Axios reports that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) yesterday issued new guidance that asks the makers of "processed, packaged, and prepared foods" to reduce the amount of sodium in their products … The FDA says the goal is to get people to voluntarily reduce their sodium consumption to 3,000 milligrams daily over the next two and a half years, compared to the 3,400 milligrams a day that Americans consume on average.
"That is still more than the official recommendation of 2,300 milligrams a day, but the agency says that the '2.5-year goals are intended to balance the need for broad and gradual reductions in sodium and what is publicly known about technical and market constraints on sodium reduction and reformulation'."
The story says that more than 70 percent of sodium intake in the US can be traced to
"sodium added during food manufacturing and commercial food preparation."\
"We need to get to a place as a nation where we not only react to health scares but work hard to prevent them. That requires thinking about the food we eat — or, better put, the food we don’t. With FDA’s new recommendations, we get one step closer to improving health outcomes," said Xavier Becerra, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). "The human and economic costs of diet-related diseases are staggering. Hundreds of thousands of Americans die each year from chronic disease related to poor nutrition, and by some estimates, the total economic costs range upwards to a trillion dollars per year."
- KC's View:
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Official recommendations are exactly that.
