In a report to the Food Standards Agency published last week, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) said, 'All consumers, including children, should be aware of the major sources of salt in their diet, be encouraged not to add salt to food, and be aware of the salt content of processed foods.'
The SACN report added that both the Food Standards Agency and the Department of Health were urging food manufacturers to reduce the amount of salt in processed foods, and that children and adults should eat 'a healthy balanced diet, low in fat, salt and sugars, and rich in fruit, vegetables and complex carbohydrates'.
The draft recommendations for children, which have been put out for consultation until 3 January, are less than one gram of salt per day for infants aged up to six months, one gram a day for infants of between seven and 12 months, two grams a day for one-to six-year-olds and five grams a day for children aged seven to 14. Adults, who currently consume an average of nine grams a day, are urged to cut back to six grams a day.
SACN chairman Professor Alan Jackson said the connection to high blood pressure in adults was stronger now than when it was last examined in 1994.
Independent watchdog the Food Commission welcomed the guidelines as a step forward. Research officer Kath Dalmeny said, 'These guidelines will be useful to parents and anyone else preparing food for children. Now it's a question of looking at the salt content of individual foods. People don't realise the relatively high salt content in corn flakes, for example, or that it is used in making bread.'
She said food items whose packaging listed only sodium content confused consumers because many people did not realise that sodium is just a component of salt. The SACN pointed out that one gram of sodium is equivalent to 2.55 grams of salt.
The SACNsaid more research was needed to establish the impact of salt on children's health. It also stressed that it would be 'inadvisable for children in the UK to become accustomed to the levels of salt intake currently habitual in adults, as the evidence suggests long-term consumption of current levels being potentially harmful in adult life'.
The Government's annual National Diet and Nutrition survey in 2000 found that children were consuming up to 12 grams of salt a day - twice the recommended adult intake. Certain flavours of pot noodle, crisps and chicken burgers are particularly high in salt content, according to the lobbying group Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH).
Project co-ordinator Gaynor Bussell said she anticipated resistance from the food and soft drinks industries to pressure for reductions in salt levels. 'In 1994 similar recommendations were made, but industry dug its heels in and it wasn't taken further,' she added.