Why has the message to reduce fat intake been fairly successful, while the message about salt reduction seems to have been largely overlooked?
It appears that many people have at least heard the salt messagefor example, more than half the respondents in a Hobart survey in 1995 claimed they ‘seldom or never’ cooked with salt and ‘seldom or never’ added salt at the table. Nevertheless, 24-hour urinary sodium excretion rates showed that most of these people still had high salt intakes. This is because many foods supply about 75% of the salt in our diet (salt is widely used to compensate for loss of flavour due to processing), and useful change is impossible without reading food labels for sodium content. Supply is a function of demand, and so far there has been only a low demand for low-salt foods. This low demand probably reflects a general lack of understanding that the high salt content of most processed foods is the main reason for our high salt intakes.
