B.C. restaurants, chefs wary as Ottawa forges sodium rules
Chefs and restaurateurs across B.C. are waiting nervously while Health Canada formulates new guidelines aimed at reducing the amount of sodium that Canadians eat.
“There are real challenges to this idea, including the disconnect between what customers say they want and their purchasing behaviour,” said Mark von Schellwitz, western vice-president of Restaurants Canada.
“If there is demand for low-sodium dishes, restaurants would be very quick to offer them.”
Health Canada has just wrapped up consultations with the restaurant and food supply industry and will try to come up with a plan — either voluntary or mandatory — to reduce salt in restaurant meals to be implemented by the end of 2019.
However, scientists disagree on whether such an intervention would have the desired outcome.
In B.C., more than 2,000 restaurants participate in the Informed Dining program, which offers diners nutrition information, including sodium content.
But in practice, hardly anyone cares enough to ask for it, von Schellwitz said.
“People are far more health conscious when they are cooking, but when they go to a restaurant they want the experience and the flavour,” he said.
Canada’s chain restaurants have voluntarily reduced the sodium content of their food by 17 per cent, said von Schellwitz.
“I agree that we should do something about sodium and bring some awareness to the need to eat less salt,” said Jeffery Young, executive chef at Parq Vancouver casino and president of the British Columbia Chef’s Association. “But it should be education more than anything.”
Chain restaurants often make large batches of food from carefully measured ingredients, while independent restaurant cooks often season on the fly, as food is cooked in individual portions.
“In small restaurants it would be harder to regulate, but maybe there’s a way and it’s something we would just get used to, like meeting health codes,” he said.
Adding to intrigue, Health Canada’s voluntary sodium-reduction program aimed at food processors — businesses making everything from raisin bread to canned corn — has failed to meet its goals.
In Canada, 77 per cent of our sodium intake is from processed foods, including food consumed through food service outlets.
Health Canada says that lowering our average sodium intake by about 30 per cent to an upper limit of 2,300 milligrams a day will lead to lower blood pressure and fewer heart attacks and strokes.
However, an editorial published last year in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology called sodium targets below 2,300 mg “radical,” and noted that a recent study that pooled results from more than 10,000 people found that the link between sodium intake and blood pressure is weak.
Researchers at Harvard Medical School found that when adults with elevated blood pressure reduced sodium intake, their blood pressure improved and said that may lead to lowered risk for a cardiovascular event.
But at Boston University School of Medicine a 16-year study of 2,600 adults found no benefit to cutting sodium to 2,300 mg a day.
“There is no doubt that for most people as you increase sodium intake, blood pressure goes up and as you decrease it, blood pressure goes down,” said James McCormack, a professor of pharmacy at UBC. “(That) does not mean by necessity that it will change clinically important outcomes such as heart attack and stroke.”
McCormack says there is no definitive evidence that most people would benefit from reduced dietary sodium.
The Canadian approach to sodium reduction currently follows the voluntary approach pursued in the U.K., according to Health Canada.