Hawker food with less sodium – can you tell the difference?

Some hawkers have cut down on salt in their food and customers are not complaining

- Tan Hsueh Yun Senior Correspondent

In the past year or so, more hawkers have been selling less salty food, either by cutting down on the table salt they use or by switching to lower-sodium salt. And judging by the reaction - or lack of it - customers have not noticed.

Owners of five hawker stalls that now serve less salty food say none of their customers have complained. Two of them say some customers help themselves to soya sauce, but for the most part, it is business as usual.

Convincing hawkers to sell less salty food is part of the Health Promotion Board's (HPB) war against salt. Nine in 10 people here bust the recommended daily limit for sodium.

That recommended daily limit is 2,000mg, which is one teaspoon of table salt, kosher salt or rock salt, including Himalayan pink salt. But according to HPB's 2022 National Nutrition Survey, which tracks the eating habits of adult Singapore residents, nine in 10 people here are averaging 3,620mg of sodium a day, compared with 3,480mg a day in 2019.

The Health Ministry's National Population Health Survey of 2022 shows that more than one-third of Singapore residents have hypertension, one of the consequences of a high-salt diet, and this proportion has nearly doubled from 2010.

HPB has been fighting the battle on all fronts since 2011: getting sauce manufacturers, caterers, restaurants and other businesses to reduce sodium levels in their food, and getting people to cut down on salt when cooking.

A spokesman says that in July, the board ramped up its efforts among hawkers, rolling out its Healthier Ingredient Promotion Programme to encourage them to use lower-sodium ingredients.