Sodium Intake

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As more people prefer to eat alone, sales of instant meals at convenience stores have nearly tripled over the past year. But a nutritional study has found that many of convenience store lunch options contain too much sodium. Here are the details.

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Lunch boxes are a best-selling item at convenience stores during the lunch break on a weekday. The quick, convenient lunch option is especially popular among those who opt to eat alone.

[Soundbite] Kang Jae-shin(Office Worker) : "I usually opt for convenient store lunches when I don't have enough time or when I want to eat quickly and take a brief break.They are a bit salty. But I eat them because I have no other choice."

Excessive salt content was confirmed in the analysis of lunch box ingredients. A study on 20 convenience store lunch meals showed that each product contains more than 1,300 milligrams of sodium on average. That amount is nearly 70 percent of the World Health Organization's recommended daily intake of 2,000 milligrams. Lunch boxes sold at CU convenience stores contain over 370 milligrams per 100 grams on average, which is higher than the sodium content in instant ramyeon noodles. Mini Stop came in second, followed by GS 25 and 7-11. But the content of potassium, which promotes the discharge of sodium from the body, is less than half of the sodium.

[Soundbite] Roh Chang-sik(Food Safety Department, Seoul City Government) : "It is better to add in yogurt, cheese or milk,which help the discharge of sodium from the body."

It is difficult for consumers to get detailed product information of convenience store lunch meals, which are not required to list their nutritional facts, unlike hamburgers or rolled rice gimbap.