Jan. 26--TAIPEI -- Convenience store food is often considered the perfect, stomach-filling and time saver in Taiwan. However, a hot dog, the popular "oden" and other foods with unlabeled nutritional content can contain over 1,000 milligrams of sodium from the broth and condiments alone, an alarming number that adversely affects unsuspecting consumers.
Consuming too much sodium can lead to cerebrovascular and kidney diseases or induce calcium loss. The recommended daily sodium consumption is 2,400 mg (roughly equivalent to six grams of salt), a number the public easily exceeds.
The results came from an inspection by the Consumers' Foundation (CF) under the Executive Yuan, which found that oden -- a Japanese dish consisting of broth-stewed vegetables, eggs and fish cakes -- has a sodium level of 1,500 mg, including the dipping sauce and broth. A hot dog plus bun, ketchup and other condiments amounted to 1,000 mg.
Last December, the CF made random inspections of 12 convenience stores, testing 96 hot food products that were not prepackaged. They discovered that regardless of flavor, hot dogs alone were found to contain from 361 to 608 mg sodium.
The oden broth was also deemed a source of high sodium content, from 115 to 205 mg per 100 grams; half a cup of broth amounts to roughly 615 mg of sodium.
The CF brought up its findings during a recent meeting with the Department of Health; although the Food and Drug Administration does not require for convenience stores to label the nutritional content of hot food that is not prepackaged, four convenience store chains have already agreed to label said products by February.
All hot food products (aside from tea-stewed eggs) will have labels for calories, fat and sodium content. At present, only the Uni-President Chain Store Corp., owner of 7-Eleven, has agreed to label the list of contents for condiments and sauces.
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