Dietary salt/sodium intake through consumption of animal origin foodstuffs available on the Serbian market

A b s t r a c t: Salt (sodium chloride) was the first and the best recognised food preservative, particularly for meat. The World Health Organization strongly recommends a reduction in sodium intake in adults to less than 2 g/day sodium (5 g/day salt) to reduce blood pressure and risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke and coronary heart disease, as well a reduction in sodium intake in children to control blood pressure. The goal of this paper was to investigate the salt content as labelled on foods of animal origin from the Serbian retail market. The study reviewed a total of 395 foods, of which 16 were meat preparations, 13 were fresh sausages, 31 were finely minced cooked sausages, 16 were coarsely minced cooked sausages, 39 were patés, 21 were canned meats (luncheon meat type), 10 were pasteurised ham, 26 were pasteurised smoked meat products, 20 were bacon, 8 were semi-dry fermented sausages, 57 were dry fermented sausages, 28 were dry meat, 15 were prepared meat meals, 18 were soft cheese, 36 were semi-hard cheese, 6 were meat soups, 17 were smoked salmon and 18 were sandwiches. The highest declared salt contents are labelled on thermally untreated meat products, i.e. dry meat, bacon, dry and semi-dry fermented sausages and smoked salmon. Pasteurised and sterilised meat products have lower salt contents declared on labels. It was concluded that meat products examined in this study are important sources of dietary salt, and that consumption of 100 g of these products can largely meet daily dietary requirements for salt/sodium. Due to that, it is necessary to reduce salt/sodium content in these foods by decreasing amounts of salt used during production and by using salt substitutes, such as salt with potassium.


Introduction
Salt's history is important to the history of the human population.Salt (sodium chloride) was the first and the best recognised food preservative, particularly for meat.The discovery of salt had great importance and its use in food was very practical due to it making food more shelf stable and available independently of annual season.Also, it ensured food could be transported for long distances.Salt was one of the first categories of trade and was the subject of taxes, salaries and colonial power.One kilogram of salt was sometimes equal to one kilogram of gold, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.Salt consumption achieved a maximum level during the first years of the 20 th century, but salt use has continued to grow along with industrial food production.
Salt is the prototypical stimulus for salty taste (Dotsch et al., 2009) and it improves the sensory properties of food by increasing saltiness, decreasing bitterness and increasing sweetness and other congruent flavour effects (Keast and Breslin, 2003).However, nowadays, excessive dietary sodium intake from salt is recognised as a main cause of essential hypertension.Besides that, excessive sodium intake can lead to: direct risk of heart attack (Perry and Beevers, 1992), hypertrophy of the left heart chamber (Schmieder and Messerli, 2000), sodium retention in extracellular fluid (MacGregor and de Wardener, 1997), greater possibility of infection by Helicobacter pylori and risk of gastric cancer (Tsugane et al., 2004), increase of urinary excretion of calcium and risk of forming of kidney calculi (Cappuccio et al., 2000), risk of reduced bone density (Devine et al., 1995), exacerbations of asthmatic seizures (Mickleborough et al., 2005) and increase of HOMA (homeostasis model assessment) insulin resistance in patients with essential hypertension (Kuroda et al., 1999).
The World Health Organization (WHO) strongly recommends sodium intake in adults is reduced to less than 2 g/day sodium (5 g/day salt) to reduce blood pressure and risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke and coronary heart disease, and sodium

