Electric chopsticks could make food healthier

Scientists have developed a utensil which could make a meal taste saltier or sweeter without any alteration to the food whatsoever.

Takeaways and ready meals could use the special chopsticks which send small electrical pulses through them to the tongue, to simulate the taste of salt.

The reduction of salt in food could help decrease the chance of heart disease or a stroke.

The chopsticks were invented by Nimesha Ranasinghe, who developed his idea by getting people to eat unsalted mashed potatoes with the chopsticks, which have electrodes embedded in the tip.

He hopes that the technology could one day let people alter the flavour of their food while sticking to a healthy diet.

He said: "The flavour would be external to whatever you're consuming."

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