Breakfast cereals, salt and the FSA.

Several of the UK’s biggest cereal manufacturers, including Kellogg, Weetabix and Cereal Partners, have called an urgent meeting with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) this week in an attempt to halt an impending ad campaign highlighting the salt levels of cereal. Obviously cereal isnt the only source of salt in the diet and in fact cereal brands have lowered salt levels in their products by an average of 44% since 1998 and now contribute less than 5% of salt to the diet of the UK population.

When it comes to listing the elements in food that can cause ill health, the usual suspects are fat, sugar and salt. In the case of fat and sugar, I believe that we have a vague understanding of how they could be harmful, ranging ‘makes you fat’ to ‘rots your teeth’, but when it comes to salt, I find that people are unclear as to why it must be limited.

We do need a little salt in the diet, but what we need is found naturally in fresh produce and grains, so it is highly unlikely that you ever would ever need to make an effort to include salt in the diet.
Salt itself is not always listed as an ingredient in foods, but instead, the sodium content is stated. However, the two are not exactly equal and thus food labelling can add to the general confusion that surrounds salt. In order to discover how much salt is in any one food item, you have to multiply the sodium content by 2.5. So if the label states that there are 2g of sodium per 100g, the salt content is 2 x 2.5, or 5 g of salt per 100g of weight. As the recommended maximum salt intake is 6g per day such a product would supply the majority of what you should be having. It is estimated that the average Brit gets 9g per day, or 50% more than is recommended. Roughly 80% of this is likely to come from processed food, and its not just the savoury foods that have salt in their recipe. Confectionery and cakes also contain salt, so any pre-made food is a source. This will include restaurant food at all levels, so its easy to exceed the 6g maximum even if you eat at the best places every day.

So what’s wrong with salt anyway? Sodium has a number of roles in the body, primarily linked to the way that our cells function and works in conjunction with another mineral derived electrolyte, potassium. In the fluids that fill our body, sodium levels are in a higher concentration outside each cell, whilst levels of potassium are more concentrated inside the cell. This imbalance between sodium and potassium creates the flow of fluid into and out of each cell and this is critical for the correct functioning of muscle contraction, the action of the heart and also efficient nerve transmission.

If excess sodium is detected, various mechanisms counteract this by excreting more water in which it is held. This in turn will affect the water volume in the blood through the action of ADH, anti-diuretic hormone, affecting viscosity which increases blood pressure. The problem is compounded as the heart muscle will try and oppose the ADH, leading to further excretion of water. In short, blood becomes thicker and thus the pressure required to pump it around the cardiovascular system has to be increased. As raised blood pressure, or hypertension, is a significant factor in the cardiovascular disease, so excess salt can contribute to the most common cause of death in the UK.

Salt is not the only influence on blood pressure – fluid intake, exercise, stress and caffeine intake also play a role, something that the salty industry are keen to point out but even with regular exercise, plenty of water intake and a stress free life, ones salt intake has to be limited.

It must be remembered that salt brings out the flavour of food, so is used in food manufacture to enhance our enjoyment ( oh yes, that makes us buy more too ). But why is that some people seem to like food to be salty, others seem more sensitive to it and will often complain that food is too salty? One theory is linked to the optimum functioning of the taste receptors on the tongue, and it has been suggested that as these require the mineral zinc to work well, are the salt fiends amongst us deficient in zinc? If you like your food salty, then try this simple test. Avoid all added salt for two weeks, and at the same time take a zinc supplement, preferably zinc citrate, at no more than 15mg a day. This should help the taste buds become more responsive. After two weeks, eat something that you usually eat, whether its bag of crisps or simply adding a sprinkle of table salt to your meal, and the chances are that you will be shocked at how much saltier the food now tastes. Hopefully this mild aversion therapy will go some way to reducing your salt intake.

Of the three main elements that I advise clients to avoid, namely saturated fats, refined sugars and salt, it must be remembered that these are more often than not found in pre-packaged food. It may not be especially practical to avoid pre-made or convenience food all the time, but having it sparingly, when there really is no other choice, has to be the easiest way to improve any diet.

Health claims, the EFSA and Sunday Times.

I rarely read the mainstream Sunday papers as I find that they are a little too rich in fluff for my liking. However I did flick through the Sunday Times yesterday and came across a story that suggested that health claims made about food were being rejected by the European Food Standards Agency ( EFSA). The piece was written using the sort of language that one might associate with a tabloid rather than a broadsheet – words like ‘bamboozled’, ‘exposed’ and ‘purport’ were used which implies that the manufacturers are trying to pull a fast one on a trusting and innocent consumer and the EFSA are protecting us like See the article here – http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6719095.ece.

Health claims of all descriptions are tightly governed and monitored. Shane Starling of nutraingredients.com has written an excellent piece on their website – I can’t improve on what he has to say so read it here – http://www.nutraingredients.com/Publications/Food-Beverage-Nutrition/NutraIngredients-USA.com/Regulation/Mainstream-press-exposed-for-health-claim-sensationalism/?c=7xZQSb2wZiMEJYOmPx5lzw%3D%3D&utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BDaily

As a consumer and food manufacturer I am entirely confident that the FSA in this country and EFSA reject claims that are spurious, but rightly accept claims that aren’t and so I trust them to get it right, without the sensational headlines that Sunday newspapers thrive on.

Article from The Guardian: Folic Acid May Cut Premature Births By 70%

Did you see the piece in The Guardian yesterday in respect of folic acid?
I have cut and pasted the facts but, in short, The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists recommends that flour should be boosted with 240mcg of folic acid per 100g grams to prevent brain and spinal cord defects. It seems that fortifying foods was more likely to be successful than asking all women of childbearing age to take the vitamin as a supplement. The RCOG suggest that only about a third of women take folic acid supplements before becoming pregnant.

If you want to see The Guardian piece in full, here’s the link:

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jan/31/health.medicalresearch

The latest study looked at the effect of taking folic acid – the synthetic form of vitamin B9 – before conception. The team used information from a National Institutes of Health study about the pregnancies of 38,033 women.

By comparing groups of women who had taken folic acid for different lengths of time, the researchers found the supplement could cut the risk of premature delivery by 70% for very early premature births – 20 to 28 weeks of pregnancy – and by 50% in births after 28 to 32 weeks.

It does seem that fortifying food with folic acid could have serious benefits. It’s something that we at The Food Doctor agree with, hence our ‘Bread for Women’. Specifically developed to address women’s nutritional needs, ‘Bread For Women’ provides a convenient way of supplementing daily vitamins and minerals, including 100% RDA of folic acid. The loaf is a UK-first and the inclusion of folic acid is in line with the Food Standard Agency’s (FSA) recommendation of mandatory fortification of bread flour with folic acid for general female health and the delivery of healthy babies. 

For the first time we have has partnered with BDF Newlife, a wonderful charity run co-founded by Sheila Brown OBE, Chief Executive which has, for some 12 years now, been dedicated to countering birth defects.

The Food Doctor Bread for Women is available at Waitrose, ASDA and Budgens for now, with Tesco and Sainsbury’s hopefully in the near future. Its priced at around £1.39 which is pretty good value in comparison to a vitamin supplement and tastes better too!

More soon

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