WHO publishes benchmarks to help countries reduce salt intake

The World Health Organization (WHO) has published a new set of global benchmarks for sodium levels in more than 60 food categories, aiming to help countries reduce sodium content in foods in order to improve diets and save lives. The WHO report that many people consume more than the recommended 5g of daily salt intake, putting themselves at greater risk of heart diseases and strokes.

The benchmarks are a guide to reducing sodium content in different categories of processed foods, showing countries how they can progressively lower their targets, based on their local food environments, while encouraging industry to lower the sodium content in processed foods accordingly. The WHO hope these measures will help achieve their goal of a 30% reduction in global salt and sodium intake by 2025.

Source: WHO, 3 May 2021