CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Salt intake is the main risk factor for non-communicable chronic diseases. Although the recommended salt intake is 5 g/day, in Argentina it is high than 12 g/day. More than 65% is estimated to come from processed foods. Current legislation states that sodium content should be declared on the nutrition labeling. The Argentineans eat an average of 230g/day of bread. It is a good source of protein, calcium, energy and also an important contributor of sodium in diet. To promote a reduction sodium intake and a healthy diet, reliable information on food compositions is required. Our objective is to estimate sodium content of processed foods and to determine the correspondence level between nutrition labeling and analytical values of industrial breads. We developed a list of processed foods from information gathered on the companies? websites and from nutritional labeling. We collected nutritional information of 1359 products, 809 from food labels and 550 from companies? websites. They were included in 13 food groups (Food Monitoring Group Project). Products with the highest sodium levels were convenience foods (G5), meat and meat products (G11), cereals and cereal products (G3) and bread and bakery products (G2) with content of 920, 661, 563 and 254 mg Na/serving sizes, respectively. 22 types of breads were sampled for chemical analysis. Humidity and sodium content (AOAC, 1995) were determined. The analytical values show differences between -3.3 and +5.6 % from sodium labeled, much lower than 30% set by the legislation. From breads samples, 60% belong to companies that signed the voluntary agreement to reduce sodium content in processed foods as part of the Initiative Less Salt More Life. It would be important to reduce the legal range established and to continue monitoring the sodium content in other foods.

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