Drop the Salt

Drop the Salt!

World Salt Awareness Week is the first week of February. This year World Action on Salt and Health have announced that the theme is Salt and Eating Out.

Food industry strategy:

AWASH will be tackling salt levels in snacks and meals eaten outside of the home as part of our strategy to work with the food industry to reduce salt in foods, they want to particularly focus on bread, processed meat and fast food. Meetings have recently been held with Sanitarium, Hans, George Weston Foods, Woolworths and Subway to discuss implementation of the strategy.

Salt in children's foods:

As part of the food industry strategy, AWASH has recently undertaken a project looking at the salt levels of foods from six major fast food chains in Australia. This found that some meals contained over the daily recommended maximum amount of salt for adults. What's more, some meals marketed to children contained over three grams of salt. This goes some way towards explaining the worrying findings of the recently released Australian National Children's Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey which showed boys are eating up to over nine grams of salt each day, and girls up to over six grams! The report also showed that only 2% of children aged 14-16 were eating the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables.

Sausage Sizzle:

One sausage sandwich at your local barbecue could contain up to six grams of salt; 100% of the daily recommended upper level of intake for adults, and double that for children.

It is widely known that a low salt diet can help reduce blood pressure. However, more and more research is showing that a low salt diet can have benefits that extend beyond cardiovascular health. A recent study, from the June issue of Hypertension, found that even people with normal blood pressure levels had adverse cardiovascular effects when they consumed a large amount of salt.

AWASH
Don't forget that the success of the Drop the Salt! campaign depends on widespread support from all stakeholders including consumers, industry, government and other interested groups. If you support AWASH's mission and goals, why not sign on to become a supporter? Becoming an AWASH supporter is free. For more information, or to sign up as a supporter, visit: http://www.awash.org.au/about_supporters.html.