The World Health Organization recommends that adults consume less than 5g of salt daily (i.e. slightly less than one level teaspoon). For both adults and children, daily intake of free sugar should not exceed 10% of their total daily energy intake. For an adult consuming a daily 2,000 kcal diet, their daily free sugar intake should be less than 50g (i.e. about 10 sugar cubes).

Lowering salt and sugar content can help bring out the natural flavours of food. The key to maximising flavour relates to the choice of ingredients and cooking methods.

Large-scale promotional event in February 2019.

According to the findings of the Population Health Survey 2014-15 conducted by the Department of Health (DH), Hong Kong residents aged 15 to 84 had an average daily salt intake of 8.8g. Nearly 50% were overweight or obese, about 28% had hypertension and more than 8% had diabetes.

The Government and the Committee on Reduction of Salt and Sugar in Food (CRSS) have been promoting territory-wide salt and sugar reduction through five directions:

DH has been promoting healthy eating environments to school children via kindergartens, childcare centres and primary schools. This has included launching the Healthy Drinks at School Charter to encourage kindergartens and childcare centres not to provide drinks with added sugar or a relatively high sugar content to children. DH has also been reducing the average sodium level of school lunches for primary schools by 5 –10% annually since the 2017-18 school year through the Salt Reduction Scheme for School Lunches — with the goal of reducing the level to not more than 500mg within ten years.

Salt Reduction Scheme for School Lunches.

To help the public easily identify pre-packaged food products that meet the legal definition of “low salt”, “no salt”, “low sugar” or “no sugar”, the CRSS has launched the “Salt/Sugar” Label Scheme for Pre-packaged Food Products. Pre-packaged food products with these labels can be found at the following website:

“Low Salt”, “No Salt”, “Low Sugar” and “No Sugar” labels.

Hong Kong residents frequently dine out. In view of this, since January 2019, CRSS has encouraged a number of restaurants to provide customers with options of reduced salt and/or sugar and has
subsequently invited some other restaurants to offer tailor-made less-salt-and-sugar dishes to the customers. To-date, more than 600 restaurants are already providing reduced salt and/-sugar options, and around 300 other restaurants are offering tailor-made less-salt-and-sugar dishes.

Less-salt-and-sugar restaurant logos.

You can find information of these restaurants by searching “Less-salt-and-sugar Restaurants” at Openrice or via the following website:

We have been driving the food industry to reformulate their food products to provide higher-quality food with less salt and sugar for their customers. Food products cover a wide range including condiments, drinks, bread, instant noodles and soups.

We have been promoting a less-salt-and-sugar new dietary culture through different types of publicity activities each year. For example, we have organised a large-scale promotional event and cooking demonstration, and produced a salt and sugar teaching kit in 2019. We have also invited a band comprising doctors to re-arrange and sing two songs with the theme of salt and sugar reduction for us.

A band comprising doctors (St John Band) taking a photo on stage with Mr Bernard Chan (fourth right), Chairman, Committee on Reduction of Salt and Sugar in Food and Professor Sophia Chan (second left), Secretary for Food and Health, after performing the songs "No more oil and salt" and "Too much sugar".

Salt-and-sugar Teaching Kit.