A relatively healthy Asian lunch– say a comforting bowl of ramen with homemade turmeric noodles, plain tofu, mushrooms, pak choi, pickled ginger, a scattering of sesame seeds, miso-soy broth – low in overall calories and saturated fat, can quietly pack an average contain 5.5gms of salt in a single serving.
That is more than your daily salt requirement in just one meal. Before pudding. Before snacks. Before the just-a-splash-more-soy moment.
For context, the World Health Organisation caps sodium consumption at 2 grams a day—that works out to 5 grams or one teaspoon of salt in the whole day(salt is a compound of sodium and chloride), if one must be precise (and one must, because this is sodium chloride, not edible glitter).
The WHO arrived at the one teaspoon a day salt recommendation after a lengthy body of research, the details of which Ad Nut shall not bore you with but let’s just conclude that there is enough medical evidence to link high salt intake to raised blood pressure, raised blood pressure to those deeply inconvenient finales: heart attacks, strokes, and other cardiovascular curtain calls.
Yet for reasons best left to evolutionary misjudgment, humans remain hopelessly besotted with salt. They fear sugar and interrogate fat. But salt enjoys remarkable PR. So much so that studies find an average Singaporean consumes nearly double the daily salt allowance day after day.
Of course, the health risks are glaring. But drowning every dish in sodium also mutes the palate, then everything tastes vaguely the same, and you keep adding more salt to get the kick. The Health Promotion Board’s creative arm, TBWA Singapore, tackles this culinary doom loop with an elegant provocation titled Salt Buries True Flavours.
The campaign unveils The Gallery of Hidden Salt, an immersive display of pictures and sculptures along the busy Orchard MRT to bring out the salt content in food. Three artists reinterpret beloved hawker favourites using stark white cubes that represent the hidden sodium lurking in everyday dishes. The installation runs from 26 February to 25 March 2026.
Watch the video below to understand the intent.
The human body can regenerate taste receptors every 10 to 14 days. If people choose to cut back on sodium for about three weeks, they stand a chance a sporting chance to reset their palate.
Fortunately, Ad Nut does not suffer from a sodium habit and therefore does not need a three-week de-salting sabbatical. But the idea that humans can reboot their taste buds in under a month is almost offensively simple. Three weeks is shorter than a situationship.
Anyway, the campaign with its looming white salt cubes is faintly apocalyptic. Ad Nut is somewhat disturbed but with one in three Singapore residents living with hypertension, perhaps a bit of sodium theatre is precisely what’s required. And if even one commuter manages to pause their mid-soy-sauce pour, then TBWA has done something rather clever.
Ad Nut would call that seasoning with purpose.
CREDITS
Client: Health Promotion Board
Creative Agency: TBWA\Singapore
Film Production: Chuan Pictures Pte Ltd
Photography Production: Studio Oooze
Artists: Gong Hua (Who Eats Art), John Knuth, Niceaunties
 Ad Nut is a surprisingly literate woodland
creature that for unknown reasons has an unhealthy obsession with advertising. Ad Nut gathers ads from all
over Asia and the world for your viewing pleasure, because Ad Nut loves you. You can also check out Ad
Nut's Advertising Hall of Fame, or read about Ad
Nut's strange obsession with 'murderous beasts'.
|
Source: Campaign Asia-Pacific
