Healthy eating app cuts salt intake

AUSSIE kids are consuming more salt than they should, putting themselves on track for heart disease — but simple lunchbox changes could change that.

(Left-Right) Xiao Cao Neal, Amelia Donovan, Henry Donovan and Taminga Marges . Taminga Marges now uses smartphone app you can use to swipe on the barcode of packaged foods and it will give you a lower salt choice. Photo Jeremy Piper

AUSSIE kids are consuming 50 per cent more salt than they should, putting themselves on track for heart disease — but simple lunchbox changes could change that.

The George Institute for Global Health has found a typical school lunchbox contains 5.21 grams of salt, almost an entire day’s allowance for children aged 4-8 years.

The amount of salt can be slashed to just 1.26 grams if families swap food brands to use foods with lower salt content.

A lunchbox containing a ham, cheese and tomato sauce wrap with a rice bubble bar and cheese dip and crackers can vary by 3.95 g in salt content depending on which food brands are chosen.

(Left-Right) Xiao Cao Neal, Amelia Donovan, Henry Donovan and Taminga Marges . Taminga Marges now uses smartphone app you can use to swipe on the barcode of packaged foods and it will give you a lower salt choice. Photo Jeremy Piper

A new free smartphone app Foodswitch can help parents shop for lower salt alternatives.

All they need to do is open the app and swipe the barcode of the product to be offered low salt alternatives (for example, Woolworths home brand white bread instead of Helga’s white bread, Devondale cheese slices rather than Kraft).

Dr Jacqui Webster, from the George Institute, says recent nutrition surveys shows children are eating up to 50 per cent more salt than recommended by the National Health and Medical Research Council’s guidelines.

“It will put up their blood pressure and its setting them up for an increased risk of heart attack later in life,” she said.

Much of the salt children eat is not sprinkled on from the salt shaker but hidden in processed foods like bread, cereals and packaged foods.

Better choices ... the Foodswitch app suggests lower salt brands when consumers scan barcodes on their smartphones. Picture:Supplied

Children who learn to like salty tastes will develop a preference for salty foods and will want to eat it throughout their lives, Dr Webster said.

Australia has signed up to a World Health Organisation initiative to cut salt intake by 30 per cent to achieve a 25 per cent reduction in premature death due to heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other diseases.

While some food companies are reducing the amount of salt in foods such as bread and breakfast cereals, not all food manufacturers are involved in the government program on salt.

Sydney mum Taminga Marges says she’s worried about the amount of salt her children Henry, 10, and Amelia, seven, eat.

“If we are in the supermarket and the kids want to buy something not healthy I ask them to use the app and if it comes up red or orange I ask them if they think it’s a good choice,” she said.

“The app appeals to them, they’ve scanned everything in the kitchen,” she says.

It has helped them choose between different brands of popcorn and other lunch box snacks so they opt for low-salt alternatives, she said.

Originally published as Healthy eating app cuts salt intake