Fast-food salt content varies by country: study
Campbell argued that it’s up to governments to rein in sodium levels in the food supply.
Companies, he said, answer to shareholders, and they are out to make the most profitable products. “The big issue here is not the companies. The big issue is the governments.”
A “structured, voluntary approach” - where the government works with industry to set lower salt targets - is probably the most feasible, Campbell said.
That’s the approach that’s been taken in the UK. In the U.S., New York City has led the way, coordinating the National Salt Reduction Initiative.
The NSRI is a coalition of local and state governments and health groups working with industry to cut sodium in packaged foods and restaurants. More than two dozen food companies, including Heinz, Kraft Foods and Starbucks, have signed on to meet certain salt-reduction targets.
“The (NSRI) has set targets for restaurant foods and we hope that other countries will follow a similar path,” Dunford said in an email.
The public, Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, said in an email, “needs to know that they don’t just ‘prefer’ higher salt levels; they only prefer higher salt levels because they are used to them.”
Despite the debate about the best method for reducing salt intake on a broad scale, all the experts suggest gradual changes. Diekman advocates teaching people to gradually decrease their salt intake so their palates can adjust to the change. Campbell believes companies should also progressively decrease salt content over several years so people may not notice the changes.
“Everyone can gradually get used to lower salt levels, come to prefer lower salt levels, and wind up with a far greater opportunity of loving foods - that love them back,” Katz said.
The Salt Institute, a North American non-profit trade organization, responded to the study by saying that taste preferences in different countries dictate how foods are made, meaning that salt, sugar and other ingredients will naturally vary.
Lowering salt content also “holds great risks for the public,” argued Morton Satin, the Salt Institute’s vice president of science and research. “The preponderance of peer-reviewed medical studies recently published, have cautioned against population-wide salt reduction, including the latest one demonstrating that anyone who follows the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for sodium will end up with a highly unbalanced and nutritionally inadequate diet.”
The National Restaurant Association said in a statement that restaurants are attempting to reduce sodium content in their foods.
Exactly what such efforts will do for public health is not clear yet.
Cutting down on salt is known to help lower blood pressure. And many experts believe that wide-scale cutbacks on salt in the food supply will lower rates of heart disease and stroke. The WHO lists salt reduction as one of its top 10 “best buys” for lowering rates of chronic disease.
IS LOWERING SALT ALWAYS GOOD?
Not everyone is convinced, though. A recent research review of 167 studies found that while salt reduction helped lower people’s blood pressure, it may also boost levels of certain hormones and blood fats that could be harmful to the heart.
None of the studies had long-term information on whether salt reduction actually prevented, or contributed to, heart attacks or strokes.
The review was published by the Cochrane Collaboration, an independent, international organization that evaluates medical research.
But Campbell pointed to some other figures.
A 2010 study in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that if Americans cut 3 grams of salt out of their daily diets - or 1,200 mg of sodium - it would save up to 92,000 lives each year. The typical U.S. man downs more than 10 grams of salt per day, while women average about 7 grams.