Canada's Health ministers meet to try to shake up food salt content

The debate over whether food companies should be outed for failing to reduce sodium in their products is on the table at a two-day meeting of provincial and territorial health ministers that starts Thursday November 24 in Halifax.

As Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq and her provincial counterparts wrestle with ballooning health-care costs and negotiations over a new health-care accord, they're also set to tackle "healthy living"topics.

The agenda includes a discussion of whether it's time to export Quebec's ban on junk food advertising to children to other provinces as part of a national effort to reduce childhood obesity.

Details about a Healthy Weights Summit to promote healthy weights among children and youth also are expected to be unveiled.

But how best to reach the agreed-upon goal of reducing the average daily sodium intake of Canadians by about one-third by 2016 is expected to eat up a big chunk of the ministers' time as part of their discussion on healthy living.

At last year's meeting, the ministers agreed to set up a special committee of federal and provincial officials to consider how best to monitor progress as part of a "structured voluntary approach"to reduce the amount of sodium in processed foods.

The group also would start discussing the role "regulatory instruments"could play and under what conditions they could be used, given that 75 per cent of sodium in the diets of Canadians come from commercially prepared foods.

Health Canada has published on its website proposed sodium-reduction targets and timelines for specific food categories, and the question now before health ministers is whether the progress of individual companies will be made public as part of the monitoring program.