It is now acknowledged that excessive sodium intake above 2,300 milligrams per day as recommended in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans is deleterious to health.  It has been established that 70 percent of sodium intake is derived from processed and packaged foods.  The U.S. FDA has embarked on a program of encouraging the voluntary reduction of salt addition to foods by processors to a level equivalent to 80 percent of the intake prevailing in 2021. 

Voluntary targets are intended to reduce average individual sodium intake to approximately 2,750 milligrams per day.  The program has achieved some reduction with 40 percent of the initial Phase I target.  Phase II will concentrate on packaged and prepared foods to achieve improved health in accordance with the White House National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition and Health to be accomplished by 2030.

The FDA will eventually release 2024 data and provide an evaluation of progress in achieving Phase I target. Jim Jones, Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods at the FDA, stated, “Reducing sodium in the food supply has the potential to be one of the most important public health initiatives in a generation.  The early successes we are seeing with reduction of sodium level in certain foods is encouraging and indicates the impact we believe our nutrition approach can have on the well-being of society.”  Excess dietary sodium can result in hypertension, a contributory factor to heart attacks and stroke with evidence that reducing sodium intake lowers risk of theses conditions.

If high salt intake is overtly deleterious and because reducing intake is beyond the capacity of consumers to regulate since it is deliberately added to processed foods, why is the FDA pussyfooting around with long-term voluntary guidelines?  Let’s apply science and common sense to the situation and establish maximum levels for foods that are enforced. It is evident that manufacturer are adding superfluous levels of salt to foods that could be constrained. A 10 oz. can of “healthy” mushroom soup contains 410 mg salt representing a claimed 18 percent of RDA (2,270mg by calculation). The “regular” version of mushroom soup from the same manufacturer contains twice the level of salt confirming where the salt originates, and it is not the mushrooms.

Come on Mr. Jones if you know from your technical staff that high levels of salt are deleterious and add to the cost of healthcare why delay developing and enforcing standards that restrict deliberate and excessive addition of salt to foods? What is restraining you? Commercial interests and their lobbyists? Congenital and institutional reluctance by the FDA to “do the right thing” for the people you are charged to protect? It escapes me!