Sea Salt (© Photographer: Nadya Markova | Agency: Dreamstime.com)

Low salt foods are just as safe or safer than products with high salt levels in spite of expectations that cutting salt would increase the risk of spoilage by bacteria, say scientists at the Society for General Microbiology.

The link between heart disease and high salt diets is well known. For years health advocates have been pressuring food manufacturers to reduce the salt levels in their products. Since salt is an ancient and widely used preservative some worry that a decrease in salt could lead to greater risk from spoilage and bacteria. Researchers from Ireland's University of Limerick found some strains of bacteria actually exhibited greater resistance to the high salt environment. Their work was independently funded by the Irish Department of Agriculture and Food.

"In general we discovered that the growth of different sorts of typical food spoilage bacteria was unaffected by the various salt levels we tested, which means that low salt foods are just as safe as conventionally processed ones," says researcher Edel Durack.

To read the press release from the Society for General Microbiology on which this item was based go to: Cutting salt does not reduce processed food safety say scientists

To view a previous post on this topic go to: Too Much Salt!