Salty Food

Mmmm, chips. One of the most sublime of salty snacks. But have you ever [wondered:thought] how they get that perfectly salty sheen on the outside?"Salt is sprayed on the surface." Youngsoo Lee is a food engineer at the University of Illinois Urbana - Champaign. And he says not all salty foods are [created:crafted] equal. There's spray-on surface salt. There's salty liquids, like canned soup. And then there are salty solids, where the sodium is [dissolved:dispersed] in a matrix-like structure. Think salamis and cheeses. But when we eat those salty solids, only a fraction of the salt gets [released:produced] before we swallow. Meaning a lot of that salt has no effect on taste - but a big effect on our daily salt intake.Lee's [investigating:programming] that salty-solid conundrum for a company that wants to make cold cuts that taste the same but contain less salt. He couldn't tell me which one. "Um... I mean, it's a fairly big U.S.-based food company."