Oh, patents! At CES 2025 - Kirin electric salt

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

If you have to cut your salt intake for health reasons, and you are dissatisfied with the bland taste of low-sodium food, rejoice! The Kirin electric salt spoon, a CES 2025 Innovation Honoree in the Digital Health, Accessibility and AgeTech category, offered a solution with a gigantic inventive step.  

The electric salt spoon is brought to you by one of Japan’s top-ranking companies, the 150-year-old Japanese Kirin Brewery Co., now Kirin Holdings, in collaboration with the Japanese Meiji University, Miyashita Laboratory of Frontier Media Science, School of Interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences. The Kirin electric salt spoon replaces dietary salt by applying a patented electric current to the food in your mouth. 

Rest assured, however, that the device has been extensively tested for length and strength of stimulation, according to food type, to eliminate any potentially unbearable sensations. As a result, no worries about running an electric current on the food, in contact with your mouth. An electric current, called electric salt, since it is designed to provide the taste of saltiness, without any of the caveats associated with disobeying professional healthcare orders.

The Kirin electric salt spoon is recited in the European Patent, EP4389198A1, titled Taste presentation device and taste presentation method. A utility patent that discloses the invention, while also reciting all of the associated device-testing research, carried out at Japan’s Meiji University, Miyashita Laboratory. The patent was granted on June 26, 2024, to the Japanese inventors Ai Sato and Homei Miyashita.

The included patent Figure 1 depicts an embodiment of the electric salt invention, recited as the taste presentation device 10. Specifically, the Figure 1 unpacks the invention's components, comprising a first electrode 11, in contact with the user’s body 1, a second electrode 12, in contact with food or drink 2, and a device 13, designed to generate current between the two electrodes 11 and 12. 

More specifically, the Figure 1 depicts the first electrode 11, in contact with the user’s hand, which could instead be the user’s tongue; and the second electrode 12, on a muddler 3a, immersed in food or drink 2. A second electrode 12, on a muddler 3a, which could instead be a spoon, a fork, chopsticks, or even the whole bowl 3, containing the food or drink 2, a dish, a mug, a cup, a straw, etc., without departing from the scope of the invention. Indeed, as long as a current passes through the first electrode 11, in contact with the user’s body 1, and the second electrode 12, in contact with food or drink 2, users were found able to taste varying degrees of saltiness.

However, despite the recited scope of the electric salt invention, that could extend to chopsticks and bowls, a spoon was selected as the first marketed Kirin electric salt product. A selection that was based on survey research results. Results where respondents (29 out of N= 31) ranked ramen noodles and miso soup as the two food items in need of the strongest taste, and therefore as the top two items that needed to be experienced as delicious, when users had been prescribed a bland, low-sodium diet. Recited research results also indicated that the electric salt spoon use, intended to provide the prized strong taste of the two food items, varied according to participants, but all of them experienced increased saltiness.

The patent abstract of the invention is included below. An image of the marketed Kirin electric salt spoon, comprising the two electrodes and current generator with noise reduction unit, is also included above.

In a taste presentation device having a first electrode (11) and a second electrode (12) that are provided to allow an electric circuit to be formed between a food or drink to be taken by a user and a body of the user, and an electric stimulus generation unit (13) that supplies a current for generating an electric stimulation between the first electrode (11) and the second electrode (12), the electric stimulus generation unit (13) includes a noise reduction unit (17A, 17B) that reduces a noise component in the current. [Abstract - EP4389198A1]

References
CES 2025 Innovation Award Honoree
https://www.ces.tech/ces-innovation-awards/2025/electric-salt-spoon/
Kirin Electric salt spoon shop
https://electricsalt.shop.kirin.co.jp/
Kirin Staff (May 20, 2024). Kirin Holdings will begin online sales of "Electric Salt Spoon", a spoon that uses electricity to enhance salty and umami taste*1, on May 20.
https://www.kirinholdings.com/en/newsroom/release/2024/0520_01.html