Mary Hosts Salt Awareness Event

1st February 2007

Mary Creagh MP yesterday hosted a Salt Awareness event at the House of Commons, with campaigners from the Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH). The event was held as part of National Salt Awareness Week which began on January 29th and runs until February 4th.

Opening the event, Mary spoke of the dangers of a high salt intake, and the importance of food manufacturers reducing the salt levels in their products. New research from Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH), to coincide with Salt Awareness Week, shows that many foods now have significantly less salt added than a few years ago. Mary stressed the need for companies to do more to reduce salt and called for the ‘traffic-light’ food labelling system to be adopted by the entire food industry.

The event was held in the Terrace Marquee of the House of Commons and was attended by Health Minister Caroline Flint MP, and Dame Deirdre Hutton of the Food Standards Agency. They were joined by more than a hundred guests including MPs, health professionals, food campaigners and consumer organisations.

Mary Creagh MP said: “My work on the Children’s Food Bill taught me about the importance of a healthy diet and the dangers of a high salt intake. Despite some progress, too many products still contain high levels of salt, particularly processed foods. I want to see all food products using the traffic light system of food labelling so that consumers can see salt levels at a glance. People should boycott products with high levels of salt to force manufacturers to reduce the salt content of their foods. “

“Many people are unaware of the dangers of a high salt intake. There is strong evidence linking high salt diets to high blood pressure, which is the main cause of strokes and a major cause of heart attacks. For every one gram per day reduction in the UK population’s average intake of salt, 7,000 deaths from strokes and heart attacks would be prevented every year.”