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Salt substitutes for cooking 0809

Page history last edited by ecop 14 years, 10 months ago
Salt Substitues

 

                                              

 

By: Chris Chesnut

 

 


Description and Rationale

 

 

     Salt is a highly used mineral here in the Philippines. It is used in abundance to create a strong flavor in foods. It has been part of the food industry for a long time.  

     What is the impact of too much salt in the community today? Is it causing increasing diseases? How does salt damage the human body? Who says when too much is too much? Is overuse of salt causing weight gain in some, rather than keeping them fit? If society begins to reduce its intake of salt, what impact would this have on the livelihoods of people who depend on the manufacturing of salt?

     Is there a way to stop the amount of salt usage in the Filipino community? Recent studies have shown that too much salt in one’s diet can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure, cataracts, kidney stones, osteoporosis and stomach cancer. These statistics are specific to the Filipino environment and are indicators of how the overuse of salt can be dangerous. Is there a substitute for salt that is healthier and still makes prepared food tasty? If so, does it make a dramatic difference in the taste? There are many ways that salt is good and can be used to help make a food dish more flavorful, but too much can be hazardous to people’s health.

     The primary purpose of this project is to research and explore whether or not there is another substitute for salt that is healthier while at the same time not reducing the flavor in the food. Trial experiments will be conducted with the hoped for outcome of developing good tasting, healthy, low concentrated salt food dishes. Doctors will also be interviewed in order to seek their opinions of the impact of salt upon the human body, and what can be done by the general public to increase awareness for using healthy amounts of salt in one’s daily diet.

     The end result is to find new, healthier substitues for salt in the Filipino food industry. This project is to help people change their diet and way of cooking into a happier, and healtheir lifestyle.

                                                          

                                                         

 

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Biology

 

Common Names and Synonyms

 

 

Shrimp is also called Metapenaeus monoceros. To many English speaking people it is either known as pink shrimp, brown shrimp, ginger shrimp and/or the speckled shrimp. It has acquired these names due to its color, because it has pink and brown colors, and speckles/small dots. But most commonly it is known as the speckled shrimp. Bagoong, a very popular Filipino shrimp dish, is served with a high concentration of salt, thus explaining the topic.

 

 

Classification

 

 

Kingdom:       Animalia

Phylum:           Arthropoda

Class:             Crustacea (lobsters, crabs, etc)

Order:             Decapoda (lobsters; crayfish; crabs; shrimps; prawns)

Family:            Penaeidae (tropical prawns) 

Genus:            Metapenaeus

Species:         Metapenaeus Monoceros (speckled shrimp)

 

 

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Morphology and Physical Description

 

                           

Male shrimp grow to approximately 15 cm long, while the females grow to be about 19.5 cm. The body is long and has long antennas that flow down the length of the body. The body also has short hairs growing on its back area near the tail. There are 9-12 teeth on the crest resting right on its head which is also called the rostral spine.

The upper part of the body contains the legs and head. The long thin parts hanging from the center section of the body are called Pereiopods which are walking legs. Towards the back end of the body, the small leg-type parts that hang down are called Pieopods which are used for swimming.

    

Internally the monoceros is very interesting. It has a hard exoskeleton but is flexible around the tail. The muscle in the tail allows the shrimp to move rapidly through the water. The abdomen of the external shell of the body is rather flexible and most of the back area of the shrimp is muscle and intestines. With very little room for the heart, its heart is actually located inside its head, which allows it to help pump blood throughout the rest of the body.

 

 

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Getting Food

 

 

When the shrimp are still in the early stage of growth, they float around the water eating small plants and animals or what is known as, plankton. But as shrimp get bigger, they begin to eat many different kinds of live creatures on the ocean floor. Shrimp are considered “bottom feeders”, meaning that they are not very picky when it comes to eating food, which is why they do such a good job of keeping the ocean nice and sanitary.

 

“Especially when it is dark, they will search for small mud shrimp, very small shellfish and worms. Shrimp even regard a dead crab or fish as a lovely meal. Smaller shrimp and shrimp that have just moulted (exchanged their shells) also have to be very alert to make sure that they do not meet hungry large shrimp because they eat each other (real cannibals!). “

(http://www.heiploeg.nl/wat-eet-een-garnaal.en_US.html)

 

The taste of the shrimp depends on where the shrimp was raised and what it ate throughout its life time. If it feeds on seaweed, then when it is cooked, it will have a hint of seaweed taste to it. That is why some shrimp are so expensive, because they have a unique taste that is naturally inside their bodies due to the makeup of the particular food upon which it feasted.

 

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Reproduction

 

 

“Although you have male and female shrimp, some male shrimp may become female shrimp in the course of their life (after 2 years or so). If this does not sound as a complicated business, the next link in the chain will. Shrimp can only mate with each other when the female has just molted. Female shrimp can mate and deposit eggs up to three times per year. Usually it is once in the spring, once in the summer and once in the middle of winter. The older and larger the female shrimp is, the more eggs she can lay. In her third year, she can often lay more than 25,000 eggs. The fertilised eggs are attached to hairy attachments that the female has under her tail with a substance similar to glue. She does this to protect the eggs (larval stage of shrimp) from being eaten by other shrimp or other sea creatures. The female will carry all the eggs with her during incubation. The length of the incubation period depends on how warm the water is.”

