FDA plans to limit amount of salt allowed in processed foods for health reasons

Source: Washington Post

The Food and Drug Administration is planning an unprecedented effort to gradually reduce the salt consumed each day by Americans, saying that less sodium in everything from soup to nuts would prevent thousands of deaths from hypertension and heart disease. The initiative, to be launched this year, would eventually lead to the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in food products.

The government intends to work with the food industry and health experts to reduce sodium gradually over a period of years to adjust the American palate to a less salty diet, according to FDA sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the initiative had not been formally announced.

Officials have not determined the salt limits. In a complicated undertaking, the FDA would analyze the salt in spaghetti sauces, breads and thousands of other products that make up the $600 billion food and beverage market, sources said. Working with food manufacturers, the government would set limits for salt in these categories, designed to gradually ratchet down sodium consumption. The changes would be calibrated so that consumers barely notice the modification.

The legal limits would be open to public comment, but administration officials do not think they need additional authority from Congress.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/19/AR2010041905049.html?wprss=rss_nation

Let's hope that trend continues. There are so many products I'd use regularly if they'd just take the @#(*& salt out of them.

:sarcasm:
Im all for coming down on factory food actually.
I learned how to cook from scratch in self defence.
Low salt low fat etc. We even moved to a place on an old tobacco field for a variety of reasons..1 we could afford to buy and live here and it has some land we can farm for organic food.
Not everyone can do this..but we had to leave where we were because we could no longer afford it, so we made a list of what we wanted, what we could afford and did the best we could.

salt is for them. So, this is very good for them. And salt is sure easy enough to add, if one insists.

everyone could, many if not most simply don't know how.

Consider the typical American family today.

Both parents work, kids are in all kinds of activities the parents are involved with in one way or another (shuttling to practice, attending games/activities, etc.) and you have a recipe for not a whole lot of time to prepare, cook and clean up afterwards.

yes INDEED

If you want more salt in your food, Morton's is very inexpensive. Buy it and add it to your food to your heart's content.

Black humor pun was not originally intended, but I ain't deleting it.

because this absolutely had to happen this year

to lower one's salt intake. Maybe a good idea to make some guidelines for food manufacturers. But actually legislating how much? Sounds like a very, very expensive proposition.

Do you mean that processed foods will have to actually taste like something other than salt. Imagine that!

Give us less salt NOW! The so called low sodium stuff is still way too much.
And why is it only the low fat stuff called healthy?
Do like they did with tomato paste. They just removed it.

The more salt and sugar you eat, the less you respond to it and more you need to add. If all the food manufactures gradually cut salt and sugar bt half or moor in processed foods, no one will notice.

The problem is no one manufacturer is willing to lead the way. If they reduce but no one else does, their food is perceived as "different". This is another case where the GOP concept of "self-regulation" of inductry just does not work.

I'm sure I get enough salt from restaurants and the processed foods I eat, so I never add salt to anything. And once you cut back, you can taste other flavors better and become more sensitive to salt. There are herbs and spices that enhance the flavor of food without covering it up the way salt does. It takes a while to used to it, but people really are missing a lot when they add salt.

the main ingredients were a lot of different salts,seaweed,gums,grain powder. the stuff that makes cottage cheese white is what is in oil based white paint.

these guys are in on the taking away our god given right to dump salt on everything!

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4708

what the hell do they know?

first thing my doctor told me after my heart attack...cut back on salt and fats.

So many get admitted to the hospital for CHF exacerbations mainly d/t overdoing it with salt.

Neither do I. Uninspected foods continue to pour into this country from China.

but I think they need to do away with the cigarettes tooo, snuff, chew, cigars, all tobacco products that shits just nasty and it affects people who dont directly use it more than salt does!!!

nt

reaction that started me down the road to kidney failure. I was on a strict low sodium diet for many months - until my kidneys started working normally. I was reading % of everything I tried to buy. It was frustrating. I ended up making my own soups again. I had started my garden before I was hospitalized so I was lucky I had access to some organic ingredients. The amount of naturally occurring sodium is enough for me.

I started flavoring many things with rice vinegar. I was surprised at how it made so many things taste so good and I started not missing salt at all. Of course one day I happened to glance at the label and, you guessed it, it was loaded with salt. Boy, did I feel stupid.

I have to cut down drastically on salt. Also, I think most of these foods with so much salt taste TERRIBLE. Some of those canned soups actually have a burning, scalding taste from all the salt. But I have learned to read labels and am finding more and more low-sodium alternatives. Except for maybe something like bacon I can find practically anything I need in a reduced-sodium form. Unless this is a real health emergency I don't want the government to ban anything, so I guess that makes me one of the no nanny state people. Thousands die each year too from aspirin and related non-prescription inflammatories. Cutting down sugar content would surely reduce diabetes-related deaths. Where do you draw the line? If it's a problem, education and labeling requirements have worked in the past. Many people may not realize that trans fat content has not been regulated at the federal level but food packaging requirements have. With public education trans fats have virtually disappeared from processed food.

after many years, I ate some Campbell's soup and the salt burned my mouth.
Also I noticed on some canned spinach that sugar was used as a preservative.
Go figure.

that is a million times more harmful than salt (which is a natural substance).
BTW, what will happen if a cop pulls me over and finds salt in the car?

there are low salt choices out there. choose one.

if government wants to do something, it should end the wars and break up some large corporations that are conspiring to fuck up the country.

going after pot and salt should not be on the radar.

"administration officials do not think they need additional authority from Congress"

They already believe they not only have the right, but the authority, to intrude extensively not to prevent bad things from being in the food supply, but to make sure that too much of things that we can easily add ourselves, things which are legal to have in the food supply, aren't there. (That worked so well for the FCC. And, oddly, the response was often: Who needs a law passed by Congress, as the Constitution requires, when we think there might be a problem!)

Fine. Regulations. Salt. Sugar. Fat and oil. We can legislate the number of calories from starch/sugar per gram water-soluble fiber. For starters. Then we can start to *really* get serious about making sure that every American does what's needed to keep themselves healthy.

More Dostoevsky. Burdened with freedom, with choice, the weak and pitiful will go running for shelter under the wings of those who will make the choices for them and spare them the burden. Who point to the mystery of their wisdom. All that's missing is the bread; they're probably working out acrylamide limits for that.

People will applaud it, not just because it helps them avoid a choice, but because many want their own personal choices imposed on manufacturers and consumers, for society to, by fiat, be remade to suit their personal tastes. Yes, some are just that self important.

Personally, I hate sugar in spaghetti sauce. Somehow it never occurred to me to do more than not buy spaghetti sauce with sugar. I never hit on the expedient of hoping for a law to rectify my problem.

And, yes, too much salt is bad for many people. Not for all. But more disturbingly, if you reduce the salt in food a person will add salt if it's available; if it has too much salt, he simply won't eat it; and the salt intake for the day will tend to be about steady, however it's distributed. Most of the rest is untested claims masquerading as just enough truth to impose personal tastes on others.