New York Tries to Shake the Salt

So if the whole motivation behind this new sodium warning label is to change people’s eating habits and improve health, New York City might strike out. Any item with a salt shaker icon beside it contains at least 2,300 milligrams of sodium-about a teaspoon, and the equivalent of the daily recommended dose.

The city became the first municipality to require chains to post high-sodium warnings when its Board of Health approved the rule in September.

The icon is a white salt shaker inside a black triangle, and it’s meant to warn diners about the black-and-white difference between the recommended amount of sodium and too much salt. “We got in front of it simply because you gotta do it”, he said at the news conference Monday.

You have to ask yourself: whom does the National Restaurant Association really represent?

Restaurants will be subject to $200 fines for mislabeling the salty foods, starting March 1.

Still, Americans tend to eat more than the recommended daily limit regularly-around 3,400 mg of sodium per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But Health Department officials said they have authority to require the warnings and believe the public health benefits outweigh any burdens to restaurant owners.

According to the “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” literature released by the US Department of Agriculture and US Department of Health and Human Services in 2010, “the higher an individual’s sodium intake, the higher the individual’s blood pressure”.

The sodium warning pushed by NYC mayor Bill de Blasio is one among a series of health-related initiatives that started from the time of his predecessor Michael Bloomberg, including required calorie count labels and banning of smoking in public places. However, not all NY restaurants will be participating. “Americans are consuming unsafe levels of sodium, most often found in processed or restaurant food”. An global study involving 100,000 people suggested previous year that most people’s salt intake was all right for heart health, though other scientists faulted the study.

The new salt warnings will need to be placed next to around 10% of menu items at restaurant chains with 15 or more outlets in the United States.