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.
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High blood pressure affects about a third of Americans and about 50 percent of African Americans.
Although many people are willing to decrease their salt consumption, their daily situation and typical exposure to high-salt food products make their situation a whole lot hard.
The FDA said it is particularly focused on reductions by food manufacturers whose products make up the bulk of sales in any one of these categories, as well as by national restaurant chains.
Americans eat nearly 50 percent more sodium than what most experts recommend.
Sylvia Burwell, secretary for the United State Department of Human Services, said giving consumers control is the major reason the FDA wants to reduce sodium intake by 1,000 mg or about a half teaspoon.
The Food and Drug Administration proposed voluntary guidelines for the food industry to reduce salt on Wednesday, a move long sought by consumer and public health advocates who said the standards could eventually help save thousands of American lives. 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.
The average sodium intake in the U.S. is approximately 3,400 mg per day.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates reducing sodium intake by just 400mg a day could prevent 32,000 heart attacks and 20,000 strokes a year. Aside from that, one in three people has high blood pressure, which has been associated with increased levels of salt in diet and is a significant risk factor for stroke and heart disease.
The new proposed guidelines are voluntary, so companies will not have to follow them. According to FDA officials, one reason that consumers have had a hard time cutting their salt intake is that so much salt is already added to their food before it is even purchased, taken home, and eaten.
“The majority of sodium intake comes from processed and prepared foods, not the salt shaker”.
The new guidelines, which the FDA has been working on for five years, are not mandatory but pressure food manufacturers to limit the amount of salt in processed food.
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The FDA is taking a two-tiered approach to reach its goal, where short-term is two years and long-term is 10 years. Only after public consent final guidelines will be issued. FDA’s Susan Mayne says the agency believes that now is the time to start a national conversation about the problem of increased salt intake.
