Stroke Foundation of New Zealand

Salt Reduction Campaign FAST Campaign

Salt Assault

Think of a deadly white chemical and salt would probably not feature in your top five. Time to think again. Salt is receiving increasing attention from health professionals in New Zealand and around the world. But why? What’s wrong with the extra splash of salt across my fish and chips? What dangerous substance is lurking inside that pie or loaf of bread? In a word, ‘sodium’. Read More...

Too much sodium raises the blood pressure, and raised blood pressure increases the risk of stroke and heart attack. In fact, high blood pressure is one of the leading causes of preventable death. One way of significantly reducing blood pressure is to reduce sodium intake.

Exactly how sodium contributes to a rise in blood pressure is not clear. The kidney seems unable to cope with increased levels of sodium so leaves it in the bloodstream where it can cause havoc. But whatever the cause, medical specialists are unified in their cry to reduce salt intake to improve the future health of many New Zealanders.

New Zealanders consume an average of 9 grams (9000mg) of salt a day. One teaspoon of salt is about 2g of sodium. The World Health Organisation recommends an intake limit of between 3g to 6g a day depending on body mass.

According to Stroke Foundation of NZ Medical Adviser, Dr Harry McNaughton, a small reduction in salt intake can make a large difference to future health prospects. “If you make regular reductions to your salt intake by between 3-5 percent - you won’t even taste the difference,” says Dr McNaughton. “And if you keep doing this over a number of months, your salt intake will have greatly reduced and this can lower your blood pressure dramatically.”

Dr McNaughton would like to see recommendations from the Ministry of Health to encourage food manufacturers and restaurants to modify their current practices of adding unhealthy amounts of sodium to their products: “any serious attempt to reduce salt intake must address the use of salt by industry as an additive in processed foods.”

Part of the problem is you cannot even taste most of the salt in processed foods. According to Samantha Heller, senior clinical nutritionist at New York University Medical Centre in New York City: “high sodium foods do not necessarily taste salty, because sodium is used not just for taste but as a preservative, flavour enhancer and for texture.”

A quick look at the dietary information on most processed foods reveals some amazingly high sodium levels. Just one cup of canned soup can contain more than 50 percent of the recommended sodium daily intake. A serving of some menu items in a restaurant can put a diner over their recommended intake in just one meal.

A loaf of bread, pack of cereal or can of baked beans indicates just how dangerously high sodium and carbohydrate levels are in many processed foods (see table). These examples stress the importance of a national reduction in the amount of sodium in processed and restaurant foods.

Sodium intake in New Zealand

Most Nzers consume an average 9grams of salt a day – this is about 3.6g of sodium. This intake needs to be reduced by at least 50 per cent.
Most of someone’s sodium intake comes in hidden forms by way of processed or manufactured foods – with about 15% added by way of home cooking or salt shaker.
Foods in NZ that contribute a large amount of sodium include: bread, butter, cheese, biscuits, canned fish, processed meats, some breakfast cereals, most take-away food, most sauces and most canned or processed food.
The change in blood pressure for any given amount of sodium consumption depends on the person’s age and existing blood pressure. Blood pressure decreases from reducing salt intake are greater for those who are older and have higher existing blood pressure.
Reducing sodium intake should be one part of a wider strategy of lowering blood pressure – sodium is not the only contributor.

Who Put the Salt in my Cornflakes?

How much sodium is in salt? It is complex, and needs to be made simple by food manufacturers. Let’s look at Skippy Cornflakes for example: 900mg of sodium in a 300g pack means there is 2700mg (2.7g) of sodium in that pack. Multiply this amount of sodium by about 2.5 and you get the approximate amount of salt content in that pack. In the case of Skippy cornflakes, some 6g of salt! This is about three teaspoons of salt in a pack (ie a teaspoon is about 2g of salt). Ouch!

The Salt Content of Your Food - Click to View >

Some Cereal Brands	Sodium/100g @ 5/2007
Sanitarium Skippy Cornflakes 300g	920mg
Kelloggs Special K	536mg
Kellogg’s All Bran 350g	380mg
Hubbard’s Light & Right 525g	330mg
Pam’s Fruit & Fibre	311mg
Sanitarium Weetbix 375g	280mg
Sanitarium Simply Natural 750g	78mg
Hubbards Thank Goodness 400g	52mg
Pam’s Toasted Breakfast Muesli 750g	42mg
Kelloggs Just Right 560g	30mg
Sanitarium Honey Puffs 250g	6mg

Some Bread Brands	Sodium/100g @ 5/2007
Nature’s Fresh White Sandwich 700g	545mg
Pam’s White 700g	538mg
Budget White Toast 600g	537mg
Freya’s Traditional White 750g	530mg
Nature’s Fresh Multigrain Toast 700g	530mg
McKenzie HC Southern Grain 800g	525mg
Freya’s Multigrain 750g	515mg
Country Split 450g	515mg
Ploughmans Barley & Sunflower 750g	510mg
Pam’s Multigrain 700g	500mg
Simply Organic 700g	450mg
Molenberg Balance “67 calories a slice”	450mg
Vogels Original Mixed Grain 750g	425mg
Molenberg Complete 700g	410mg
Spicy fruit loaf 500g	360mg
Burgen Barley & Sunflower 700g	320mg

Random Food Items	Sod/100g @ 5/2007
Watties Baked Beans with sausages 300g	470mg
Watties Baked Beans 300g	333.3mg
Oak Cream of Corn 410g	135mg
Griffins Vanilla Wine 250g	120mg

Salt Assault: What should we do?

Resist adding salt to foods and only puchase salt-free canned goods. Since most salt comes from processed foods, breads and canned goods, it should not be that hard to avoid added sodium. But what if you truly crave salt?

Dr Fuhrman gives this advice from Eat to Live,

“If you desire to salt your food, do so only when it is on the table and you are ready to eat it. It will taste saltier if the salt is right on the surface of the food. You can add lots of salt and hardly taste it if the salt is added to the vegetables or soup while they are cooking. Condiments such as tomato sauce and so on are often very high in sodium, so either resist them or use them sparingly.

“If you don’t use salt, your taste buds adjust over time and your sensitivity to salt taste increases. In fact, by reducing salt your taste sensitivity to all unprocessed foods will increase. You will taste flavour subtleties in fruits and vegetables.”

Salt in America

The American Medical Association (AMA) has recommended the following:

the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should revoke the "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) status of salt and to develop regulatory measures to limit sodium in processed and restaurant foods;
a minimum 50 percent reduction in the amount of sodium in processed foods, fast food products and restaurant meals to be achieved over the next decade;
work with appropriate partners to educate consumers about the benefits of long-term, moderate reductions in sodium intake;
discuss with the FDA ways to improve labeling to assist consumers in understanding the amount of sodium contained in processed food products and to develop label markings and warnings for foods high in sodium.

Medical experts in New Zealand endorse these recommendations and want them to be accepted here too.

Stroke Foundation of N.Z. Inc (National office)
P O Box 12482
L1, Federation House
95-99 Molesworth Street
WELLINGTON
Tel: 04 472 8099
0800 STROKE (0800 78 76 53)
E-mail: strokenz@stroke.org.nz

© 2007 New Zealand Stroke Foundation Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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