salt miso soup with the gadget improved the “richness, sweetness, and overall tastiness,” however no data on this trial has been published yet.
The chopsticks are stimulated with a “electrical stimulation waveform” by the gadget. This is accomplished by cathodal and anodal stimulation, as seen in the picture above. Electrodes are anodes and cathodes, with anodes emitting negatively charged electrons and cathodes receiving them. The chopsticks function with sodium chloride, sometimes known as table salt, and sodium glutamate, also known as the unjustly maligned flavor enhancer MSG.
Negatively charged hydroxide and chloride ions are drawn to the positive electrode in a solution of sodium chloride and water, whereas positively charged hydrogen and sodium ions are attracted to the negative electrode. The chopsticks utilize electricity “to float and suck the salt ions in the food that you are eating,” according to gadget creator Dr Homei Miyashita in a video by the Guardian.
According to the World Health Organization, lowering salt intake to less than 5 grams (0.18 ounces) per day can lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of stroke, coronary heart attack, and cardiovascular disease, and lowering salt intake to recommended levels could prevent around 2.5 million deaths per year.
“If we attempt to avoid consuming less salt in a traditional fashion, we’ll have to bear the anguish of cutting out our favorite foods from our diet, or we’ll have to consume bland food,” Kirin researcher Ai Sato told Reuters. The chopsticks are expected to hit the market next year, allowing salt-lovers all across the world to experience the best of both worlds.
