We'd like to thank the following charities for their support of Salt Awareness Week 2022:

 

Adopt a School

“As a food education charity working with chefs to teach children about food and how it impacts our bodies and the environment, The Royal Academy of Culinary Arts’ a School Trust is pleased to support Salt Awareness Week. It can be really difficult to reduce our salt intake when most of the salt we eat has already been decided for us. So, while there has been significant progress over the years, we join the call to urge the food industry to go even further to shake the salt habit, to focus on flavour instead and help us all to make healthier choices.”

Blood Pressure UK

"Eating too much salt is the single biggest cause of high blood pressure. This can lead to strokes, heart attacks, heart failure, kidney disease and some types of dementia. Cutting down on salt is one of the simplest ways to lower your blood pressure, and will start to make a difference very quickly, even within weeks. It’s more important than ever that your food is healthy and still flavoursome. This is why we are supporting Action on Salt’s National Salt Awareness Week to encourage the public that by learning some simple food swaps, understanding food labels and adding different flavours while cooking like chilli, pepper, ginger, lemon or lime juice, you can slash your salt intake and still eat delicious food. So now is the time to shake the habit."

British Dietetic Association

‘Reducing your intake of salty foods can dramatically improve your health outcomes. Simple steps that can reduce salt intake include adding less salt during cooking and at the table, eating less processed foods and being aware of food labels and choosing lower salt options’. Which is drawn from our food factsheet https://www.bda.uk.com/resource/salt.html 

British Heart Foundation 

“Food with too much salt in it increases your risk of developing high blood pressure, which in turn contributes to around half of heart attack and strokes. Thinking twice before reaching for the salt shaker on the dinner table won’t fix this alone – the vast majority of salt in our food is already there before we buy it. The food industry has a critical role to play in lowering the amount of salt we all eat. While past voluntary salt reduction programmes for the food industry have made some headway, the Government must now look to introduce mandatory measures to ensure further progress, and to make eating healthily easier for everyone.”

John Maingay, Director of Policy at the British Heart Foundation 

Caroline Walker Trust

"The Caroline Walker Trust is dedicated to the improvement of public health through good food. Established in 1989 to continue the work of the late, distinguished nutritionist, and campaigner Caroline Walker, the Trust is a charity which undertakes specific projects funded by grants and donations, for vulnerable groups including children and older people.

Children and families intake of salt currently exceeds the maximum recommendations. Many family favourites, including cereal and bread, contain high levels of salt making the reduction of salt in the diet more challenging. Children’s liking for salt is a learned taste preference and the reduction of salt in processed foods will support children to achieve a low salt diet and reduce their liking for salt in later life.

The Caroline Walker Trust fully support this year’s theme and urge the food industry to ‘Shake their Salt Habit’ supporting families to reduce their intake through the foods they buy. We appreciate and support the salt awareness week campaign led by Action on Salt."

Chef’s in schools

“We encourage all schools to work together with their chefs and catering companies to ensure that ingredients used are not from a processed or frozen packet or sauce. This is a simple but effective way of lowering the levels of salt and sugar in the food we serve to our kids. We will always advocate for freshly made, cooked from scratch food packed with natural flavour, and work with teams to develop these flavour boosting techniques, which in turn reduces the need for added salt and sugar.”

Children’s Food Campaign

“Getting children off to a healthy start in life means making sure they don’t eat too much salt, as well as sugar. How can families shake the salt habit if it’s already lurking in the normal, everyday foods and meals they buy? From tinned and chilled foods we buy in supermarkets to the meals we order from restaurants and takeaways, let’s all get behind Salt Awareness Week 2022, and call on companies to go faster and further to reduce salt from their recipes.”

Diabetes UK

“We know eating too much salt can increase the risk of high blood pressure, which in turn increases the risk of heart diseases and stroke. People with diabetes already have an increased risk of these conditions, so it’s incredibly important to help them limit their salt intake to a maximum of 6g a day. 

Our own research clearly shows that people with diabetes, and the general public, want more information about the food they eat and buy outside of the home. We are calling on the Government, food industry and restaurants, cafes and takeaways to provide clear and accessible nutritional information so customers can make informed choices.

We support Salt Awareness Week 2022 and are backing Action on Salt’s campaign to get the food industry to shake their salt habit.”

Emma Elvin, Senior Clinical Advisor at Diabetes UK 

Early start Nutrition

“Here at Early Start Nutrition we recognise the importance of giving children the best start in life and supporting them to develop their taste for and love of nutritious food. As evidence suggests, liking for salt and salty foods are learned preferences. If children are exposed to and develop a liking for salt in the early years they are likely to carry this with them into adulthood. We encourage all those with a responsibility for providing food to children in the early years to avoid adding salt when cooking and choose products with no added or low salt. We join Action on Salt and ask the food industry to shake their salt habit, so that we can all live longer, healthier lives.”  

Faculty for Public Health 

"The Faculty supports Salt Awareness Week 2022 as a way of highlighting the detrimental impact of excess salt on our health. Evidence shows a strong causal link between high salt intake and hypertension, a powerful risk factor for coronary heart disease and strokes. Hypertension can also cause dementia, heart failure, chronic kidney disease, peripheral vascular disease (diseased arteries in the limbs) and retinal damage. 

