Sodium reduction 12g
Upper range of global average daily salt intake per day.
WHO
to stroke, heart attack and kidney disease. Rather than bolstering the state at the expense of its poorest citizens, salt taxes are now being seriously considered as ways to improve public health.
Sweetening the deal The comparison here is sugar. In Sassi’s view, the recent taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages have been “a game changer”, introducing the principle that a tax could be levied primarily as a way of improving people’s health. As long as it does not feel like exploitation, it seems people do not mind. There have not been any sugar riots, let alone revolutions. However, as anyone who has ever momentarily confused the two can tell you, salt and sugar have some important differences. For one, people do not drink salt. “By taxing beverages that have a high sugar content, you can be reasonably sure that you are improving the quality of what people are drinking,” says Sassi, who developed the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Public Health Programme. “But when you tax foods, people have many more opportunities to substitute them with other foods that may or may not be healthier.”
This proved to be the case in Denmark, which in 2011 became the first country to introduce a ‘fat tax’. Although it led to a 4% reduction in consumption of saturated fat, the hugely controversial levy actually increased Danes’ salt intakes. It was repealed in 2013. That is not to say the people of Denmark were necessarily averse to eating a little more salt. Another difference from sugar taxes comes from the fact that the public seems far less concerned about overindulging in salt than sugar. In fact, while most people respond positively to products that advertise reductions in sugar, Sassi explains, salt reductions need to happen slowly and silently if products are not going to lose popularity. The WHO explicitly recommends that manufacturers “incrementally reduce salt in products over time so that consumers adapt to the taste and don’t switch to alternative products”.
3.4% Hungarian government 70
Decrease in overall processed food consumption in Hungary since the introduction of the ‘chips tax’.
This is partially because the negative health impacts of excess salt are less obvious than those of sugar, which clearly and directly leads to weight gain. By contrast, even the more strident warnings about eating too much salt can be a little hard to follow. According to the FDA, “excess sodium consumption is a contributory factor in the development of hypertension, which is a leading cause of heart disease and strokes”. Even without considering studies that suggest it is primarily people with high blood pressure who need to worry about their salt intake – and the fact too little salt is itself a serious and historically significant health risk – the information can be a little bit muddy.
“If there’s no awareness or no pressure from the wider environment to reduce salt content,” says Sassi, “then advertising a reduction in salt in products people like is very risky. They will be naturally inclined to overstate the difference in taste and perhaps to switch to a different product.” Unfortunately, it is not easy to educate people out of this reluctance. The WHO does not hide its estimation that 2.5 million deaths could be prevented each year if global salt consumption were reduced to the recommended level, but it has not had much of an impact on consumer behaviour.
“A lot of research in public health has shown that people are not sensitive to education,” Sassi explains. “They’ve all reached the level of awareness and education that is sufficient for them ideally, in theory, to make good choices. The point is that they’re not making good choices.” The slightly convoluted chain of health impacts from eating too much salt plays neatly into everyone’s time discounting bias, particularly given how ingrained a high salt intake is into our lifestyles and shopping habits. “These are decisions that we have to make lots of times every day. We couldn’t consider all the pros and cons entirely rationally every time we make these decisions – so we use shortcuts and develop habits, and we stick with those,” Sassi adds.
Catering to the consumer So, it seems unlikely that the health benefits of introducing any straightforward salt tax would be worth any government risking the reputational damage that could ensue. “Taxes alone do not make a huge difference to the diets of ordinary people, because they tend to be relatively small and they target a relatively narrow range of products,” summarises Sassi. It is the same with subsidies on healthier foods, which may slightly bump up consumption of fruit and vegetables but have not been shown to change diets at the scale needed to make a meaningful difference to public health. And, just as the public would likely resist a salt tax, finance ministries are unlikely to countenance diverting precious funds to making avocados and aubergines a little more affordable. “Certainly, in the current public finance climate,” says Sassi, “I don’t think a government would be willing to provide subsidies, other than for poor people.” There might, however, be a middle way. While education alone has not been shown to have a significant impact on consumer choice, nudges like the UK’s traffic light labelling system and France’s Nutriscore have. These techniques make it quick and easy to compare the health impacts of different food options at the point of purchase, playing into the brain’s reward system and love of shortcuts as they do
Ingredients Insight /
www.ingredients-insight.com
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