The past few months have seen sodium reduction emerge as a very important topic of discussion in South East Asia, particularly after the Singapore government announced it would be implementing Nutri-Grade traffic light labelling measures for sodium content.
Within the region, Indonesia is well-known to have one of the ‘heaviest’ cuisines in terms of flavourings, particularly salt and sugar, and this makes reformulation to cut down sodium levels even more challenging.
“Hypertension is the leading risk factor worldwide and we already know that by 2040, hypertension will cause around 1.3 million deaths in Indonesia if there is no strategic intervention to reduce sodium intake in this country,” Bogor Agricultural University Nutritional Science professor and Ajinomoto Indonesia spokesman Professor Dr. Hardinsyah told the floor at the Fi Asia Indonesia 2024 event in Jakarta, Indonesia.
“Salty foods and many convenience foods are high risk factors everywhere, and in Indonesia this risk is even higher as this includes many of our common daily foods – e.g. salted fish is consumed in large amounts in mountainous communities, and we have over 100 varieties of bakso meatball soups across the whole of West Indonesia, almost all of which use a lot of salt.
“Research in South Jakarta has shown that Indonesians consume between 5.76g to 7.43g of salt daily, with the highest sodium content found in chilli sauce which is another staple Indonesian favourite.
“These numbers may not look so scary when looking at the WHO daily salt recommendation of no more than 5g per day – but it must be remembered that hypertension is essentially a sort of ‘disease of affluence’ and is more common in developed markets such as New Zealand, China or Singapore, but Indonesia is already on the list of markets with the most cases worldwide despite being a developing market.”
He added that markets such as Japan have conducted their own studies using monosodium glutamate (MSG) to reduce sodium intake by replacing table salt with MSG in search of acceptable taste profiles, and that Indonesia will need to not only do the same but more.
“That Japanese study found that completely replacing salt with MSG would reduce Japanese consumer salt intake by up to 22.3% on average – but also that only approximately 60% of consumers would be cutting their salt intake to 8g per day (the national dietary goal) and only 7.6% would meet the WHO recommendation of 5g per day,” said Prof Hardinsyah.
“This looks okay in terms of meeting shorter-term national goals because the Japanese also consume a lot of soy sauce and other salt-heavy foods, but the context is different between Japan and Indonesia as our diets are very different.
“Japanese also eat a lot more fruits, vegetables and fish compared to Indonesians as part of their daily diets, and this essentially allows them to have somewhat higher levels of sodium due to the interactions between foods.
“This is not so for Indonesians as we eat far less of these foods, which means we instead need to really aim for directly reduced sodium consumption.”
How little salt is acceptable?
Prof Hardinsyah also highlighted another Japanese study that surveyed the optimal acceptability of salt/MSG combinations in various foods, hoping to apply the same principles in local Indonesian foods.
“What was found is that more is not necessarily better – in clear soups for example, just pinches of MSG were enough to induce maximum pleasantness and acceptability amongst consumers due to the optimum umami flavour,” he said.
“Some applicable foods for Indonesia would be clear soups and fried rice, where just 0.6% and 0.37% of MSG respectively were found to induce this optimum umami flavour.
“There is obviously a need to adjust between liquid and solid foods, but the overarching principle is that this is a way to reduce salt intake by maximising the use of umami to compromise for less sodium.”
