Kirin demos "electric salt spoon" at CES
87 comments
·January 7, 2025throw310822
Mistletoe
No it isn't unless you are salt sensitive. You would know if you are salt sensitive, you would have high blood pressure.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-t...
saagarjha
I'd take some years off my life if it meant I could continue to enjoy salt.
f1shy
Actually a healthy person can regulate Na levels very good. There is a lot of debate if it is as bad as portrayed.
th0ma5
A gentle reminder those longevity claims may be suspect https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41738434
kopirgan
It's not just one thing. Their diet very low calorie.. Low on fat.
If we eat oil like Mediterranean fat like Intuit's, carb like Raramurii, protein like Americans will have worst health of all.
wenc
Dietary fat isn't actually bad for you in reasonable amounts. It's the overindulgence of carbs, which turns into body fat.
Also the Japanese diet is interesting. It's actually not low-calorie pound-per-pound, but the portion sizes are much smaller. The Japanese just eat less than Americans.
It has also a surprisingly small amount of greens. There is usually a pickled vegetable dish on the side, but that's it.
Blackthorn
Source for the low calorie bit? Seems unlikely, given the amount of rice consumed.
smolder
You seem to be assuming "the amount of rice consumed" is high, but are you taking into consideration that the average portion may be small?
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baerrie
Salt is not bad for you. The small hypertension decreases people experience on low sodium diets are capped at roughly 10% and salt is almost never the actual cause. It is another victim of choosing a boogie man to hide the fact that sugar is by far the most destructive thing to consume by a huge margin
pessimizer
> Is salt really that bad?
No, salt is good because it helps you to eat unpalatable, nutritious food.
f1shy
And Na is absolutely vital, and depending on your diet, if you cut 100% of table salt you will get deprived of Na and Iodine
TomWhitwell
This idea has been around for a long time: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429935-000-food-bla...
aaron695
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mmahemoff
But does it work?
This is the third report I’ve seen in recent days and none of them mention if the spoon delivers on its promise. Reporters may be reluctant to share a spoon with dozens of other attendees, but might they practice some journalism by surveying folks who did try it?
kalium-xyz
At that price point placebos become pretty powerful. I’d like to see some actual data of salt distribution with a regular spoon vs theirs.
EDIT: Seems that it works by stimulating the tongue with current not by changing salt distribution
riidom
My thoughts:)
t-3
When I heard about this, I couldn't help but think of the taste of a 9-volt battery on the tongue, but from what I understood/guessed from TFA, this does something more like pulling dissolved sodium ions to the outer surface of the food to make them more readily encountered by taste buds? So, the food would need to have a decent salt content to begin with and not be too dry probably?
xattt
The elephant in the room are electrophoretic effects of metal of the electrode leaching into the food, especially with long-term use.
surfingdino
Lasers. If ain't got no lasers it ain't no good.
WtfRuSerious
Say what you will about salt consumption, but my wife suffered thyroid issues until we added a shaker of iodized salt back into our kitchen/eating area.
f1shy
This is a very important point. Also other point is that in some hospitals people are going into ER with hiponatremia. Granted extreme cases. But many people are getting obsessive with low Na. And while a little bit too much will not affect you at all, a little bit too little will affect you immediately.
Spooky23
FoodTV and other influencers also drove a lot of people to kosher salt, which isn’t iodized.
ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7
There are plenty of other sources for iodine.
f1shy
Not really, at least not everywhere. If you live away of sea, you will bot be inclined to eat seafood, also will be expensive. There are many cultures in which the diet does not have enough iodine.
ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7
Sure, if you live in a country with submodern infrastructure, doesn't produce enriched wheat, or cannot afford to buy an iodine supplement, you are probably right.
However 1 cup of milk has more iodine than 1/4 teaspoon of iodized salt, 1 egg has half as much, and two slices of enriched wheat bread has three times as much.
Also, a typical kelp supplement has way more than the RDV, in a single pill.
strokirk
Which?
cogman10
Primarily seafood.
You can get it from a lot of other places, but they are unreliable. Plants grown in iodine rich soil will have iodine, but good luck identifying that.
I use iodized salt because I don't love the alternatives.
carlmr
Seaweed has plenty of iodine
helpfulContrib
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jcarrano
We have sugar-free sweets, alcohol-free beer, tobacco-free cigarettes (vapes), THC-free weed, oil-free fryers and now salt-free saltiness.
coffeebeqn
What a time to be alive! Honestly though none of these products appeal to me at all. It’s like the thing without the thing that makes it enjoyable. Except air fryers since the foods do still have some fat naturally
f1shy
Lactose and gluten free also…
All foods which say “X free” take care of not saying what DOES is inside…
throwawaybbq1
My taste buds have become extremely muted after covid bouts and other sinus issues. Wonder if this would be helpful.
j_bum
How about a fork, actually made of salt [0]?
surfingdino
I think we are witnessing ascent of the new Dyson of kitchen utensils.
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0xDEADFED5
I read about this the other day. The main thing I remember was the weird grip required...a fist grip? I'd be curious to hear more about that aspect...
LWIRVoltage
It's going to be because it needs a complete circuit. (and firm contact with the handle where there will be another 'electrode'
This sounds exactly like (for example) electric shock gag pens and other things that attempt to emit a charge - A lot of electrical devices need a complete circuit- and so the circuit needs to be complete. For what this device is doing with moving ions, it probably needs the circuit- I don't know that the few devices out there that emit power without that sort of circuit could accomplish the same.
metalman
speaking as a health conscious foodie ,with gagetaholism, this will press all of my "got to have the shiny thing" buttons, in an upscale retail enviroment a version built right into a bowl would be the way to intruduce it into resturaunts and build retail demand in places big on soup, Vietnam....china
fullspectrumdev
That’s actually a pretty solid idea, I wonder if it would work in a bowl format…
> especially relevant in Japan, where the country’s adult population eats more than double the World Health Organization’s recommended intake
Japan is also the country with the second highest life expectancy in the world. Is salt really that bad? How long would they live if they followed WHO's recommendations?