Brief of preliminary paper
Dietary salt/sodium intake through consumption of animal origin foodstuffs available on the Serbian market Tamara Gerić 1* , Slobodan Lilić 1 , Jelena Babić Milijašević 1 , Danijela Vranić 1 , Jelena Jovanović 1 , Tatjana Baltić 1 , Branka Borović 1 A b s t r a c t: Salt (sodium chloride) was the first and the best recognised food preservative, particularly for meat.The World Health Organization strongly recommends a reduction in sodium intake in adults to less than 2 g/day sodium (5 g/day salt) to reduce blood pressure and risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke and coronary heart disease, as well a reduction in sodium intake in children to control blood pressure.The goal of this paper was to investigate the salt content as labelled on foods of animal origin from the Serbian retail market.The study reviewed a total of 395 foods, of which 16 were meat preparations, 13 were fresh sausages, 31 were finely minced cooked sausages, 16 were coarsely minced cooked sausages, 39 were patés, 21 were canned meats (luncheon meat type), 10 were pasteurised ham, 26 were pasteurised smoked meat products, 20 were bacon, 8 were semi-dry fermented sausages, 57 were dry fermented sausages, 28 were dry meat, 15 were prepared meat meals, 18 were soft cheese, 36 were semi-hard cheese, 6 were meat soups, 17 were smoked salmon and 18 were sandwiches.The highest declared salt contents are labelled on thermally untreated meat products, i.e. dry meat, bacon, dry and semi-dry fermented sausages and smoked salmon.Pasteurised and sterilised meat products have lower salt contents declared on labels.It was concluded that meat products examined in this study are important sources of dietary salt, and that consumption of 100 g of these products can largely meet daily dietary requirements for salt/sodium.Due to that, it is necessary to reduce salt/sodium content in these foods by decreasing amounts of salt used during production and by using salt substitutes, such as salt with potassium.
Dietary salt/sodium intake through consumption of animal origin foodstuffs available on the Serbian market intake in children is reduced to control blood pressure.The recommended level is based on the energy requirements of children relative to those of adults.
There is high-quality evidence that decreasing sodium is beneficial for blood pressure in adults and children, while it has no harmful effect on blood lipids, catecholamine levels, renal function or any minor side effects (e.g.headache and dizziness) in adults or children.Moderate-quality evidence is that reduced sodium is consistent with a benefit to renal function in adults; that reduced sodium is beneficial for reducing risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke and coronary heart disease, because of the well-established relationship between blood pressure and cardiovascular disease outcomes, and; that reduced sodium is beneficial for controlling blood pressure in children (WHO Guideline, 2012).
In most European countries, the greatest salt intake originates from bread, cereals, and bakery products, followed by meat products, cheese and dairy products (Anderson et al., 2010;Guallar-Castillón et al., 2013).There is no adopted international standard for sodium versus salt labelling.The term salt is more common in the European Union, and because of that term, salt instead of sodium should be used on food labels to ensure consumer understanding, according to Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 (European Commission, 2011).Front-of-package labelling used in Serbia provides information about the energy value of food, and fat, saturated fat, carbohydrate, sugar, protein and salt contents in 100 g or 100 ml of food.This information can also be presented as the percentage of an adult's guideline daily amount met by one serving or 100 g or 100 ml of food.
The goal of this paper was to investigate the salt content as labelled on foods of animal origin from the Serbian retail market.

Materials and Methods
The study involved checking the labelled sodium chloride content on the nutrition declarations of a total of 395 foods, of which 16 were meat preparations, 13 were fresh sausages, 31 were finely minced cooked sausages, 16 were coarsely minced cooked sausages, 39 were patés, 21 were canned meats (luncheon meat type), 10 were pasteurised ham, 26 were pasteurised smoked meat products, 20 were bacon, 8 were semi-dry fermented sausages, 57 were dry fermented sausages, 28 were dry meat, 15 were prepared meals were meat, 18 were soft cheese, 36 were semi-hard cheese, 6 were meat soups, 17 were smoked salmon and 18 were sandwiches.Sodium content was calculated by dividing the salt content by 2.5.
The results obtained were statistically evaluated using Microsoft Excel 2010 and are presented as mean ± SD.

Results and discussion
The declared salt content of the foods is presented in Figures 1-6.The highest labelled salt content in this study (Figure 1) was in the range from 2.60 to 6.40 g/100 g (average 4.10 ± 1.21 g/100 g), as labelled on dry meat, then dry fermented sausages in the range from 3.10-4.50g/100 g (average 3.80 ± 0.36 g/100 g).Lower salt content (Figure 2) was declared on semi-dry fermented sausages, bacon, smoked salmon and pasteurised smoked meat products (3.10-4.50g/100 g, average 2.80 ± 0.51; 2.00-5.10g/100 g, average 2.80 ± 0.81; 1.20-3.50g/100 g, average 2.50 ± 0.61 g/100 g and 1.70-3.30g/100 g, average 2.70 ± 0.56 g/100 g, respectively.Salt content in food depends on many factors such as type of food, consumer habits and geographical area, but primarily on the production process.A high salt content in these products is expected because they are not produced under high temperature treatments, their production cycle lasts a long time, and salt and low temperature are the main hygienic factors.In thermally untreated food, smoking can also be an important preservation technique.The salt content is very variable, depending primarily on the amount of salt used at the start of production, then on the size of meat (ham, smaller pieces of meat) and consumer consumption habits.
Data on the declared sodium contents in the foods are presented in Table 1, and they were in direct correlation with declared salt contents.From the human health aspect, the most interesting data are the percentages of the daily recommended intake of salt/sodium that consumption of 100 g of food meets (Table 2).Up to 100% and sometimes more of daily sodium requirements can be met by consumption of 100 g of some foods: dry meat (52-128%), bacon (40-102%), dry and semi-dry fermented sausages (62-90%), semi-hard cheese (10-80%) and smoked salmon (24-70%).About half of daily sodium requirements can be met by consumption of 100 g of some foods: meat preparations (28-50%), fresh sausages (33-50%), finely and coarsely minced cooked sausages (28-50% and 34-58%, respectively), pasteurised smoked meat products (34-66%), pasteurised ham (32-50%) and sandwiches (34-44%).
It can be concluded that meat products, especially thermally untreated meat products, are one of the main dietary sources of sodium.Although other meat products are preserved with high temperature (pasteurisation or sterilisation), they are also important sources of sodium due to salt imparting a desirable taste, and to consumer consumption habits.
Disclosure statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by authors.

Figure 6 .
Figure 6.Salt content in semi-dry and fresh cheese, g/100 g

Table 1 .
Sodium content (mean values and ranges) declared on food labels, mg/100 g