Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
First of all, I want to thank the witnesses for being here.
I want you to know that we as a committee are committed to studying healthy food. It's one of the things that was brought up as one of our priorities, but personally, I'd like to admit first that I am a recovering saltaholic. I love the stuff, but I'm okay now. When the salt shaker's passed, I do get some shakes, but overall I think I'm doing much better.
I was shocked, Dr. L'Abbé, by one of your handouts. I look at some of the food on there and see that the numbers are really high. I am aware that the industry is taking this seriously. I have been visited by one of the major potato chip manufacturers, another product that I love, and they've taken a lot of action already to lower the amount of sodium.
But I am concerned. My colleague brought up World Action on Salt and Health, and sodium levels in selected products internationally, and bran flakes were mentioned. In Canada, the stated number was 861 milligrams for a serving, but in the U.S. it's only 258. Onion rings, another favourite of mine, in Canada are at 681, while in the U.K. it's down to 159. Popcorn chicken in Canada is at 908 and even Malaysia has it at 560 milligrams.
When I look at these differences internationally, I think there's an obvious question. How does Canada compare to other countries with respect to sodium intake? I was wondering if you have a hypothesis for why. Is it cultural reasons? Is it historic reasons? When I see numbers like that for the amount of sodium we have in products, that looks to me like the average MP's diet.