Salt levels to be cut in hundreds of foods

Published on Monday 18 May 2009 22:02

LEVELS of salt in hundreds of products on shop shelves are to be slashed under new guidance announced yesterday.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) said the voluntary targets for manufacturers would cut the amount of salt in items such as bread, bacon, breakfast cereals and soup by 2012.

But the food industry warned the targets would be difficult to meet, affect the way products tasted and may not be possible without advances in processing techniques.

The FSA said reducing daily salt intake for adults to the recommended 6g could prevent 20,200 premature deaths a year from conditions caused by high blood pressure.

The latest evidence suggests average daily salt consumption stands at 8.6g a day – down from 9.5g in 2001 and 9g in 2007.

The FSA said since 2006, when it first introduced the salt targets for 2010, "considerable reductions" had been made by manufacturers and retailers. However, it said there was variation between products and scope for more to be done.

The new targets cover 80 categories of common foods. They include a 25 per cent reduction in salt in burgers, from 1g per 100g of food in the 2010 target to 0.75g by 2012. Manufacturers are also being urged to cut salt in breakfast cereals from 0.8g per 100g to 0.68g.

The target for bread will also drop from 1.1g to 1g. The FSA had wanted further cuts for bread, but its consultation found that these would not be achievable by the industry by 2012.

Industry bodies said they would try to work to further reduce salt levels. Julian Hunt, of the Food and Drink Federation, said: "In some circumstances, further significant salt reductions will not be possible until new, innovative technologies, processing techniques and ingredient solutions are developed."

Campaign group Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) welcomed the move. Chairman Professor Graham MacGregor said:

"Bread accounts for a fifth of all the salt we eat in the UK, and ham and bacon 8 per cent, so it is vital that the salt content of these foods is reduced if we are to save the maximum number of lives."

Best way to reduce intake is at source

SALTINESS is one of the tastes that it is easiest to wean yourself off, writes Carina Norris.

If I now have vegetables which have salt in I really notice that it tastes strange.

It is a good idea for food companies to be reducing salt levels further, particularly as people get most of their salt from manufactured foods – sometimes as much as 75 per cent. Until pressure was put on manufacturers to reduce salt, consumers were pretty much helpless in tackling the major part of their salt intake.

Although they could stop adding salt to their own cooking, much of the food they bought would probably already have salt added.

Tackling this at the manufacturing level is the best way to reduce people's salt intake because in the world we live in today so much of what we eat is processed and not cooked from scratch.

I don't think people will notice their food is becoming less salty. The manufacturers have been quietly reducing salt in recent years.

&#149 Carina Norris is a nutritionist based in Fife.