| |
Individual food manufactures cannot realistically be expected to greatly
reduce the amount of salt they add to our foods
(see ethics below), but
they could act multilaterally.
They could accept that they have a moral responsibility to produce more
healthy foods and act together to achieve progress.
|
|
The
food manufacturers must take a large part of the
responsibility, it is
they who add the salt to our foods; but they
can rightly claim that to not add salt would be commercial suicide;
salt sells food, any manufacturer who reduces the amount of salt that
he adds risks reducing his market share.
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 salt that food processors add to our foods eventually kills many of
the people who eat those foods.
This seems a strong statement, but there is strong evidence to back it up;
British research reported by the Australian Heart Foundation indicated
that a 10% reduction of salt in British diets saved 6000 lives each year.
(See
Research and links
for this and other relevant research).
I need hardly add that killing people without very good cause is considered
by most to be unethical.
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.
| |
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.
| |
Put very simply soil sodicity is to do with soil structure.
Too much sodium (in relation to calcium and magnesium) in clay –
and almost all soils contain at least some clay – makes the clay
impermeable to plant roots, nutrients and water, reduces the soil's
fertility, and makes it more prone to erosion.
|
|
The risk of making garden soil sodic by irrigating with greywater
(water from bathrooms and laundries) is well
known; there is often a high level of sodium in soap, shampoo and
laundry products, and when the greywater is used
continually on a garden for a long period the soil can become sodic.
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.
USA
The US
ABC reported...
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
A 10% reduction in salt intake has been achieved and a reduction in the
number of deaths caused by dietary salt of 6000 per year has been linked
to this reduction.
For links specific to salt in bread and bread-making-mix see my page
on
Salt in Bread.
Cochrane review: Reduced dietary salt for the prevention of
cardiovascular disease.
In a few words, the review finds the evidence unconvincing.
Cochrane review: Does altering dietary salt intake aid in the prevention
and treatment of diabetic kidney disease?
A quote:
"There is strong evidence that our current consumption of salt is a major
factor in increasing blood pressure (BP), whether BP levels are normal or
raised.
Diabetes makes it more likely to develop high BP, which increases the risk of
strokes, heart attacks and speeds up the progression of diabetic kidney
disease."
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.