When it comes to bread, in this fast-paced life, it is one of the most indispensable of food items as the main ingredient for breakfast for almost every person.  But did you ever think or know that the bread you eat in the morning, or at other times during the day, is also causing some damage? In fact, a new report says that it actually welcomes diseases like blood pressure, the major cause of strokes, heart attacks and even heart failure? If you did not, then we will inform you the reason for this claim. 

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World Action on Salt and Health (WASH), based at the Queen Mary University of London, in its report, Global Bread Survey 2018, has revealed that the bread we eat has very high levels of salt content in it.

In its study, WASH surveyed over 2,000 white, wholemeal, mixed-grain and flatbreads from across 32 countries and regions including India and found that 34% of bread in the survey contained more than 1.25g of salt per portion, which is a third of the maximum daily intake of salt as recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that is maximum 5gram in a day. 

Indian companies in WASH survey
WASH surveyed different products of eight bread making companies in India and found that only four of them were mentioning the salt content on their products. However, the salt content, as mentioned by four companies, which was about 1.25 gm per 100 gram, was quite high. This means an intake of 4 slices of the bread will help you in getting one-fourth quantity of salt that is essential for your body in a day. This means a person will have to keep him/herself away from salty foods throughout the day, at least to keep him/herself from the aforementioned diseases. 

Companies Surveyed
To conduct the survey, WASH collected the data between July and December 2017 and the companies surveyed includes Boon, Britannia, English Oven, Perfect, Harvest Gold, City Fresh, Farmer' s Energy, and Topsim. And the surveyed products were Premium White Sliced Bread, Sandwich White Bread, Premium Sandwich Bread, White Sandwich Bread, ATTA  Wholewheat Bread, ATTA Bread, 100% ATTA Bread, Sandwich Bread, Regular Bread and Extra Soft Premium Bread. 

The reason behind not mentioning the salt-content on the packs  by Indian bread making companies 

Ashok Kanchan, the chief advisor of Food Division at Consumer Voice, during a candid talk with Zee Business's Suman Agrawal said that the FSSAI has no regulation on mentioning salt-content on the pack of bread and that is one of the reasons that these companies avoid mentioning the details on salt-content on their packets. He added, his organisation has written to FSSAI and the Ministry of Health and Consumer Affairs on the issue but have not received any response from their end.