Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm here today as professor and chair of the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto and as vice-chair of the Canadian Sodium Working Group.
The sodium working group is a multi-stakeholder task force that has been mandated to oversee a population health-based approach for the successful reduction of the sodium content of the diets of Canadians. As a nutritional scientist and a member of the sodium working group, I'm concerned about the high levels of sodium in the diet. I thought it might be useful to quantify this for you.
Data from the Canadian community health survey that was conducted in 2004 indicated that on average, Canadians consumed more than 3,400 milligrams of sodium a day. The upper level of sodium is set at 2,300 milligrams. So you can see where we are. Over 90% of men and 66% of women exceed this upper level.
But sodium isn't just a problem with adults. It's also a problem for children: 76% of children aged one to three, and 90% of children aged four to eight, and 97% of adolescent boys exceed their upper intake level for sodium.
More than three-quarters of this sodium comes from manufactured and processed foods, which we eat at home or outside the home. Very little of this sodium is either naturally occurring or added at the table or during cooking.
During my remarks to this committee last fall, I shared two figures with you that gave you an overview of the sodium and the sources in the food supply that provide this sodium to Canadians. There are two important features about sodium in the food supply. Firstly, some foods, like bread, are only moderately high in sodium, but they can provide substantial amounts because we eat so much of them. We eat them every day in relatively large quantities. Other foods—and last year I showed you things like soups, frozen meals, hot dogs, some prepared sandwiches—have very high quantities of sodium. Some of those foods in one serving can provide almost your daily recommended amount, and some can even approach the upper level. For example, that submarine sandwich I showed you approached the upper level in a single serving in a day.
Secondly, I think it's important to know not only these levels of sodium in the food supply but that there's no one food, or one food group, that provides most of the sodium. So reducing sodium will mean changes in virtually every food, and nearly every food product in our food supply, if we are going to have meaningful reductions in our sodium intake. Also, for consumers, taste is paramount, so these changes will have to occur at approximately the same time across all foods so that Canadian consumers can get used to reduced levels of sodium. We expect that such approach will take a number of steps phased in over a number of years.
With these numbers in mind, the sodium working group looked at ways to reduce sodium intake by Canadians. Our report, which we expect should be out shortly, focuses on voluntary reductions in sodium levels in foods; an extensive education program to inform consumers, manufacturers, distributors, food service operators, and policy-makers about the need to reduce sodium; as well as identifying the research that will be needed to support these changes.
We announced our interim first target of a reduction in the population average sodium intake to 2,300 milligrams as the upper level by 2016. This first goal is felt to be aggressive and challenging, but one that we are confident that the Canadian food supply collectively can meet. We are actually encouraged by some of the progress that has already occurred.
Lastly, I want to explain to you what we envision by targeted, voluntary reduction, which you've heard about. We hope and we plan that these targets would be published for virtually the whole food supply for prepackaged and manufactured foods, as well as for foods sold in restaurants, cafeterias, and elsewhere outside the home. Not only will these targets be published, but our terms of reference call for developing a monitoring plan. In other words, we expect that the levels of sodium in Canadian foods should be measured regularly and the results of this progress published regularly as well, so we, and in fact all Canadians, will be able to monitor our progress over time.
Now, it's the start of May, and our report is just about nearing completion. We expect it shall be submitted to the Minister of Health early this summer. We hope we have charted a clear path forward for reducing the sodium intakes of Canadians, and we await the opportunity to share our report with you in the near future.
Thank you very much.