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The FDA is asking food makers and eating establishments to voluntarily reduce salt levels in their products to help reduce Americans' high salt intake.
The draft guidelines target these sources of salt with the goal of reducing Americans' average daily salt intake from 3,400 milligrams (mg) a day to 2,300 mg a day.
[...] Currently, 90 percent of American adults consume more salt than recommended, the FDA pointed out.
[...] The public has until the fall to comment on the FDA's voluntary salt guidelines for food manufacturers and restaurants.
The FDA claims that people can always add more salt to their food, which is true, but they ignore that salt changes how food is cooked and adding salt to the surface of food affects taste differently than when it is evenly distributed.
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=197193
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_salt
(Score: 5, Informative) by physicsmajor on Tuesday July 26 2016, @11:23PM
I do have to disagree with you here. There's a tremendous amount of literature in nephrology (that's the kidney doctors) pointing directly at sodium for causing and exacerbating hypertension, renal disease, and related conditions. I attended the American Society of Nephrology conference once, and the one thing which stuck with me above all else was how much and how often sodium was mentioned. Maybe not all that research is perfect, but the consensus there and very much in accord.
It's hard to design truly robust trials for sodium intake, because it's everywhere. Short of putting people in completely controlled environments, you just aren't sure how well they followed your diet. That's part of why we don't have the highest level of evidence for this stuff. However, there is retrospective stuff pointing in the direction of a long, slow degeneration. Eating right all along should be helpful, not just after you get diagnosed with hypertension.
Both low and high sodium levels can kill you, but those are rare medical conditions which are almost never directly related to diet (save dehydration or perhaps polydipsia). Eat anything close to a regular diet and you'll get plenty of sodium, your body (kidneys mostly) will regulate the rest.
As for simply listing the sodium contents - we've done that for decades, doesn't seem to be effective.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Francis on Tuesday July 26 2016, @11:44PM
Did you bother to read my post? There is zero evidence to support the targets being set in the absence of elevated blood pressure. But they're handing out these irresponsible guidelines for everybody. And even in those cases you can't assume that it's excessive sodium when there's a balance that has to be kept between the electrolytes.
What's more, intake is a shitty way of monitoring it. Some people retain more than others and some folks retain less, barring specific test results showing that a person has excessive sodium it's malpractice to suggest lowering it. I know that when I'm stressed I retain less of it than I normally do.
People should be given the amount of sodium in their food, but unlike excessive sodium, insufficient sodium kills quickly and with little warning.
It's both irresponsible and dangerous to make these blanket recommendations based upon questionable science.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @12:40AM
One of the biggest problems with the FDA is that they make blanket recommendations and impose blanket requirements. Or they make it prohibitively expensive to overcome their blanket requirements by requiring a prescription every time you need something or they outright ban something for everyone for no good reason.
I recently briefly commented about it here regarding red yeast rice and Lovastatin.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160725/09460835061/internet-things-is-security-privacy-dumpster-fire-check-is-about-to-come-due.shtml#c154 [techdirt.com]
I think it's a combination of both irresponsibility and corruption. I do not need the government managing my health for me. It's not like they can manage anything else well so why should I believe they can manage my health.
"If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."
~Thomas Jefferson
(Score: 1) by driven on Wednesday July 27 2016, @06:27AM
Fact: Too much of any one thing is bad for you. In my opinion, the risk of having too _little_ sodium in your body these days (for the average person) is small and probably means they aren't eating many modern foods. There is a lot of salt in so many things: soup, bread, prepared meat, snack foods, restaurant food, milk and cheese, to name a few.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 27 2016, @06:11PM
I tend to agree, and by example I point to all the years of constant wall to wall ranting about the cholesterol content in food. Suddenly its all turned around and the cholesterol intake limits are deprecated, and such intake cholesterol was found to never reach the blood stream.
But while cholesterol was on the FDA shitlist every doctor, health blogger, and Mom was parroting the nonsense, and it was settled science.
Even with high blood pressure, most people are NOT sensitive to salt. There are a small minority of high blood pressure patients who are, And these are easily spotted.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2016, @11:50PM
too much: you are hurting yourself and might ultimately die from related causes
too little: oops, you suddenly died
To get quick death via too much salt is not easy. You'd have to be eating bowls of it for breakfast.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday July 27 2016, @01:09AM
Back in the Air Force during a long march we were made to carry salt packets and mix a little bit with our water during canteen breaks. The reason why is because, before they did that, a trainee had too little sodium and ended up dying as a result of brain swelling.
As somebody who loooooves salty food (in before cocksuckler nut swallower etc.) it is possible to achieve the same effect using herbs and spices, but as another user pointed out above, it requires a lot more cooking savvy and jacks up the food cost. Fat chicks are good cooks for obvious reasons, so it is difficult to get a low-sodium, well-seasoned meal without boning one.
I like what V8 juice does with their low-sodium juice - instead of sodium, they use lots of potassium, and it seems people just don't get enough of that nowadays, especially drunks like me who eat more than enough sodium but piss out all their potassium.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday July 27 2016, @03:21AM
Hey, ordinary-sized women can cook just as well. Okay, so 6' is bigger than "ordinary" but I love to cook, and will spoil my girlfriend rotten (but healthily!) once we're finally moved in together. In fact, good home cooking is how I manage to maintain a healthy weight.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @03:54AM
Go to a restaurant, check whether the cook is fat, eat or don't.
Why get the cow for free when you can buy the milk?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @07:44AM
I can understand deboning pork (...mmmm... bacon), but a chicken? Way too much effort.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 27 2016, @12:09AM
My admittedly anecdotal observation is that it seems food manufacturers have been gradually increasing the amount of sodium in our diets over the last couple of decades. It used to be that a prepared food that had around 20% of the US RDA of sodium per serving was considered wildly excessive. Today, it is hard to find prepared foods with US RDA of sodium below 30%. Many have US RDA of sodium of 40%, or more! Add to this that, now, food manufacturers seem to be finding cute inventive ways to obfuscate how much sodium is in their prepared foods (e.g., stating that each "serving" has 25% of the US RDA of sodium but a single prepared package actually has 2 servings, etc.).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday July 27 2016, @03:01AM
Yes, and then further research showed that all of that applies only to a small portion of the population. This 'suggestion;' is like banning lactose because some portion of the population shouldn't have it.
Big surprise, the FDA didn't get the memo.