(http://www.heiploeg.nl/voortplanting.en_US.html)

 

There are four stages during the growth of Metapenaeus monoceros that last up to twelve days. In their first stage, they are called the nauplii. Second and third stages they grow into zoeae and myses respectively. They stay in the myses stage for a few days before entering the fourth and last stage in which they become young shrimp. They then slowly mature into adult shrimp that live on the ocean floor.

 

 

 

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Environmental Factors

 

 

The monoceros is widespread and live almost all around the world.  They mostly live in shallow ocean waters. The deepest water they live in can be up to sixty meters deep, but they most commonly live in waters ten to thirty meters deep. At times they can be found in fresh water, but they are best adapted to marine environments due to all of the plankton and food most necessary to their survival.

 

“The species prefers sandy mud bottoms and brackish to marine salinities as low as 5 and up to 30 parts per thousand.” (http://www.khalsan.com/Foodstuff/ShrimpLibrary/Metapenaeus_Monoceros.htm)

 

 

 

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Origin and Distribution

 

 

As stated earlier, this shrimp can be found throughout the world. Originally from the West Pacific and the African Coast, this shrimp has been found all the way up to the Red Sea and also in the waters near India. It is now found in the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea. It best lives in marine environments rather than fresh water.

 

“It is also important in Somalia, the Gulf of Aden and the southern part of the Red Sea, as well as in most parts of India (especially Kerala and the Ganges Delta) and Pakistan. It is cultivated in rice fields in Bangladesh and India. It is also now trawled in the Eastern Mediterranean off the southern coast of Turkey, on the continental shelf off Israel, and off Alexandria, Egypt.”

(http://www.khalsan.com/Foodstuff/ShrimpLibrary/Metapenaeus_Monoceros.htm)

 

“In the 1980s, shrimp farming became an industry when commercial availability of new technology from Taiwan, along with attractive export prices, led to the Shrimp Fever that swept the country and the rest of Asia. Filipino farmers shifted from milkfish (Chanos chanos) to shrimp, as well as intensified their culture systems from traditional and extensive to higher stocking densities.” (http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/51/Philippines.html)

 

 

 

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Importance to People

 

 

For many years, shrimp have been a delightful delicacy to people all around the world. It has been taken from its natural environment and put into “shrimp farms” to be grown, harvested and distributed throughout the world. It is also fished in large quantities along the African coast and in the West Pacific.

 

The speckled shrimp have had quite a bit of influence on the food industry and is one of the most popular seafoods out on the market. They are in great value all over the world and at times, are hugely expensive. Locally here in Manila, shrimp is used in the dish Sinigang as well as the very popular Bagoong (small cut up shrimp mixed in with a sauce and tons of salt). Some of the better tasting shrimp costs considerably more, making them only affordable to the more wealthy or upper class citizen.

 

Overall, shrimp have been enjoyed around the world for decades and will continue to have an impact on the seafood industry for many more years to come. Especially since the booming industry of shrimp grew in the 1970s, the Filipinos have come up with many different food dishes. But they have a tendency to mix the shrimp in with a high concentration of salt, which is affecting their health and causes many heart problems. Although shrimp have a very unique and wonderful taste, what they are cooked with can sometimes be hazardous to your health.

 

 

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Survivability and Endangered Status

 

 

As of 2003 and after three years of research, shrimp producers are now enjoying the benefits of using green water technology as biocontrol agent in prawn grow-out culture. Spearheaded by Dr. Jesse D. Ronquillo of the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology and Prof. Valeriano L. Corre, Jr. of the Institute of Aqualculture (IA), College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences from the University of the Philippines in the Visayas, the biotechnology effort on the green water technology was started in 1999. The project was aimed to develop a technology which will help prevent and control aquaculture diseases like the spread of vibrio or luminous bacteria. An outbreak of this disease occurred in 1993 which caused high mortalities and termination of grow-out activities in many shrimp farms in the Visayas.

 

“The new developed technology is the use of green water to culture shrimps. Green water technology is a technique that uses phytoplankton-rich water. In this system, saline tilapia is also propagated in fish cages in the ponds to produce green water which contributes in controlling the growth of luminous bacteria that is harmful to the shrimps. Among the methods of combating aquaculture diseases, the use of green water technology was proven to be the most functional. The green water technology is funded by the [Philippine] Bureau of Agricultural Research through its biotechnology R&D program.” (http://www.bar.gov.ph/news/greenwater_tech.asp)

 

                                                  

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Potential Solutions

 

 

Is there a method to reduce the problem of high concentrations of salt in popular Filipino dishes? Is there some form of salt substitute that tastes similar and provides the same amount of flavor, but is healthier? Salt is used all around the world and has been used for thousands of years. It is difficult to remove it from our daily diet because it provides flavor. A little concentration of salt is not harmful to the body. However, it can be harmful when people tend to over use or use a high concentration of salt. Research studies on salt substitutions have determined that there are other salt substitutes, but not all of them are fully reliable and healthy as well, not to mention that the flavor is quite different. Many poor people without any knowledge of how salt can be dangerous to the body use a high concentration of salt. This is especially true in many Filipino dishes. This can be changed if the people are willing to try something new. In the following section, three possible alternatives are provided along with explanations of advantages and disadvantages for each. The following section of the report takes into consideration either cutting back on salt concentrations in food, or trying to find another substitute in place of salt. 

