The agency wants to lower how much salt we consume over the next three years to an average of 2,750 milligrams per day. That’s still above the recommended limit of 2,300 mg.
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday laid out fresh goals to cut sodium levels in packaged and processed foods by about 20%, after its prior efforts to address a growing epidemic of diet-related chronic diseases showed early signs of success.
The FDA in October 2021 had set guidelines to trim sodium levels in foods ranging from potato chips to hamburgers in a bid to prevent excessive intake of salt that can trigger high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.
The agency is now seeking voluntary curbs from packaged-food makers such as PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz and Campbell Soup. The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
great hopefully next they reduce plastic by 100%
or at least ban things like styrofoam
Sorry I can’t say I need my food packaging to last thousands of years
We’re lucky if styrofoam lasts the week, and when it breaks it gets everywhere. Hard plastic would be an improvement in every way.
Already banned in some areas. I haven’t seen Styrofoam food packaging in a long time.
I don’t know who the fuck is eating this garbage but I think whoever they are does not care about sodium
Keto people argue about sodium.
It’s especially bad, in my experience, with plant-based foods that they’re trying to make taste like meat.
I had the Impossible Whopper once… it was almost like eating a soft block of salt.
Plant based meats are bassically the definition of highly processed food.
Yeah, not really my thing overall, but I was curious.
If they started selling lab-grown meat, I’d give it a try.
I like chips and guac, but every time I go to the store and the low sodium chips are out of stock…I don’t buy chips.
Once you get used to it the regular ones are disgustingly salty.
I’ve been raising the cocoa % on the chocolates I buy and I’m on 80% now. I had a regular bar recently that was gifted to me and I could barely take a bite because it was so excessively sugary. Unfortunately I can’t go any higher than 80% as it is not sold here (expensive imports only) but I definitely would if I could, and honestly I would recommend anyone to try this starting at 40%.
For sure, and my grocery is frequently out of their fresh pico de gallo, trying to push me to buy their ketchuppy sugar-filled “salsa” with infinite shelf life
I also don’t buy chips
I grew up in a low salt household and now I’m extremely sensitive to salts, so most chips are a no-go for me
Casa Sanchez (if available in your area) makes great tortilla chips that are noticably lower in salt than other brands. They aren’t marketed as low sodium, but because they aren’t super coated in salt like, for example Tostitos, it’s the only brand I buy. They also taste way better imo
Homing in on a single number at a time is like plugging one leak and having another spring up. The laser focus on reducing fat, for example, led to foods using more salt and sugar to compensate and that created other problems. We need a more holistic approach to diet.
The 1980s was a time of great over reporting of unfinished science. From there through the 1990s was a nonstop mood swing over what was good or bad for you.
Doesn’t seem like much has changed since then.
I think you’re right, thematically. But we also know a heck of a lot more about all this than we did back then. Much more settled science compared to anecdote or conjecture.
And in the 80s they felt confident what they knew was a heck of a lot more than what was known in the 40s, probably would even have argued it was much more settled science compared to the anecdote and conjecture of yore.
Personally I am of the opinion that for all our knowledge there is still vastly more we don’t know than do, and that we should always try to be mindful of possible ignorance and “of-the-time-ness” of our knowledge in all things.
You’d have been correct then too! But I do think that things are different still. In the late 1970s, medical journals went from anecdote based to evidence based publishing. That surely took time to have an effect and now research physicians are rigorous professional scientists. I’m suggesting that the base is elevated compared to then.
Thats great, but can we do high fructose corn syrup next? That shit is just evil on multiple levels.
Sigh, ok.
Tell the intern to order three more semis of corn syrup.
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They’ll up the chloride content by 40% to compensate, though.
I bet they just put 20% less food in the package.
Unironically, yes. A common substitute for table salt (sodium chloride NaCl) is potassium salt (potassium chloride KCl).
The good news is that the health problems with table salt is the sodium, not the chloride. Potassium actually has the opposite effect on the body, so a higher potassium intake would actually help treat a high sodium intake.
Fun fact: potassium chloride is what the United States has primarily used in lethal injection which has been used to execute 1400 people since 1976.
It’s also what we use to salt our roads.
I’m absolutely going to hear some Karen later repeat this fact as a reason to protest against ‘government crackdowns on salt’ or something, aren’t I?
They are killing our roads!
“Swimming pools are bad! They’re full of water, which LESBIAN TERRORISTS use to DROWN CHRISTIANS!”
No, not my salt and vinegar kettle chips! 😭
Too bad, they’re vinegar and salt now!
Sea salt flavor is now just sea flavor.
*cries in spironolactone*
Embrace tradition, eat an entire jar of pickles in one sitting.
I dust pickled jalapenos with flour and airfry/broil them 👍
It’s not just the chips that are the problem (although many brands are so salty they burn my mouth) , everyone knows they’re salted.
Hopefully this includes the chicken nuggets and other prepared foods that not everyone realizes are high in sodium
Who cares about sodium, can we get rid of high fructose corn syrup? I mean reducing sodium sounds good, but it’s not even on the same playing field
Also stuff like sodium nitrate and other fantastic chemicals that make food last for 100’s of years
How else are we gonna ensure a stable supply of post-fallout Mac & Cheese, InstaMash, Salisbury Steak, and Cheezy Poofs?
Do we already know what manufacturers would replace it with to maintain flavour? Eg in the past when manufacturers had to cut down on fat, they’ve replaced it with sugar and hydrogenated oils?
Food? Maybe their product doesn’t need to be addictive but can instead include a higher percentage of food ingredients
That’s certainly a possibility, but I’m not sure it’s the most likely one in America, so I’d like to better understand the consequences
They should be putting fats back in and cutting out carbs/sugars
Mostly potassium salt, although with some other recipe changes to account for the different flavor.
The good news is that potassium is well understood nutritionally. Most Americans do not get enough of it. To a first approximation, it is anti-sodium health wise, so it is a double win in that it both reduces sodium intake, and counters the effect of a still high sodium intake.
