Long-term intake of high-salt foods increases the risk of many diseases such as high blood pressure. The Healthy China Action (2019-2030) advocates that the per capita daily salt intake is not higher than 5 grams, but in fact, China's per capita salt intake is much higher than this.
In addition to people's easy excessive salt when cooking, the "invisible salt" in some foods is more difficult to prevent, and these "invisible salts" may have other sodium salts in addition to sodium chloride, and people rarely count them into the daily salt intake, thus unconsciously consuming excessive salt. So, which foods have "invisible salt", and how can we understand the ingredient list and nutrient composition list of prepackaged foods, so as to avoid "invisible salt"? Recently, Fan Zhihong, director of the Chinese Nutrition Society and college of food science and nutritional engineering of China Agricultural University, answered this question.
Fan Zhihong reminded that some foods are "born with high sodium", and it must be clearly understood before putting food into the shopping cart.
Ready-to-eat seafood Seafood is dried and roasted during processing to concentrate salt, so the vast majority of dried seafood is a "naturally high sodium" food. Some seafood may also add some salt and monosodium glutamate to make snacks and side dishes, and the sodium content is higher. Among them, the representative ones are instant seaweed, dried fish fillets, squid shreds, etc., which are salty far more than daily dishes.
All kinds of cooked meat cooked fish products In order to extend the shelf life of meat cooked food, a lot of salt will be added. Common chinese ham, sausage, Western ham, ham sausage, bacon and other processed meat products, these are high-sodium foods. At the same time, sodium nitrite will be added to the cooked meat for preservative and hair color, sodium complex phosphate salt will be added in order to keep the water tender, and sodium glutamate (monosodium glutamate) and sodium nucleotide will be added for deliciousness. Eating 100 grams of cooked meat is equivalent to eating about 3 grams of salt. That's why we feel particularly dry in our mouths when we taste a variety of delicious snacks such as duck neck and duck head on the street or in supermarkets.
Salty snacks Foods with fresheners have a high sodium content. This is because fresheners are sodium-containing, sodium glutamate (monosodium glutamate) is one-third of the salt, chicken essence (containing monosodium glutamate, sodium nucleotide, sodium succinate, etc.) sodium content is one-half of the salt. In order to have a prominent umami taste, it is necessary to first have a salty taste, the common variety of soup seasonings, chicken powder, seafood soup powder, shiitake mushroom sauce, spicy sauce, shacha sauce, tomato sauce, oyster sauce, shrimp paste and other condiments, as well as a variety of pickles, pickles, curd milk, tempeh and seasoned instant noodles, all are high-sodium products.
For the identification of "naturally high sodium" foods, it is often known at a taste; but many foods are not salty to taste, and the sodium content in them is not much at all, which makes people invincible. Fan Zhihong suggested that special attention should be paid to such "unsavory" foods.
Biscuits, bread baked goods Biscuits in the production process, in order to make it loose and porous, must add sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), its sodium content is not much lower than salt; many salty biscuits also add extra salt. In the process of making bread, in order to control the growth rate of yeast, it is often necessary to add salt, even sweet bread will add salt, and the salt content in many breads is as high as about 1%. At the same time, in order to avoid moldy bread, sodium propionate should be added, and in order to avoid drying of bread, sodium stearoyl lacticate should also be added.
Noodles, ramen noodles, dumpling skins and other noodle products In order to taste gluten, many merchants add salt when making noodles, ramen noodles, dumpling skins and other noodle products, and some also add sodium carbonate (soda ash). Some product ingredient lists will vaguely write ramen modifiers, and the common ingredients in ramen improvers are sodium chloride, sodium carbonate, and possibly compound sodium phosphate salts and vegetable gums.
Crispy, fluffy pasta Crispy fried foods are not only salted, but often sodium bicarbonate is added to make them looser. Typical ones are fritters, crisps, steamed buns and forks, all of which are topped with these two ingredients. In addition, fluffy date cakes, fluffy tortillas, and overly fluffy buns and buns are often fortified with leavening agent, which contains sodium bicarbonate as the main ingredient, and although it is not salty to eat, it contains sodium.
Sodium-containing beverages Some sweet drinks often also contain sodium, which is due to the addition of a small amount of salt, sodium bicarbonate (used to create bubbles) or sodium phosphate salt (used to increase taste). Other drinks are sweetened and also contain sodium. Although the sodium content of this type of beverage is not much, because the drink capacity is a few hundred milliliters, drink one or two bottles a day, sodium intake can not be ignored. In particular, some sports electrolyte drinks are used to replenish the sodium lost by excessive sweating, so the sodium content is often more.
Different products of the same type of processed food, some may have salt added, some may not add, some may contain sodium in ingredients, and some may not add or add less. So how should we tell in this situation? Fan Zhihong said that the easiest way is to look at the ingredient list on the food label.
China's relevant laws and regulations stipulate that producers must list all food ingredients, and in addition to food additives, various ingredients should be sorted according to the amount of addition. Food additives should be listed together, in no particular order. Therefore, there is a basic principle to prevent excessive sodium intake, that is, to choose products that do not add or add less sodium-containing ingredients. Taking nuts as an example, the ingredient list of some nut products only writes nut raw materials, and no other ingredients. These products are plain nuts, the sodium content is usually low, although natural foods will also contain trace amounts of sodium, but the amount per 100 grams will not exceed 100 mg. However, if there is salt in the ingredient list of the food, and even some other sodium-containing additives, such as sodium glutamate, sodium saccharin, etc., then it is a seasoned nut, and the product will contain a lot of sodium salt. So for people who need salt control, it is enough to directly choose the original product without adding salt.
If both products are also salted, how to judge who is more and who is less? This is when you take a closer look at the nutrition facts list on the label. China's relevant regulations also stipulate that all prepackaged foods must indicate the sodium content in them, so consumers only need to pay attention to who has a high sodium content. After comparing two similar products, it is easy to reduce salt by swapping a product with a high sodium content for a product with a low sodium content.
Article/Reporter Guo Houjie