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Salt is an essential ingredient in the kimchi fermentation process. Solar salt has antioxidant, anti-cancer, and anti-obesity properties. The aim of this study was to determine the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of solar salt brined kimchi. Purified salt (PS), dehydrated solar salt (DSS), 1-year aged solar salt (SS1), and 3-years aged solar salt (SS3) were investigated. Anti-inflammatory effects were determined by analyzing cytotoxicity, nitric oxide (NO) production, and inflammation-related gene expression in lipopolysaccharide-treated RAW264.7 cells. Antioxidant activities of DSS, SS1, and SS3 were higher than that of PS. Solar salt significantly inhibited NO production with low cytotoxicity and decreased inflammation-related gene expression. Kimchi containing solar salt (DSSK, SS1K, and SS3K) showed higher antioxidant activity than PSK. Additionally, DSSK, SS1K, and SS3K significantly inhibited NO production and decreased the expression of inflammation-related genes. Owing to the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, using solar salt in kimchi preparation could have potential health benefits., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors declare that they do not have any conflict of interest., (© The Korean Society of Food Science and Technology 2022, Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)

Food fraud, including adulteration, addition, tampering, and misrepresentation of food ingredients and packaging for improper economic profit, has been global concerns affecting public health and safety. In South Korea, counterfeit expression of solar salt has been a problem causing improper economic profit, especially for those products produced from China, but labeled as 'domestics'. In this study, we were tried to discriminate geographical origins of solar salt between South Korea and China through various analytical techniques, the determination of moisture and sodium chloride contents, multi-elemental analysis, and isotope analysis. With the application of a statistical analysis, more than 93.3% of discrimination capability of positive classification was achieved in this study., (© The Korean Society of Food Science and Technology 2019.)

Kimchi was prepared with different types of salts: purified salt (PS), solar salt aged for 1 year (SS1), aged for 3 years (SS3), and bamboo salt (BS). Kimchi inoculated with Leuconostoc mesenteroides P30 (starter kimchi), and control kimchi (non-starter kimchi) were prepared, and stored at - 1 °C for 20 weeks. Titratable acidity values increased slowly and reached 0.96-1.01% (pH 3.73-3.83) at 20 weeks. Proportions of coccus-type lactic acid bacteria (LAB) among total LAB were higher in SS kimchi than PS kimchi. Among non-starter kimchi, the proportions were 44.7, 41.6, 29.7, and 32.1% for SS3, SS1, BS, and PS kimchi, respectively, at 2 weeks, and 11.5, 12.8, 6.7, and 5.8%, respectively, at 20 weeks. SS kimchi had much less yeast counts than PS kimchi. Among starter kimchi, yeasts were detected from PS kimchi at 10 weeks but not detected until 18 weeks from SS1 and BS kimchi and 20 weeks from SS3 kimchi., Competing Interests: Compliance with ethical standardsThe authors declare no conflict of interest.