In draft voluntary guidelines issued Wednesday, the agency set both two-year and 10-year goals for lower sodium content in hundreds of processed and prepared foods.
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The federal agency has asked the food industry to cut back on the amount of sodium being served in different food products.
The voluntary guidelines are aimed at almost 150 food categories that range from baked goods to soups. Too much sodium can raise blood pressure, which is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.
“Many Americans want to reduce sodium in their diets, but that’s hard to do when much of it is in everyday products we buy in stores and restaurants”, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said in a statement. The new guidance, she adds, centers on giving back the power to the consumers so they have more improved control of how much salt their food contains and subsequently boost their health. The guidelines cover a wide range of foods, from bread to cold cuts, cereals, and snacks.
The FDA’s recommendations divided common processed foods into 150 categories – ranging from vegetable juice to butter to feta cheese – and created sodium targets for each category.
The average American eats about 34-hundred milligrams of salt a day. The draft short-term (two-year) and long-term (ten-year) voluntary targets for the industry are meant to help the American public gradually reduce sodium intake to 2,300mg per day, a level recommended by leading experts and the overwhelming body of scientific evidence.
Americans consume nearly 50 per cent more sodium than what most experts recommend.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to slash sodium levels in processed and restaurant prepared foods. “1 in 3 adults has high blood pressure and high blood pressure contributes to stroke, heart disease and congestive heart failure which are the leading causes of death in the USA”, said Dr. Barry Effron, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, UH Case Medical Center.
“The totality of the scientific evidence supports sodium reduction from current intake levels”, said Susan Mayne, director of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
The CDC estimated that reducing sodium intake by just 400 mg a day could prevent 32,000 heart attacks and 20,000 strokes a year.
Assuming alternatives to using the salt content now added to manufactured foods were available, a trade group called the Grocery Manufacturers Association estimated that the costs to implement the FDA proposals would be relatively high.
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Low sodium versions of popular soups are seen in Washington, Wednesday, June 1, 2016. It will target certain food products to meet the guideline.
