October 30, 2005 New Substitutes For Salt NEW SUBSTITUTES FOR SALT Finding a truly low salt food in the supermarket or on a restaurant menu is a challenge. Why? I once asked a top executive of a food processor why there are so few low salt products on the market and why, when there is one, it costs more than regular brand. If you don't put an ingredient in, why isn't it cheaper? Givaudan Flavors is another company that is introducing a proprietary complex Salt Reduction flavor system. The most effective means of reducing sodium by more than 25% is to replace sodium chloride with potassium chloride, or KCl. While KCl helps to maintain salty taste, it also contributes off-notes that many consumers find unpleasant. Givaudan's new, Natural Flavor System modifies off- notes exhibited by KCl and enhances the saltiness overall, according to Michael Stead, Global Savoury Product Manager at Givaudan. He says: "these new flavor capabilities in the TasteEssentials(TM) for salt reduction will help food manufacturers address the consumer's growing desire for clean, consumer- friendly labeling, since they are globally natural, contain no major allergens, and are both Kosher and Halal." Also, according to Stead, TasteEssentials(TM) for Salt Reduction flavors are effective across a multitude of products, including soups, bouillons, sauces, dressings, frozen ready meals, and salty snacks. A bill to institute a key food labeling law was defeated this year. It would have required a mandatory country-of-origin (COOL) labeling for beef, pork, lamb, fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, fish and peanuts. There was energetic lobbying against it because the food industry maintains it would cost it $.39 billion to implement the labeling in the first year alone.
"Well," he said. "We have to stop the assembly line and make the adjustment and it costs us more to do so. And besides, Americans like the taste of salt and if something doesn't taste good, they won't buy it, even if it is good for their health."
There's bad news and good news today about salt in processed foods.
The bad news is that the Food and Drug Administration backed down on the maximum sodium levels permitted for foods that bear the implied nutrient content claim "healthy".
The decision has been welcomed by food processors who maintain that the technological barriers to reducing sodium in processed foods and poor sales of products has inhibited the development of other new "healthy" products.
What has caused the American taste for high salt products? Is it because it covers up the flavors removed during processing? Is it because the fast foods offered to children have made them salt-addicts when they grow up?
Health officials in the United States have urged the reduction of sodium in the diet since the substance has been identified as a major culprit in the development of high blood pressure and subsequent heart disease. Increased sodium intake is associated with increased risk of high blood pressure, or hypertension, a condition that can lead to cardiovascular disease, especially stroke. The proportion of Americans with high blood pressure is 45 percent at age 50, 60 percent at age 60, and over 70 percent at age 70.
Some seventy sodium compounds are used in food. The National Academy of Sciences, whose experts establish dietary guidelines, recommends that we ingest no more than 2400 milligrams of sodium per day. The average American ingests 3500 to 7000 milligrams. (A teaspoon of salt has about 2000 milligrams of salt). If the number for sodium looks very low on a label, look again. Some companies make you think there is less by saying 2 grams of sodium, for example, which is really 2000 milligrams.
As of now, when a label reads "low sodium" it is supposed to contain 140 mg or fewer per serving. "Very low sodium" is fewer than 35 mg per serving and sodium free is less than 5 mg per serving. Watch the size of a serving, however. It may be a teaspoonful when you are likely to pour a ¼ of a cup of a dressing on your salad.
The problem with finding a low salt alternative to flavor products is that we are used to briny ready meals. Salt can block bitterness in foods and we do need some sodium to live.
The good news is that manufacturers want to be ready for the salt reduction pressures by health officials and eventually the health aware consumers. Wild Flavors has developed a new salt replacer that it claims blocks the bitter taste of potassium chloride while keeping the taste and mouthfeel of table salt. Prime Favorites, another company, claims it has an additive, NeutraFres, which also has a hard-to-distinguish substitute for sodium. Then, of course, there are more and more spice mixtures on the market that pep up food without salt.
