Changes to diet
Attempts to cut down on salt make up the most prominent changes to people’s diets. Awareness that there is a link between salt intake and high blood pressure is widespread, and several people interviewed mentioned that doctors, nurses and friends or family had advised them to cut down. Others had read similar advice in leaflets or books.
Criticises the lack of advice on a healthy diet apart from avoiding chocolate and beer.
However, not everyone felt that the advice was sufficient motivation to stop using salt or improving diet generally. Some salt users had continued eating as much as ever, unwilling to sacrifice their enjoyment of food. With others, attempts to cut down had not succeeded.
Admits that too much salt in the diet is bad.
Those who had managed to stop using any added salt reported that their taste had changed and salty food was now quite unpalatable. Others had cut down in some ways – for example by reducing added salt at the table, or avoiding salt in cooking – but had clearly retained a taste for the seasoning and described certain foods as needing it. One patient mentioned using a salt alternative but had not investigated whether it made a difference to his blood pressure.
Describes how his diet has improved by avoiding salt and caffeine, and steaming food.
Describes how she has cut salt down in her diet.
Discusses how difficult it is to lose weight and to change diet.
Even those who have successfully cut down on added salt in cooking or at the table were concerned that they might still be consuming a lot. Those who had tried to reduce salt reported some of the difficulties in identifying high salt foods. They became aware of the high salt content of certain bottled mineral waters, convenience and slimming foods, and of the poor labelling of low salt foods compared with low fat foods in the supermarket. Labelling on food has improved since the introduction of schemes such as the traffic light labelling system in 2004.
Some of those who had been successful in reducing their salt had made other changes at the same time – for example cutting down on fat or cutting down on alcohol and giving up caffeine. These people were concerned with improving their health generally. Often they were successful, as it is often easier to make several changes at once rather than continuing to eat the same foods without the habitual seasoning. However, several people blamed their inability to keep their weight down on the difficulty of keeping to a diet while working. Others, however, had different ideas of the effects of diet on hypertension – such as high carbohydrate levels.