Ireland could dramatically cut its dietary salt intake simply by cutting the salt content of bread, according to a British expert.
"Once you have cut salt out at the table the next major source of salt in the average diet is bread," according to the professor of cardiovascular medicine at London's St George's Hospital, Prof Graham MacGregor. Six slices of bread contain the equivalent of half the six grams recommended salt intake for an adult.
"The more salt you eat, the higher your blood pressure will go, and the higher your blood pressure goes the greater the chance you will get a stroke or heart attack, the greatest cause of death and disability in Britain and Ireland," he said.
Prof MacGregor founded Consensus Action on Salt and Hypertension (CASH), the British group of medical experts which campaigns to raise public awareness of the risk of high salt intake.
The Government's cardiovascular health strategy published earlier this year recognised the health risk posed by salt and has given responsibility for the formulation of a salt-intake policy to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.
However, responsibility for all nutritional policy is expected to be transferred to the new North-South food safety body which has yet to be established.
The extent of dietary salt was highlighted last week by Prof Ivan Perry of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at NUI Cork. He warned there was more salt in Kellogg's Corn Flakes or Rice Krispies (1.1 grams per 100 grams) than in sea water. He said most salt in the Irish diet was hidden in processed foods such as bread, biscuits and breakfast cereals.
Human taste had become desensitised to salt, and so salt levels in bread and other foods could be reduced by up to 15 per cent without the consumer noticing the difference in taste, Prof MacGregor said.
Kellogg's had recently reduced the salt content of its cereals in Australia, while CASH had persuaded major British supermarket chains such as Asda and Marks and Spencer to cut the salt levels in their own-label ranges.
Salt enabled manufacturers to increase the amount of water the food would retain, thereby increasing the weight of products which were sold by weight, Prof MacGregor said.