Since 2003, there has been an effort, led in a large part by the Center for Science In The Public Interest (CSPI), to have restaurants list the amounts of not only the milligrams of sodium preserving but calories, fats (including transfats), and carbohydrates. CSPI presented a bill to Congress on menus listing and legislators in California, New York and New Jersey have introduced legislation to require restaurant menus to list the above. Most restaurateurs maintain it would be expensive and impractical. Never-the-less, some chains such as MacDonald's and Ruby Tuesdays are doing it for customers.
Pressure by consumers is the best way to make food producers and restaurants serve healthier food. If we don't buy it, they will try to do better. Check A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives (Three Rivers Press) for more information about food ingredients.
WHERE DOES YOUR FOOD REALLY COME FROM?
We want fresh strawberries in winter and tomatoes all year round yet we have replaced many of our farms with housing and roadways and our edibles are increasingly being grown in other countries. Only a tiny fraction of the foods that enters our ports is checked by our guardian agencies. Not only do we have to worry about foreign foods with undesirable additives and residues, we now have to be protected against terroristic tampering. FDA in 2003 announced publication of proposed regulations required by the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 (The Act). Two regulations deal with establishing and maintaining records among food firms, and the administrative detention of foods that may pose a risk to public health. Two regulations concern the registration of food facilities and prior notice of imported foods. These regulations further bolster FDA ability to protect the more than 400,000 domestic and foreign facilities that deal with food within our country, according to the FDA.Under the rule, manufacturers, processors, packers, distributors, receivers, holders and importers of food must keep records identifying the immediate source from which they received the food, as well as, the immediate subsequent recipient, to whom they sent it. This requirement applies to almost all foreign and domestic food sources and almost all recipients of food destined for consumption in the United States. It would assist FDA in addressing credible threats of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals. (Can you believe record keeping tracking foods---such as those including illegal additives and contaminants--- has not been required before?). As a side benefit for all, an additional $20,500,000 was given for Counter Terrorism - Food Safety. The increase is supposed to provide grants to states, increased laboratory preparedness and funds to develop the foods registration system. The grants to the states are meant to be used to build states' infrastructure to enable them to become part of the Laboratory Response Network and conduct direct federal food inspections. Increased laboratory preparedness should theoretically allow the agency's laboratory accreditation program to continue and to develop uniform scientific practices.
There are loopholes, however. "To minimize the economic burden on food companies affected" by the rule, FDA allows companies to keep the required information in any form that they prefer. The proposed rule also states that existing records can be used to satisfy the requirements of the regulations if these records contain all the required information. With respect to the immediate previous source, the specific source of each ingredient that was used to make every lot of finished food product would have to be identified if this information is reasonably available. What is reasonably available may vary from case to case, according to the FDA. If an article of food is reasonably believed to be adulterated and presenting a threat of serious adverse health consequence or death to humans or animals firms are required to provide these and other records to FDA within four hours during certain business hours, or eight hours at other times. Transporters (e.g., trucking companies, private delivery carriers, railroads and airlines) are also required to keep similar documentation-including information about all the means of transportation used.
Farms, restaurants, (including all operations that prepare food for, or serve food directly to consumers), fishing vessels not engaged in processing, and firms regulated exclusively by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are exempted from the new recordkeeping requirements. With some exceptions, foreign facilities are excluded if their food products undergo further manufacturing/processing, including packaging, by another facility outside the United States. Retail food operations are exempted from maintaining records on immediate subsequent recipients of foods sold directly to consumers.
The FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition has set priorities not only emphasizing the prevention of terrorism on the food supply and handling transmissible diseases from food to humans. They have also added emphasis on food additives, dietary supplements and food biotechnology and increased their attention on food allergens. They also have responsibility for the multi-billion dollar drug and cosmetic industries. The FDA's Center for Food Safety has 904 full time employees, including office personnel, down from 924 in 2001. They are dedicated public servants but they must deal with the fact that contaminated, diseased food such as listeria-loaded cheeses can kill quickly and the FDA can react rapidly but cancer-causing or neurotoxic additives may damage and kill slowly over 20 years or more.
Next time you reach for that fruit or vegetable in the supermarket, wouldn't you like to know where it came from?
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