Environmental and Health-Related Lifecycle Impact Assessment of Reduced-Salt Meals in Japan

Abstract

To achieve sustainable development goals, meals should promote environmental protection and good health. The excessive salt intake of the Japanese people is one cause of lifestyle diseases. This study evaluated the impact of reducing salt intake on the environment and human health. Over one week, this study compared the lifecycle of a model meal based on a Japanese person’s average food intake with a reduced-salt meal, by replacing seasoning/salt with low-salt substitutes. We conducted an inventory assessment of the carbon and water consumption footprints based on the items used in the ingredient and cooking stages. The impact on climate and water consumption was determined using the results of the inventory assessment of the damage factors. We took the global burden of disease result as the health impact of salt intake. The decreased health impact of reduced salt was based on the results of a previous study. The health impact of the ingredient stage of both meals was almost the same. Regarding the assessment of the health impact, the value of the reduced-salt meal was 30% lower than that of the model meal because the salt intake was reduced by 2.8 g per day. We found that the reduced-salt meal could decrease the overall human health impact by 20% because of the reduced incidence of salt-intake-related diseases, despite a small increase in the health impact of reduced-salt seasonings.