Irish people love their salt - but health risks mean we should reduce our intake, writes Alison Healy
WE ARE a salty nation. We love our bacon and sausages. We eat salted butter where other countries use unsalted butter. And we are the most likely customers to ask "where's the salt cellar?" when we eat in restaurants abroad.
We should be eating less than a teaspoon, or 6g of salt, a day, but we actually consume 10g. Too much salt causes blood pressure to rise, which in turn is a key factor in heart disease, stroke and related diseases.
Last week the Food Safety Authority published an update on how the food industry is meeting targets on reducing salt. While there had been a 7 per cent reduction in salt content in processed food in a four-year period, the authority conceded that it would not meet its 6g/day target by 2010.
With some manufacturers saying they have reduced salt as much as possible, the ball is now back in the consumers' court.
So what are consumers doing? Chef Neven Maguire of McNean's Bistro in Co Cavan regularly sees people automatically reaching for the salt cellar before they even taste a dish.
But while he encourages people to reduce their salt intake, he draws the line at removing salt cellars from his restaurant tables.
"That can be a little pretentious, if chefs think they have seasoned food properly and nothing should be added," he says. "The customers should have the choice."
Instead, the chef promotes the use of fresh herbs such as rosemary and thyme to provide a healthier flavour. "And if you are marinating something, use a low-salt soya sauce," he advises. "There is no need to season with salt when you have all the flavours of a stir fry."
The use of ingredients such as sweet chillies also adds flavour to dishes without adverse health effects, he says.
The Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute highlights the obvious danger foods such as ham, sausages and smoked fish, but also the less obvious ones such as instant soups, gravy powder, stock cubes and soy and Teriyaki sauce.
The institute's spokeswoman, Margot Brennan, recommends using alternative flavourings such as black pepper, herbs, spices and lemon juice.
She also advises checking the ingredient labels for hidden salt. Most foods are labelled with the amount of sodium rather than salt, which is confusing. To convert sodium to salt, you must multiply by 2.5.
Sodium-containing ingredients include baking soda, baking powder, brine, monosodium glutamate, sodium caseinate and sodium nitrate.
Dr Mary Flynn, chief specialist in public health nutrition at the Food Safety Authority, says the listing of sodium, rather than salt, confuses people when they are trying to calculate their daily intake.
"Having to multiply by 2.5 is not helpful," she says. But new EU labelling legislation is being prepared which will force manufacturers to list salt, rather than sodium content, on labels.
The process is slow, but, by 2010, the word salt rather than sodium will be much more common on labels.
Flynn points out that salt added during home cooking, or at the table, accounts for only about 20 per cent of salt intake, so people should pay more attention to food labels.
Processed meats and bread account for half of our salt intake from foods. Bread makers have reduced salt content by at least 10 per cent in the past four years, under the Food Safety Authority's salt-reduction programme. And the salt content of sausages has reduced by 11 per cent in the past three years.
Flynn highlights foods such as cheese, kippers, nuts, olives and yeast bread as being high in salt, but stresses that it's all about balance. "Tinned fish in brine is high in salt but it's also good for you so use your common sense and don't add salt to tinned fish. If you are having an egg with bacon, don't add salt to the egg - there's enough salt in the bacon."
And while people may think that rock salt or sea salt is better than table salt, Flynn says this is a myth. Saxa table salt contains 38.9g of sodium per 100g, while Maldon's Tidman rock salt contains 39g.
But if you really feel the need to add a pinch of salt to that packet of chips, then opt for the salt substitutes, she advises.
Original Lo Salt contains 13.1g of sodium per 100g while Saxa's So-Low contains 19g.
Flynn advises against seasoning children's food, as our taste buds become less acute as we age, so what we perceive to be bland could be full of flavour for a baby. "We have huge control over how our children's taste buds develop. If you expose your child to salty foods, your child will react to salt withdrawal," she says.
Mary Wallace, the Minister of State with responsibility for health promotion, believes we can retrain our taste buds to enjoy food without salt.
"Research shows that the sensitivity of the salt taste receptors in the mouth depends on an individual's habitual salt intake and, once intake has been reduced for a month or more, highly salted food becomes distasteful," she says.
The stakes are high. Heart disease and related diseases are the single highest cause of death in this State, accounting for about 41 per cent of all deaths.
"If everyone in Ireland reduced their salt intake by a half teaspoon, we could prevent about 900 deaths each year from these diseases," Wallace says.
The Food Safety Authority is seeking the public's views on proposed EU food labelling legislation before Friday, September 19th. See www.fsai.ie. The FSAI advice line is 1890 336677