Breakfast, lunch or dinner... there is never a bad time to eat a baguette in France.
And the good news is: they are about to become healthier. From October 1st, new regulations mean that baguettes sold in bakeries should contain no more than 1.4g of salt per 100g, down from the current legal limit of 1.5g of salt per 100g.
The salt content in French baguettes sold in bakeries has already plummeted by 20 percent since 2015.
The new rules form part of a wider government strategy to reduce salt consumption in France by 30 percent by 2025. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged all countries to follow the same target in a bid to reduce health problems such as hypertension.
WHO guidelines say that adults should not consume more than 5g of salt per day, but the average French adult consumes between 7-8g.
France's National Confederation of Bakers is on board with the incoming regulations and acknowledges that bread contributes to about 20% of the average French person's salt intake.
Will this change the taste of baguettes?
The salt content change is only very marginal - 0.1g per 100g - so it is unlikely to have a significant impact on the taste of baguettes.
The National Confederation of Bakers has said that the new rules will impose a "real challenge" to bakers who will now have to adjust other elements of their recipe to make a like-for-like product. "There are alternative solutions such as live sourdough, extra yeast or yeast extracts that can be used to compensate for the reduced salt content," it said.
It said that slightly adjusting the temperature at which the baguettes are baked could also go some way to compensating for this loss.
Other bread products also affected
It is not just traditional baguettes that will be affected by the new regulations.
So-called pains spéciaux will also see a new salt threshold imposed of 1.3g per 100g.
Pains spéciaux are breads that either use grains and flour distinct from those used to make traditional baguettes or plain white bread.
Examples include le pain de campagne (which uses regular wheat alongside rye sourdough), les pains au levain (sourdough breads), le pain complet (wholemeal bread), les pains aux céréales (which use multiple varieties of wheat) and les pains aux grains (which are generally covered in things like sesame or pumpkin seeds).
The National Confederation of Bakers has said that various analyses and tests would be performed using samples taken from bakeries all over France, to ensure that salt limits for both pains spéciaux and pains traditionnels were being respected.
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