Reduction of sodium content in Feta cheese by partial substitution of NaCl by KCl

Abstract

Abstract Feta cheese (five trials) of different sodium content was made from split lots of curd by varying the salting procedure i.e., dry salting with NaCl (control) or mixtures of NaCl/KCl (3:1 or 1:1, w/w basis) and filling the cans with brine made with NaCl or the above NaCl/KCl mixtures, respectively. It was found that up to a 50% reduction of sodium content in Feta cheese is feasible, with partial replacement of NaCl by KCl, without an adverse effect on its quality. The results also indicated that the cheeses made with mixtures of NaCl/KCl exhibited no significant (P > 0.05) differences in compositional (moisture, fat, protein, salt), physicochemical (pH, aw), sensory (appearance, body and texture, flavour, overall quality) and textural (force and compression to fracture, hardness) properties in comparison with the control cheese. The Na:K ratio (molecular basis) decreased from 31.5 in the control cheese to 4.0 and 1.4 in the cheeses salted with 3:1 or 1:1 mixture of NaCl/KCl, respectively. Thus, the use of the 1:1 NaCl/KCl mixture in the salting of Feta cheese effectively brought its Na:K ratio near the desired 1.0, while also greatly reducing the sodium content by about 50%.