Trade Guidelines for Reducing Sodium in Foods
Purpose
This set of guidelines is intended for all food traders manufacturing and selling foods. It aims to help them to produce and promote wholesome and safe products which have lower sodium or salt content.
Occurrence of sodium in locally available foods
2. The terms salt and sodium are often used synonymously, but on a weight basis, salt comprises about 40% sodium and 60% chloride (1 g of sodium chloride (NaCl) contains 393 mg of sodium). However, some salt products available in the market may have replaced NaCl partially with other ingredients, such as potassium chloride (KCl)1. In order to fulfill the criteria of the nutrition labelling regulation, the sodium content of salt products labelled as ‘reduced sodium’ should be at least 25% lower than their regular counterparts.
3. Sodium is naturally present in foods and drinking water.
However, the major dietary source of sodium is from condiments and sauces, such as salt, soy sauce, and oyster sauce. Sodium may also present in the diet as food additives in processed foods, e.g. sodium nitrate and monosodium glutamate (MSG)2.
Examples of the sodium content of some local condiments and sauces are available in Annex I.