Up to 70% of the salt in our diet comes from processed foods such as bread, breakfast cereal, pizzas, soups, sauces and ready meals. As these foods are estimated to make up over 50% of the average UK diet, there is a clear need for the food industry to continue to reduce the salt content in these products. 

Previous public health approaches to salt reduction have achieved impressive results – between 2004 and 2011 a successful national programme resulted in a 15% reduction in population salt intake (1.4g per day), with 33% of people in England aged 19-64 consuming 6g or less in 2014. These reductions were not universal across the UK population, and while the average population consumption decreased significantly, socioeconomic inequalities in salt consumption remained, potentially contributing to inequalities in cardiovascular health. 

The Faculty of Public Health supports restrictions on the advertising of high salt content food, and calls on the food industry to address this unnecessary burden on the population’s health."

Food Active

"Food Active is pleased to be supporting Salt Awareness Week 2022. Whilst the salt reduction programme has made some positive progress in recent decades, there is still much more the food industry can do to support the population to reduce their salt intake and help us all lead healthier lifestyles.”

Heart UK

“High blood pressure puts a strain on the heart and can lead to diseases of the heart and blood vessels, including heart attacks and strokes. Having high cholesterol and high blood pressure at the same time makes these problems more likely which is why we’re very happy to support Salt Awareness Week in 2021.”

Jules Payne, Chief Executive of Heart UK

Heart Research UK

“Heart Research UK is a charity dedicated to the prevention, treatment and cure of heart disease. As well as investing in life-saving medical research, we fund ground-breaking training and education for clinicians and a free, innovative education programme for schools. We also support employers to keep their staff healthy through our workplace health and wellbeing programme and we fund community projects across the UK that aim to improve heart health. Through our health promotion activities, we raise awareness about the link between excessive salt consumption and raised blood pressure and the detrimental impact of this on heart health. We provide tips and recipes to help people reduce the amount of salt in their diet. We are proud to support Salt Awareness Week 2022”. 

Kidney Research UK

“A high amount of salt in your diet is known to increase your risks of high blood pressure, diseases of the heart and circulation, and progression of kidney disease towards kidney failure. So prevention of kidney disease, and all the complications that come from it starts with a healthy diet and a moderated salt intake. Far too many foods contain a lot more salt than we actually need. Even if all foods were clearly labelled with their salt content clearly visible, it would be complicated and  difficult to stick to a healthy salt intake of 6 grams per day. We really need the food industry to ’shake their salt habit’ and reduce the salt content of foods. This would help to bring forward the day when everyone lives free from kidney disease.”

Dr Charlie Tomson – Kidney specialist and Trustee at Kidney Research UK

London Early years Foundation

“Limiting salt is critical for the health of young children. While LEYF’s Early Years Chef Academy programme trains Chefs in nurseries to make delicious food without adding salt, far too many prepared and packaged foods young children are already eating contain far more salt than they need. The food industry must cut the salt in their products.”

Polycystic Kidney Disease

For those with polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) a high salt diet can increase deterioration of kidney function and lead to increased risk of stroke and heart disease.  While there is increasing evidence that reducing salt may help slow the progression of ADPKD, simply telling people to eat less salt is not always that straightforward, especially when processed food is often loaded with it, and labelling isn’t always clear.  We greatly welcome the push by Action on Salt to urge the food industry to shake their salt habit, as they hold the key to better health for all. 

Real Bread Campaign

“We encourage all bakers to use no more salt than the suggested maximum. For delicious, nutritious Real Bread, try using a less refined flour, perhaps milled from non-commodity wheat. Proving your dough slowly will help to develop those natural flavours, and if you use a genuine sourdough process it might help extend the bread’s shelf life, too.”

Royal society for Public Health

“The Royal Society for Public Health is delighted to support Salt Awareness Week 2021. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way many of us live, including how and what we eat. More Flavour, Less Salt! is right to highlight that for those who are able to cook at home more often, there is an opportunity to substitute salt for a healthier alternative. But for those who are time-poor, or with a limited income, or not in a position to make those healthy swaps, the larger food ecosystem must play its part too in reformulating products to reduce salt consumption.” 

Stroke Association

A stroke can happen at any time, at any age and can be devastating. Eating too much salt can increase our risk of developing high blood pressure, which is the single biggest risk factor for stroke. Reducing the amount of salt we eat can help to lower blood pressure and reduce our risk of stroke. 

We’d encourage people to take control of their diet by limiting food with unknown salt levels and checking how much salt is in ready meals and store cupboard ingredients. We can also add less salt to our home-cooked food, using alternative flavours like herbs and spices instead. If you can’t avoid using salt in your food, switch to a reduced-sodium salt such as LoSalt®, which contains two thirds less sodium than regular table, sea and rock salts.*

We are proud to support Action on Salt’s 2022 campaign which calls on the food industry to shake their salt habit and reduce salt in packaged and prepared foods, so that we can all live longer, healthier lives. To support the week, we’ll be running a webinar for our Stroke Group Network leaders, who will share the importance of taking action on salt with their group members.

* If you take medication that affects potassium levels, for conditions including diabetes, heart or kidney disorders, speak to your GP first to check if reduced-sodium salt alternatives are suitable for you.