'HEALTHY EATING CAMPAIGN'
THE FOOD STANDARDS AGENCY 2005 - 2010
‘INTRODUCTION’
On your behalf I have attended a conference at Denman College. It was part of the campaign for healthy eating run by the F.S.A. The F.S.A., or Food Standards Agency, is an independent government body empowered to promote the benefits of a healthier diet to us all. Over the next five years, the length of time that the campaign will run, the F.S.A. will address several relevant issues such as:
-• Food Labelling 2006
• Energy (sugar) 2006
• Micro-nutrients 2007
• School meals
• Whole school approach
The F.S.A. hope that we at the W.l. will become involved in the campaign, initially to lower the salt content in our
diet, in a number of ways. Individually we can change both our own and our families dietary habits. As a W.l. member we can encourage our fellow members to spread the message that a healthy diet may help lower high blood pressure and thereby decrease the incidence of both stroke and cardiovascular disease. We can also lobby both food manufacturers and shops to provide low salt, low sugar and low saturated fat alternatives to the products we normally purchase. At the present time approximately 75% of the salt we eat is added during the manufacture of processed foods.
However, this is a long campaign and the F.S.A. are encouraging everyone to make small, moderate changes to their diet over the
next five years. Small changes to all aspects of our diet can have quite dramatic effects although no one should make any changes without consulting their GP. Help will be available both from the F.S.A. (the web site address is www.salt.gov.uk ) and from the Federation. There will be articles in future issues of the ‘Essex News’, including one concerning the amount of salt in our diets and how to reduce it. We also hope to have a stand at the County Annual Meeting in March 2006 and occasional items on the Federation Web site. For those eager to get started I suggest simply removing the salt cellar from the dining table, or for the more devious amongst you, making the salt damp or adding white nee to the salt so that the amount of salt actually reaching the plate is reduced!
‘PART 1- SALT’
Have you tried reducing the amount of salt in your diet yet? The average salt intake per day per adult in the U.K. is around nine grams and rising. We do not actually need added salt in our diets, except under extreme circumstances, as salt is found naturally in many of the foods we eat as well as in the water we drink. Excessive and prolonged salt intake has been linked with an increase in cardio-vascular disease — high blood pressure, stroke and heart attack, so it seems sensible to reduce our intake from nine grams a day to the recommended level of six grams a day.
How are we going to do this? First, I would suggest that you spend a few days actually counting the amount of salt intake in your diet and this means reading the labels on your food and that means EVERY label. For instance, the chocolate bar that I ate when the kitchens at Denman were carrying the good eating’ programme a tad too far contained salt but the crisps I had did not. Even then the labels can be misleading. It is the sodium part of salt that may cause health problems. Manufacturers have noted this and some labels list sodium content instead of the salt content, perhaps because it is a smaller figure but it is our total salt intake that the guidelines say we need to reduce. To turn the sodium figure on a label into a salt figure you need to do the following calculation: -
Number of grams of sodium times 2.5 = number of grams of salt
Example: — 1.0 gram of sodium = 2.5 grams of salt
So what we need are a few tips to start the salt reduction process. Hopefully you will already have taken the salt cellar off of the table but if not you could always re-fill it with ‘Lo-salt’ which replaces two thirds of the sodium with potassium.
You could also: -
• Choose low salt options when you buy pre-packaged food
• Stop adding salt when you cook vegetables or use ‘Lo-salt’
• Reduce the amount of salt you use when baking
A word of warning - some foods, such as bread, rely on salt as part of the chemical process that occurs during their cooking so you Will need to experiment. Also, remember to consult your GP before making changes to your diet especially if you are taking medication.
S. Tyler-Damon
Board of Trustees