This phenomenon is now being applied to address the
important health issue of excessive intake of salt or sugar.
It has been shown, for example, that the enhancement of
tastes by congruent odours seen in model systems (that is,
solutions) also occurs in foods, with bitter-smelling and
sweet-smelling odours enhancing their respective congruent
tastes in milk drinks [22]. Most recently, an
examination of the potential for odours from a range of
salty foods to enhance saltiness in solution [20,23,24
] and
model foods [25] raise the possibility that such odours
could be used to effectively reduce the sodium content of
foods, without the typical concurrent loss of acceptability
that occurs [26]. Similarly, the finding that odours can
take on fat-like properties following associative pairing
with fats [15
] might allow odours to partially substitute
for actual fat content in foods. These studies therefore
point to an exciting prospect, in which research aimed at
understanding multisensory processes in flavour perception
may lead to applications that ultimately have important
public health consequences.