Salt and sattvic food

Recently, some colleagues from the Agency met with representatives of the Hindu community at Europe’s largest traditional Hindu temple, the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Neasden, London. The day started with a meeting, followed by presentation on ayurveda and sattvic food. I was interested to learn more about sattvic food, which is said to be an approach that ‘gives life, strength, energy, health, happiness and satisfaction’. The sattvic dietary approach has some similarities to our healthy eating advice, but also has approaches that are distinct.

In Hinduism, food is said to be seen as a carrier of the life force called ‘prana’ and judged by the quality of its ‘prana’. Traditionally, the sattvic  approach uses many fruits and vegetables. Care is taken in environmental approaches, and we were told that the approach also suggests that foods should be eaten in moderation. As with many religious and/or cultural approaches to diet, some foods are prohibited, with other foods taking on higher significance within the diet.  Traditionally, sattvic food is said to not be overly salted, though in practice this may not always be the case.

Most people in the UK eat too much salt, which can raise your blood pressure and triple your risk of having a stroke and heart disease, whatever your age. This means that most people would benefit from cutting down on the amount of salt they eat. The Agency recommends a maximum daily salt intake of 6g for adults. This is not a large amount, especially when you consider that 75% of the salt we eat is already in the food we buy. Since sattvic food tends to be cooked from scratch, there is also the salt added during the cooking process which can add to the salt intake. And in communal cooking environments that are common in temples, such as the Shiri Swaminarayan Mandir, the large volume catering can mean that an appreciation of how much salt is added to the food can be easily overlooked. 

As part of the Agency’s salt campaign, we looked to work with several partners to get our salt messages across to people to make a real difference in their everyday lives. We worked with eight key partners on projects over a year, ranging from teenage parents and peer educators through to school children and their parents in different parts of the UK.  I was interested to learn that one of these projects, in partnership with the British Heart Foundation, looked specifically at this social cooking activity in Sikh Gurdwaras and Hindu Temples (Mandirs).  In fact, by pure chance it also involved the Shri Swaninarayan Mandir in Neasden.  The learning from these projects were shared with a range of interested individuals and organisations at an event last Friday.

Although this social cooking project with temples didn’t include a large analysis of all the food served and didn’t therefore include measures we might see within the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, it did look to influence the amount of salt used in this high volume cooking environment.  But it aimed to influence it in a gradual way that still allows those eating at the places of worship to enjoy their food.  I was pleased to learn that the British Heart Foundation have data that suggests reductions in the use of salt in these cooking environments ranged from 8 to 50% for some recipes.  In the Shri Swaninarayan Mandir in Neasden I’m told that there was an average of 10% reduction in salt in the urad dhal, potato and pea curry and the vegetable curry over the course of the project. 

Given that the Neasden temple serves food to about 1000 people on weekdays and about 3000 on weekends or special occasions, this small project will be contributing towards major public health gains for the population. All of those who’ve been involved in this project with the BHF, and our other salt partners, should be congratulated on their success.

The lessons from relatively small projects also have wider impact. When you are cooking in the kinds of volumes that commercial cooking is undertaking on a day to day basis, small  changes in everyday cooking practice can, and do, have a major impact on salt content of the food.  So, if others in the catering sector learn that one of the places of worship in our partnership project were able to reduce the salt content of one dish by 7% by shaking off salt from a tablespoon before adding it to the pot, there could be wider salt reductions when we eat out.  Similar approaches when cooking for yourself would also work.  Such learning is useful to help inform discussions with caterers and show that simple tools and approaches can make real differences to people’s health. 

So, to all those out there who took part in our salt projects, many thanks for your work. And, to those who either cook for themselves at home or cater in larger settings, it’s now your turn to make a difference.