Health chief calls for drastic intervention to cut salt intake
A doctor has urged ministers to force food
firms to prominently display the salt content of their products in a bid
to reduce deaths from heart attacks and strokes.
All food stuffs should carry traffic-light-style labelling showing whether they have high, medium or low levels of salt to help shoppers make healthier choices, said the Dr.
Large amounts of salt can cause high blood pressure, the single biggest cause of heart attacks and strokes, which between them kill more people than anything else.
“There’s much, much more that can still be done to reduce salt in food. We’d be very supportive of labelling so people can easily see [salt content]. We support clear front-of-pack labelling using traffic lights, as it makes salt content clear,” the Dr. said.
Salt is already included alongside fat and sugar in the red, amber and green labels used by some supermarkets, but the Dr. believes its threat to health is so severe it needs to be highlighted separately.
Another expert attacked manufacturers for doing too little to strip salt from their products. “I’m concerned about food companies’ slow progress in meeting targets for salt reduction. They’ve not made the progress that was hoped for. People are still consuming too much salt. It’s around 8g a day per person when ideally it should be 6g. Too much salt means high blood pressure and more strokes and heart attacks.”
Salt levels in some foods have recently been reduced. For example, the Dr. said, bread now has 50% less salt. But he added: “We can take more salt out of food. We want to see a major effort by food manufacturers.”
Every 1g reduction in people’s average salt intake has been estimated to prevent 7,000 deaths a year from strokes and heart attacks – and save a lot of money for the government.
A professor of cardiovascular medicine backed the call for producers to be forced to display salt content as part of a new mandatory traffic light system. But he accused the government of doing far too little to ensure firms meet the 2014 targets and mistakenly relying on voluntary agreements.
All food stuffs should carry traffic-light-style labelling showing whether they have high, medium or low levels of salt to help shoppers make healthier choices, said the Dr.
Large amounts of salt can cause high blood pressure, the single biggest cause of heart attacks and strokes, which between them kill more people than anything else.
“There’s much, much more that can still be done to reduce salt in food. We’d be very supportive of labelling so people can easily see [salt content]. We support clear front-of-pack labelling using traffic lights, as it makes salt content clear,” the Dr. said.
Salt is already included alongside fat and sugar in the red, amber and green labels used by some supermarkets, but the Dr. believes its threat to health is so severe it needs to be highlighted separately.
Another expert attacked manufacturers for doing too little to strip salt from their products. “I’m concerned about food companies’ slow progress in meeting targets for salt reduction. They’ve not made the progress that was hoped for. People are still consuming too much salt. It’s around 8g a day per person when ideally it should be 6g. Too much salt means high blood pressure and more strokes and heart attacks.”
Salt levels in some foods have recently been reduced. For example, the Dr. said, bread now has 50% less salt. But he added: “We can take more salt out of food. We want to see a major effort by food manufacturers.”
Every 1g reduction in people’s average salt intake has been estimated to prevent 7,000 deaths a year from strokes and heart attacks – and save a lot of money for the government.
A professor of cardiovascular medicine backed the call for producers to be forced to display salt content as part of a new mandatory traffic light system. But he accused the government of doing far too little to ensure firms meet the 2014 targets and mistakenly relying on voluntary agreements.
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Labels: cut salt, deaths, heart attacks, High BP, reduce, strokes
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