The salt added to our foods is killing us

Introduction

Our ancestors developed a taste for salt because they once lived in an environment deficient in salt. That time is long gone. Adding more than a hundred times as much salt as occurs naturally in foods is undesirable and immoral.

Why do they add salt

Sodium levels in products

Obviously there is a huge selection of prepared foods available, I have only listed a few that I had readily available to me. There is far more salt than is healthy in many of these foods, however the salt levels are not so consistantly high as is the case for bread.

The products in each class are arranged alphabetically.

Canned foods (and similar foods in jars)

Sodium and potassium content (milligrams per 100 grams, mg/100g)

Miscellaneous foods

Sodium and potassium content (milligrams per 100 grams, mg/100g)

Who is responsible?

The food retailers have a responsibility to stock low salt foods for those customers intelligent enough to look for healthy alternatives; but again, they cannot be expected to stock a lot of foods that very few people will buy.

Politicians and governments are in a position to legislate limits to the amount of salt in foods, but they do not. They have the ultimate responsibility for many of the unnecessary deaths caused by cardiovascular diseases.

Consumers should take responsibility for their own welfare; but how can consumers eat healthy, low salt, foods when it is often impossible to buy such foods; consider bread in particular (see How much salt is in your bread?); it seems to be impossible to buy low salt bread or even low salt bread making mix. Many people lead lives in which they have little time to fully prepare their own food; they are forced by circumstances to buy prepared foods. Such people would find it very difficult to properly limit the amount of salt in their diet.

The ethics of adding salt to foods

The food processors who add salt to their foods, in the knowledge that their actions cause those who consume the foods to face a greater likelihood of death, are committing a form of homocide. In particular, those who add high levels of salt to staple foods such as bread, and provide no low-salt varieties, are effectively forcing consumers to eat salt; those people who want to reduce their salt intake are deprived of that option. Beyond the culpability of the bread makers, the ethics of the matter become more complex.

A taste for salt Salt, or more accurately, the sodium and chlorine that are the constituents of salt, are necessary for health. However, like so many things, in excess sodium in particular is injurious to good health. I believe that our ancestors evolved a taste for salty foods because they at one time lived in an environment where salt was deficient. To maintain good health they had to seek out things that tasted salty. Modern humans, who have too much salt in our diets, still have that liking for the flavour of salt.

Consumers make the decision to buy particular breads based on several factors, among which are price and flavour; some consumers consider the healthiness of the foods, but few give this a high priority. In the box on the right I have touched on our liking for salty flavours. Salt is very cheap, adding salt to a food does not increase the cost of producing that food (in fact it probably marginally reduces the cost because it takes the place of some of the other components which are more expensive). So, food processors who wants to sell their products, and they all want to do that, add enough salt to their foods to optimise the flavour. Do they consider the ethical aspect of their action? Perhaps they do.

If any particular food processor was to stop adding salt to his foods the customers would find the flavour less appealing and would probably buy competing brands. (This ethical dilemma, in which it is the least ethical who best prosper, is called The Tragedy of the Commons, it is the same problem that stops individual nations from unilatarily reducing their greenhouse emissions.) So if there ever were any food processors sufficiently ethical to refrain from adding salt to their foods they would have put themselves out of business and would now be long gone!

Food processors could act together to reduce the amount of salt in our diets, but this becomes very complicated in the global market that now exists. In the case of a staple food like bread, very little of which is imported, multilateral action is possible and some progress is taking place, although it is far too little.

In the absence of action from the food industry one must ask whether government has a moral responsibility to act. It would not be difficult for government to place limits on the amount of sodium that any foods sold in Australia may contain; different limits might well be needed for different foods. But the right of people to eat high-salt foods if they desire to do so must be considered. An approach similar to that taken with the tobacco industry could be appropriate; allow the production and marketing of unhealthy high-salt foods, but discourage their consumption by limitations on advertising and conspicuous labelling with health warnings.

People have the right to eat high-salt foods if they choose to, but they also have a right to minimise the amount of salt in their diets. At the present, there are often no low-salt products available; this is especially so in the case of bread, a staple in the Western diet.

Dietary salt and soil

In small towns and rural areas people dispose of their blackwater (water from lavatories) together with their greywater via septic tanks into the soil. In addition to this it is becoming increasingly common for sewage water from cities and towns, after processing, to be used for irrigation. High dietary sodium levels result in high levels of sodium in sewage and this becomes a problem in making soils sodic.

What's happening in other coutries?

USA

The American Medical Association has asked the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the amount of salt that food manufacturers can put in their products. Specifically, the AMA wants the FDA to withdraw salt from the list of foods that are "generally recognized as safe." In its recommendations, the AMA called for a "50 percent reduction in sodium in processed foods, fast food products, and restaurant meals to be achieved over the next decade."

UK

Research and links

AWASH, Australian Division of World Action on Salt and Health – a very informative site.

AFN (Aus Food News) carried a very relevant article: "Reducing salt in bread could reduce heart attacks and stroke" on 23 Feb. 2010.

foodandhealth.communications, a US site, states that "The average American consumes about 4000 to 5000 mg of sodium per day or about 10-12.5 grammes of salt." It also says that "a safe minimum intake might be set at 500 mg/day". (sodium). The site states that "The vast majority of the scientific evidence indites excess dietary salt as the single most important factor contributing to the development of hypertension" (hypertension is high blood pressure).

The Heart Foundation has a lot of information on salt in diet and its effect on health. (The Heart Foundation reported that there has been a 10% reduction in salt consumption in Britain and this has 'saved more than 6000 lives a year'. If the population of Australia is 1/3 that of britain then it would follow that a similar 10% reduction in Australia would save more than 2000 lives per year in Australia.)

The George Institute for International Health – "New research shows that more than 70% of processed meats, cheeses and sauces contain unacceptably high levels of salt in Australia", and lots of other relevant research. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published A systematic survey of the sodium contents of processed foods, from the George Institute, by Jacqueline L Webster, Elizabeth K Dunford and Bruce C Neal, in 2010.

Salt Matters is a site maintained by the Menzies Research Institute of the University of Tasmania. It makes interesting reading. It points out that human breast milk contains only 14mg/100g sodium, that salt "causes or aggravates over 20 salt-related health problems" and "at least 6 million Australians (half the adult population) have salt related health problems." It recomends choosing foods with sodium levels no more that 120mg/100g. (You will find few processed foods with sodium levels as low as that.)

Wikipedia has an article on salt and its health effects, discusses recommended intake of salt, and has a long list of links on the health effects of dietary salt.

Index of links within this page