SINGAPORE – Singapore is studying possible regulatory measures to reduce sodium content in food, as it steps up efforts to get the food industry and the population to shift to healthier options.
Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said on Wednesday that Singapore has studied how other countries have cut sodium content.
Examples he cited included Chile, where products exceeding the stipulated sodium threshold must have a “higher in sodium” warning label, and Finland, which regulates sodium limits for selected packaged food items that are the main contributors of sodium in the local diet.
“Both measures have worked. They have spurred industry reformulation and reduced their populations’ sodium intake. We will draw lessons from these examples, to consider what would be suitable to implement in our local context,” said Mr Ong.
He was speaking at the launch of Project Reset, a major cardiovascular research project.
The latest national surveys have shown that Singaporeans are eating too much salt, and the proportion of those with high blood pressure has nearly doubled from 2010 to more than a third of the population.
Professor Tan Huay Cheem, a senior consultant at the National University Heart Centre, Singapore, believes that the strategies the Government took in reducing sugar to bring down the diabetes rate can also apply to salt reduction to lower the hypertension rate.
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“This effort will have to involve many stakeholders, not only individuals but also the Government, the food processing industry and the salt manufacturers,” he said.
“The leadership must come from the Government to set goals and targets for salt reduction and implement strategies which can be broadly divided into two aspects – public education and working with the food industry and manufacturers.”
Prof Tan said the government can impose legislative control measures to provide a system of incentives and disincentives for food industries to set up surveillance and monitoring systems to ensure that the strategies are carried out.
He pointed out that a 1g reduction of salt per day can lower the risk of heart disease by 4 per cent and stroke by 6 per cent, for instance.
Citing a five-year salt substitute and stroke study in China, carried out from 2014 on over 20,000 Chinese, Prof Tan said it showed that a 25 per cent reduction in salt can cut stroke by 14 per cent and death by 12 per cent.
In the meantime, the Health Promotion Board (HPB) will launch a campaign to encourage the industry and food and beverage operators to pledge to reduce sodium content in their dishes to the levels in 2010.
This comes as an HPB market study showed that between 2010 and 2023, the sodium content of dishes had gone up by an average of 20 per cent.
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Mr Ong said: “Somehow, over the years, our cooks and hawkers are adding more salt and sauces to their dishes.”
According to a food composition analysis carried out by HPB, a serving of mee goreng used to contain 1,946mg of sodium in 2010 to 2012, but that has since soared 98 per cent to 3,854mg in 2023. Just a plate would bust a person’s daily recommended sodium intake of 2,000mg.
Mee goreng used to contain 1,946mg of sodium, but that has since soared to 3,854mg in 2023. PHOTO: ADOBE STOCK
Other sodium-laden dishes that have become even saltier over the years are steamed chicken rice (1,565mg of sodium in 2023, compared with 949mg from 2010 to 2012) and seafood hor fun, which has 37 per cent more sodium today (2,575mg, up from 1,885mg between 2010 and 2012).
Mr Ong said food and beverage operators can cut sodium content by switching to lower-sodium salt, or adding less salt or condiments like soya sauce and fish sauce.
“Some may raise the concern that with less salt and soya sauce, our food will be less tasty… Some may even point out that ingredients are getting more expensive, so sauces with high sodium are used as a lower-cost substitute.
“This may be true for some dishes… But it is also likely that having eaten more salty dishes over the years, our taste buds have gotten used to it, and equate saltiness with tastiness. We need to try to roll back our taste buds as well,” said the minister.
“We must remember that South-east Asia has been the land of spices. We use a great variety of spices and ingredients in our food, and we use a wide range of meats, seafood, vegetables and fruits in our local dishes. All of them add natural flavours to our food,” said Mr Ong, who also called on diners to do their part and request less salty dishes.
Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said Singapore will draw lessons from overseas examples to spur industry reformulation and reduce Singaporeans’ sodium intake. ST PHOTO: KUA CHEE SIONG
There will, however, be challenges for restaurants and food manufacturers in reducing sodium.
Dr Kalpana Bhaskaran, president of the Singapore Nutrition and Dietetics Association, said that besides giving taste, salt has many other functions.
“Salt is an efficient clean label preservative as it binds water and inhibits microbial growth. It also plays a major role in flavour balance, and reducing it can distort bitter, sour and sweet notes. Salt can also enhance the perception of fullness and mouthfeel, giving an added thickness to soups,” she said.
She added that the industry is tapping alternatives like mineral salts and yeast extracts to reduce sodium in food, and it has to continue to innovate to produce lower-sodium products that do not impact taste, texture and shelf life.
Home-grown chain The Soup Spoon is among the restaurants that have committed to reducing sodium in dishes.
Co-founder Anna Lim said its soups are well below the recommended daily limit of 2,000mg of sodium per day. A 350g regular-sized bowl of mushroom stroganoff contains 379mg of sodium, and a bowl of roasted pumpkin soup contains 1,151mg of sodium.
“We have been looking continuously at lower-sodium salt options in our recipes, and conducted many rounds of taste tests to ensure our recipes and tastes are not compromised,” said Ms Lim. “We also use herbs and spices and most importantly, cooking every soup from scratch with fresh ingredients to ensure the soup... remains true to our original recipe.”
Soya sauce manufacturer Kwong Cheong Thye has also committed to cutting sodium in its products.
Co-owner and business development manager Alvin Choo said that currently, about 35 per cent of its consumer products are lower-sodium products, and the company aims to increase this to 70 per cent by 2026.
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He acknowledged the challenges in sodium reduction, as soya sauce is fermented with salt water.
“Instead of using salt as a natural preservative, which is very traditional, we have shifted out of it many years ago.
“There are other ways to preserve a sauce, from cooking techniques to storage, and how we fill the bottles… Using technology for indoor controlled fermentation, our soya sauce is less salty and tastes more umami,” said Mr Choo.
On Wednesday, the Health Minister also gave an update on a sodium reduction strategy launched in 2022 to encourage suppliers to replace regular salt with lower-sodium alternatives, such as potassium salt.
Mr Ong said the results have been encouraging, with three major suppliers – accounting for close to half of the food and beverage salt market share – now supplying lower-sodium salt.
More than 350 hawkers and coffee shop and foodcourt stalls islandwide, as well as close to 150 caterers, are already using lower-sodium ingredients.
But he acknowledged that the effort has given rise to concerns like cost.
Although suppliers have cut the price of lower-sodium salt from $10 per kg to about $4 per kg with HPB’s industry grant support, the lower-sodium option still costs $3 more than regular salt.
“But given that a typical household uses about a kilogram of salt a year, the additional spending to convert to lower-sodium salt is about $3 a year. For $3 more a year, we can significantly lower the risk of hypertension, heart attack and stroke, so I hope more households will consider this,” said Mr Ong.
The Ministry of Health has also consulted medical experts on concerns from people with chronic kidney disease that lower-sodium salt, specifically potassium-enriched salt, can harm them.
Clinicians and professional bodies are planning to issue written formal advice that these alternatives are safe for individuals with early-stage chronic kidney disease, said Mr Ong.
For those with late-stage chronic kidney disease, they should limit consumption of all forms of salt, whether it is regular salt or potassium-enriched salt.
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S’pore to study regulatory measures to reduce sodium in food: Ong Ye Kung
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