Quality changes due to refrigerated storage in a traditional dry-cured pork belly salted with glasswort or KCl as partial substitutes for NaCl.

Background: Glasswort represents a novel alternative to KCl for replacing sodium in meat products. To evaluate the effects of Na reduction on the quality changes of a traditional dry cured belly due to storage, fresh bellies were dry-salted with 2% NaCl (BCON), with 2% of a mixture containing 50% NaCl and 50% KCl (BKCl) or with 1% of a mixture of 90% NaCl and 10% powdered glasswort (BGW), dry-cured, sliced, vacuum packaged and stored under refrigeration for 60 days.

Results: The BKCl and BGW bellies were lower in sodium by one-third to one-half compared to BCON (with 1.