Optimum level of salt in French-type bread. Influence of income status, salt level in daily bread consumption, and test location.
The objectives of the present study were to measure the ideal salt concentration in French-type bread among Argentine consumers in a home-usage-test (HUT) considering income status and salt content of daily bread consumption as covariables, and to compare the ideal salt concentrations measured in a HUT and a central-location test (CLT). For the HUT, 420 consumers each received a sample of bread with a single salt concentration, and for the CLT, 100 consumers each received 7 samples with different salt concentrations. For each sample, consumers responded if they found the bread "not-salty-enough,""okay," or "too-salty." Neither income level nor salt content of daily bread influenced probability of rejection. The optimum sodium concentrations (milligrams per 100 g of bread dry basis) +/- 95% confidence limits for the HUT and CLT were 980 +/- 74 and 1157 +/- 87, respectively. These values are substantially higher than 628, the mean sodium content of the bread sampled from the bakery shops where consumers bought their daily bread.