Assessment of the salt content in school meals

School lunch is an important opportunity for start learning healthy eating habits and shall ensure a nutritionally balanced food supply. Balanced school meals are linked to improved concentration in class and improved academic outcomes. The report from FAO 2019 “Nutrition guidelines and standards for school meals” refers that more emphasis should be given on setting upper limits for saturated fat, sugar and sodium, especially in contexts where overweight and obesity are prevalent among schoolchildren. According to IAN-AF (2015-2016) the average daily consumption estimated of salt is for children (<10 years) 5.4 g/day and for adolescents (11-17 years) 7.2 g/day. The WHO recommends maximum level intake of 5 g/day of salt in adults should be adjusted downward based on the energy requirements of children relative to those of adults, in order to control blood pressure. The purpose of this study was to assess the salt content of the main components of school meals, collected in diferent schools of Lisbon region and to evaluate the contribution of the diferent components to the salt content of meal. These results were also compared to established guidelines and nutritional recommendations for school meals. Meals were analyzed from 12 diferent schools, consisting of bread, soup and main course. The samples were analyzed by optical emission spectrometry with coupled inductive plasma (ICP-OES) after acid digestion, for determination of sodium content, in accordance with the requirements of EN ISO / IEC 17025. Salt content was calculated by formula salt = sodium × 2.5. The amount of salt provided from the components of the school meals ranged between 0.2 and 0.9 g/meal in bread, 0.2 and 1.7 g/meal in soup and 0.6 and 2.9 g/meal in main course. The component that contributed most to the sodium content of the meal was the main course. These results suggest that the salt content of school meals should be controlled by monitoring, with gains in children's health. Once the values remain far above the WHO recommendation for salt consumption, it is necessary to go even further in salt reduction and extend this intervention to other Portuguese schools.

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