Abstract:
The use of sodium in processed foods, including meats, has been in existent over
centuries. Its use is mainly as a food and meat processing aid, and a preservative
and flavourant. Even with modern methods of food processing, sodium is still
essential in food and meat derivatives due to different dietary demands by
consumers. Sodium chloride, sodium nitrate and nitrite are common in meat
processing for various uses such as curing, smoking and brining. Due to the
increasing global sodium intake, chronic adverse health effects, such as
cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, stroke, cancers, among others, have also
been on the rise, particularly in urban areas. African countries have a proportional
increase of dietary sodium due to the adoption of western diets with high sodium
and saturated fats. Subsequently, South Africa promulgated legislation that
prescribed the first mandatory sodium limits in 2013. The purpose of this review is
to determine, (1) the sodium reduction interventions agreed by African states in
forums and meetings in the past five years (2017-2021) and, (2) sodium reduction
strategies recommended through research by African scholars. This systemic
review was conducted from English literature published between 2017 and 2021,
using Science web, MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Science Direct, PubMed,
Google Scholar, with a specific focus on African countries. From the findings of this
systemic review, there were minimal sodium reduction interventions by African
states, emanating from published forums and meetings, to establish collaborated
sodium reduction strategies in processed foods. The studies conducted by African
scholars in the past five years recommended sodium reduction interventions, such
as legislative framework, product reformulation, monitoring models and consumer
awareness, with most studies done in South Africa. It is evident that to have a
meaningful impact on the control and reduction of dietary sodium, African countries
require existing diplomacies to collaborate on sodium reduction efforts with public
and private partnerships; this can be coordinated through inter-trade treaties
among the African states. This requires an increase in research, commitment and
the will to reduce dietary sodium in processed foods and meat by all member
states.
