Canadians Need to Shake Addiction to Salt

By Kym Geddes

The movers and shakers of the salt world want to pinch Canadians’ penchant for sodium. A panel of experts has offered Health Canada six general and 27 specific recommendations on how to reduce people’s salt intake. It said manufacturers should lower the sodium content of their products over time to meet voluntary salt targets. It suggested that Health Canada track how much sodium restaurants and food companies voluntarily cut from their products. That information will tell the government if it needs to do more to shake salt from the Canadian diet. The panel also recommended that the department set up an online mechanism for companies to commit to the sodium-reduction strategy. Canada’s food-labelling system should be amended to make sodium levels more clear to consumers, the group said. It also said provincial food and drug regulations should require that sodium content information be provided in restaurant menus. The initial aim is to lower people’s average daily sodium intake by about a third, to 2,300 milligrams, by 2016. For adults, 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day is considered an adequate intake, while 2,300 mg is the upper limit.