With this award-winning spoon, you think you’re eating salt, but you’re not
In futuristic Japan, they sometimes are way ahead of their time. For example, a Japanese company has developed an electric salt spoon that tricks your taste buds. You think you’re eating salt, but in reality, you don’t consume a single grain of salt.
The technology behind it can safely be called groundbreaking. The electrical signals emitted by the spoon stimulate your tongue. As a result, you are absolutely convinced that you taste salt. Talk about being fooled, because the spoon contains zero salt.
Cutting down on salt
Why is this such a smart invention? Simple: we eat too much salt. Many people even eat twice the amount of salt recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO sets the limit at a maximum of 5 grams of salt per day. Het Voedingscentrum puts its recommendation slightly higher; it advises a daily maximum of 6 grams. Too much salt isn’t good for us. According to Het Voedingscentrum, it can lead to, among other things, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and kidney disease. Not a pleasant thought.
Incidentally, not every doctor or scientist agrees with the advice to eat less salt. They have their reasons for that, including the fact that people with high blood pressure benefit more from blood-pressure-lowering medication than from a low-salt diet. Still, these days you can’t ignore it: more and more packaging now features phrases such as ‘less salt’. The most notable change of late? Chips containing less salt, and therefore genuinely taste different from what we’re used to.
One weird mindfuck
And now there’s the electric salt spoon. As you may have realised, it isn’t an ordinary spoon. You first have to ‘turn it on’; only then do the electrical signals kick in. Those exact signals make you feel as though you’re eating a salty dish. The spoon has four ‘levels’, allowing you to vary the intensity. Level 4 therefore provides a more intense salty experience than level 1.
Get lost!
The electric salt spoon was designed by the company Kirin Holdings. It has already won several awards for this work of art, including the Japan Open Innovation Prize. What do you pay for this fun invention? Around €121 converted. So you’ll have to shell out a fair few bucks for a low-salt lifestyle. Anyone who takes all the advice about cutting down on salt with a grain of salt might be better off sticking with their trusty, ordinary IKEA spoon.
Also read:
- What’s the difference between cheap table salt and expensive salt?
- This trick for stuck pepper and salt shakers is mind-blowingly good
- It’s been researched: eating sweet or salty foods says a lot about your personality
Image: Kirin Holdings
