Salt

[Aotea2012]

The British Heart Foundation have recently started to lobby government to put a levy on salt. There’s an interesting article in today’s Telegraph about it. (Sorry not linked it as I wasn’t sure about copyright et al). It describes how many foods have hidden salt. Tinned veg, processed meats and one that surprised me....cornflakes! With the removal of sugar as the result of sugar tax and the reduction of oil for health reasons, manufacturers have been adding salt to help with taste. Given many with liver disease are advised to follow a low salt diet then looking at the food content labels becomes even more important. I’ve found I now use a lot of herbs and spices in my cooking instead of salt. I also use citrus juices, such as lemon and lime to get extra flavour into otherwise bland food like chicken. Perhaps the British Liver Trust should join the BHF in lobbying for a tax on salt (not new actually...and the word salary derives from salt!) to force manufacturers to look at alternatives. They’ve done a grand job on sugar. I must admit to being a sceptic when sugar tax was introduced as I didn’t think it would do anything but put up the price of food and drink. It has had a massive effect and encouraged a whole new sugar free revolution.

[Millie09]

Thank you for your interesting post Aotea , I am.the same as you , never use salt in any cooking in or on meals, infact I'm at the stage where the slightest bit of salt thats high in any type of foods I can really taste and its awful ! They should also monitor this in restaurants I feel .

[Rshc]

completely agree about hidden salt, my partner was diagnosed with cirrhosis 6 months ago so this is all still quite new to us but trying to read labels can be very confusing with different products being calculated in different ways. I wish that every product had to have the traffic light label on it which is just so clear