Salt consumption in Britain is falling but still 50 per cent higher than advised, claims Food Standards Agency.

Salt consumption falling but still 50 per cent higher than advised

Extract:

"Salt consumption in Britain has dropped but is still on average 50 per cent higher than the recommended amount, new research claims. Tests on 1,287 adults showed their average salt intake was 9g per day compared to 9.5g when tests were done in 2001.

But consumption is still higher than the Government's national target of 6g per day, the Food Standards Agency said.

The urinary sodium tests carried out in 2005-06 showed men consumed an average 10.2g of salt per day compared to 11g in 2001.

Women's average intake was less at 7.6g per day - down from 8.1g in 2005/06.

The results follow a Food Standards Agency campaign encouraging people to cut their salt intake. The campaign warns that 75 per cent of salt eaten in Britain is found in processed food."

It is scandalous that successive governments and their negligent Departments of Health delayed until 2003 warning British citizens that salt intake could be too high and could cause serious illness and early death. AND THEY ARE STILL NOT TELLING PEOPLE THAT TO LOSE EXCESS WEIGHT THEY NEED TO REDUCE SALT/SODIUM INTAKE AND NOT REDUCE CALORIES, BECAUSE OBESITY IS CAUSED BY FLUID RETENTION, NOT BY EATING TOO MANY CALORIES. - I certainly do not believe that all the expensive government advisors are so ill-informed that they do not know this to be the case. I believe that the reason we are being constantly exhorted to eat less salt is in the pious hope that obesity will thereby be reduced - but will be attributed to an increase in exercise, about which we are also being constantly exhorted. 'Experts'on eating problems have a big eating problem of their own; they do not relish having to eat their own words. - They are hoping to get away with it - get away with not being forced to admit that their calorie and overeating claims of the past are not only needless and ineffective, but are also counter-productive - more likely to cause weight gain than weight loss in obese people, because eating insufficient calories causes increased water retention in the blood stream. And of course the ones who know the truth are hoping desperately to hide the truth so that they do not get sued by the thousands and thousands of innocent people who have been greatly harmed by the misinformation the 'experts' have been giving for many years. - If the truth were to be told - that to lose excess weight the calorie myth must be abandoned and the obese person needs to cut down seriously on salt/sodium intake - then obese people could concentrate on eating less sodium instead of wasting any more of their lives on the dangerous course of eating fewer calories than the body needs. - And they would rapidly and safely lose weight - without hunger, without drugs, without strenuous exercise and without fail.

1 Nutritional Aspects of Cardiovascular Disease 1994 This COMA report considered the evidence for a causal relationship between the consumption of sodium and both the level of blood pressure and the rise in blood pressure with age. A statement in the report said it recommended: "A reduction in the average intake of common salt (sodium chloride) by the adult population from the current level of about 9g/day to about 6g/day. There needs to be a gradual reduction in the amount of sodium from salt added to processed food and food manufacturers, caterers, and individuals should explore and grasp the opportunity for reducing the sodium content of foods and meals." The Chief Medical Officer at that time, accepted all the recommendations in this COMA report except for the recommendation to reduce salt. The reason for this is not clear but is believed to be pressure from industry. Department of Health (1994), "Nutritional Aspects of Cardiovascular Disease", HMSO, London.

2 Dietary Reference Values 1991 This COMA report considered that: "Current sodium intakes are needlessly high and we caution against any trend towards increased intakes". It set its recommended intake for salt, as with all the other recommended intakes for nutrients, on the basis of the balance of risks and benefits, which might practically be expected to occur. The RNI for a particular population group is defined as the amount of the nutrient that is enough or more than enough for about 97% of the people in this group. The Reference Nutrient Intake (RNI) for sodium for adults was set at 1600 mg/day. This is equivalent to approximately 4g of salt, if all the sodium was present in the diet as sodium chloride. This is considerably less than the present intake of 9-12g. Department of Health (1991), "Dietary Reference values for food, energy and nutrients for the United Kingdom", HMSO, London

I wonder why The Chief Medical Officer in the early '90s apparently did nothing to implement the recommendation of a maximum of 4g of salt a day, and apparently gave greater consideration to the desires of the food industry than to the health of the nation, and I wonder how many deaths and how much terrible suffering he was, therefore, personally responsible for? And I wonder why his successors in the post were so tardy in taking effective steps to give warnings about salt consumption? - Political considerations? - What though, could be more important in this matter than the health of the members of public - the electorate - the tax-payers, in fact?

I consider the failure to put pressure on food manufacturers and caterers to reduce the sodium content of foods and meals until recent times to be a dereliction of duty of successive political administrations and health departments. - I remember buying McCance and Widdowson's 'Composition of Foods' in the late '90s, at considerable cost, in order to discover how much sodium there was in food. There was no way consumers could get this information from the pack.

Here's a serious suggestion for the government: - put a punitive tax on table salt.

For fuller discussion on the political considerations that have caused the obesity epidemic you need to read the whole of page http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)