 

Possibility 1 - SEAWEED

 

 

Since there is so much seaweed that is being harvested around the world, why not use the salty seaweed as a substitute for the high concentrations of salt?

 

Advantages:

 

1.      The best thing about this food source is that it grows in almost every corner of the ocean and is in mass production/harvesting around the world.

 

2.      The seaweed naturally obtains a salty flavor because it is in salt water. So with the seaweed you could use it to attempt to keep the same flavor of the food dish, while creating a better, healthier meal for everyone.

 

Disadvantages:

 

1.      The amount that would be needed in order to provide the food dish with the same amount of salt concentration would have to be a significant amount. It would take too much to make the dish taste similar using this salt substitute.

                  

2.      If you had to use as much seaweed as it took to have the flavor of the food to taste the same it would take so much seaweed that the food would lose all other flavor other than the seaweed. The seaweed does contain salt but not enough natural salt to flavor the food dish and give it the same original taste as the original food dish. Also the seaweed has a distinctive taste that if it was used in food, that taste would be enough to change the taste of the food.

 

 

                                                 

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Possibility 2 - SALT SUBSTITUTE

 

 

Because salt has such a high concentration of sodium, people want to cut back on their salt intake. So there are salt substitutes that are created to taste the same as regular salt, but with a healthier twist.

 

Advantages:

           

1.      The salt substitute is healthier for many people. It has more potassium chloride than sodium, and sodium is the harmful chemical in the regular salt.

    

Disadvantages:

 

1.      Salt substitutes can also be dangerous to some people’s health. Those who have kidney failure, heart problems, etc, cannot have this because their bodies cannot get rid of the excess potassium chloride, which can then be very dangerous to one’s health.

 

2.      Also, many people have made complaints about how the salt substitutes have no similar taste to regular salt and they do not like it at all. So in the end, many people stick with the regular salt even if it is dangerous to the body if taken in high concentrations.            

     

                                                                 

 

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Possibility 3 - REDUCE AMOUNT OF SALT (Action Step)

 

The benefits of using salt substitutes have only been known for a while now. A solution to help reduce the amount of salt in food dishes is to try and keep the original flavor of the dish but cut back on the salt concentration. I cooked a dish called Bicol Express that had bagoong (shrimp paste) as its primary ingredient. It has a very high concentration of salt, so I cut back on all salt and bagoong concentration in the dish. I only used 1/3 of the salt and bagoong that the recipe called for to try and maintain the taste of the dish but have it healthier for future consumption.

Objective: To test and see if reducing salt by 2/3 in the food dish will allow for it to retain its original flavor.

Advantages:

           

1.      With a reduction of salt in the bagoong, it also reduces the risk of health problems in the future for the consumer. With less salt, the flavor is maintained while at the same time cutting back on the salt consumption.

 

2.      Also with a new way of reducing salt in this food dish, it leaves room for changes in the amount of salt used in other recipes.

 

Disadvantages:

           

1.      There were not many, except that it took a few hours to make the food because we thought it was a simple process but it takes hours. The salt reduction changed the taste just a little but not too much.

 

2.      One needs to be aware that when cutting chili peppers, it is best to wear gloves to protect the skin.

                              

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Bibliography

 

 

Lingatong, Adela. Personal Interview. 10 May 2009

 

 

"How do Shrimp Reproduce?" Heiploeg - Home. 2009. 11 May 2009 <http://www.heiploeg.nl>.

 

 

"Low Sodium Salt Substitutes." Orau. 20 Jan. 2009. 7 May 2009 <http://www.orau.org/PTP/collection/consumer%20products/lowsodiumsalt.htm>.

 

 

"Metapenaeus Monoceros." KGTgroup.com Home Page. 2009. 5 May 2009 <http://www.khalsan.com>.

 

 

"Metapenaeus Monoceros." The Company of Biologists Ltd: The Journal of Experimental Biology. 2009. 5 May 2009 <http://jeb.biologists.org>.

 

 

"Philippines: Shrimp Farming and Mangrove Decline." Western Railway Museum - Solano County - California. 2009. 5 May 2009 <http://www.wrm.org>.

 

 

"Speckled Shrimp." Search SeaLifeBase. 2009. 5 May 2009 <http://www.sealifebase.org>.

 

 

 

"What does a shrimp eat?" Heiploeg - Home. 2009. 9 May 2009 <http://www.heiploeg.nl>.

 

 

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