Love salt? There is now an internet-based tool that calculates one’s salt intake to determine whether it is within or beyond the recommended daily consumption. This milestone was made available in the country through the partnership between Unilever Philippines and the Food and Nutrition Research Institute – Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST).
Unilever and FNRI-DOST signed a memorandum of agreement to develop a Unilever Sodium Intake Level Test, an online tool that aims to broaden consumers’ awareness of the main food sources of sodium in the Filipino diet and eventually convince them to lessen their salt intake.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that adults should eat no more than 2,000 milligrams of sodium per day, or equivalent to five grams of salt.
With the Unilever-FNRI-DOST Salt Calculator—which can be accessed through the website, www.saltcalculator.ph—the company and FNRI-DOST hope to help consumers understand how much sodium is in their diets. This, too, will help reduce the risk of developing high-blood pressure over time.
According to the WHO, cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death in the world.
In fact, in the Philippines, a study conducted by the Department of Health revealed that more than 170,000 die each year from heart diseases; hypertension being one of them, a disease commonly caused by high salt consumption.
Positive Feedback
Just recently, the web-based program was tried amidst almost a thousand nutrition professionals during the Nutritionist-Dietitians’ Association of the Philippines Annual Convention held on February 24 to 26 in Iloilo City.
Feedback from 200 participants indicated that 96% agree that knowing their sodium intake helps them be more mindful of salty foods; 95% said that they will share the salt calculator to colleagues, patients, and community;
As the leading nutrition research agency in the Philippines, FNRI-DOST have now included the Salt Calculator to their newly launched website iFNRI, www.i.fnri.dost.gov.ph, found under the partnership tab.
For its part, Unilever was recently recognized by the Access to Nutrition Index Foundation (ATNI) as the number one food company globally for its efforts in Nutrition and Health. This encourages Unilever to do more initiatives to improve the nutritional profile of its products and create programs that aims to help solve malnutrition.