Sitting quietly in little containers on tables in just about every home and restaurant are the innocent-looking white crystals of sodium chloride that are killing a jumbo jet's worth of Americans every day.
But the salt shaker isn't the main culprit. Some 75 percent of the salt we eat is already in the foods we buy at the supermarket or order at restaurants.
That's why it's pretty much impossible to drive down salt levels without the cooperation--willing or otherwise--of the processed food and restaurant industries.
But getting companies to use less salt is no longer as far-fetched as it once was.
A confluence of events has finally raised salt to near the top of the health agenda. Every major health agency, including the World Health Organization and the National Academy of Sciences, has recommended dramatic reductions in sodium consumption. To achieve that, groups like the American Medical Association and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute have urged the food industry to cut sodium by SO percent over the next 10 years.
But, ironically, perhaps the biggest impetus for action in the United States has come from the British government, which has been pressuring food manufacturers to cut the salt. The Brits are seeking to slash salt consumption by one-third over five years. And they're making headway: multinational giants like McDonald's and Kraft have started to use less salt.
In Britain, that is.
Ideally, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would also encourage companies to slash the salt ... and they'd do so. But when the FDA tried that in the early 1980s, it didn't work.
Judging from a market basket of 7l processed and fast foods that the Center for Science in the Public Interest (Nutrition Action's publisher) began monitoring in 1983, at the current rate it will take 100 years to reach a SO percent reduction in the sodium content of the food supply.
(We're actually consuming more sodium now than we did in the 1970s, in part because we're eating more food.)
But change is in the air. Last October, CSPI cosponsored a conference with the Grocery Manufacturers Association, with the aim of putting salt reduction on every company's radar screen. A number of firms, including ConAgra, General Mills, and McDonald's, said that they were starting to cut the salt.
And the FDA held a public hearing last November on a petition filed by CSPI to regulate salt levels. Needless to say, industry pushed for voluntary measures instead.
There's still time for you to weigh in--with the coupon at left or, better, with a personal letter to the FDA about why it needs to require companies to reduce the salt. We need to show the Feds that millions of Americans want to cut their risk of heart attack and stroke.
Lowering sodium is tougher than getting rid of trans fat or sugar, because there's no easy substitute. And while each of us can read nutrition labels and stow the salt shaker, unless government and industry do their part, salt will continue to take its deadly toll.
Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Center for Science in the Public Interest
COPYRIGHT 2008 Center for Science in the Public Interest
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
But the salt shaker isn't the main culprit. Some 75 percent of the salt we eat is already in the foods we buy at the supermarket or order at restaurants.
That's why it's pretty much impossible to drive down salt levels without the cooperation--willing or otherwise--of the processed food and restaurant industries.
But getting companies to use less salt is no longer as far-fetched as it once was.
A confluence of events has finally raised salt to near the top of the health agenda. Every major health agency, including the World Health Organization and the National Academy of Sciences, has recommended dramatic reductions in sodium consumption. To achieve that, groups like the American Medical Association and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute have urged the food industry to cut sodium by SO percent over the next 10 years.
But, ironically, perhaps the biggest impetus for action in the United States has come from the British government, which has been pressuring food manufacturers to cut the salt. The Brits are seeking to slash salt consumption by one-third over five years. And they're making headway: multinational giants like McDonald's and Kraft have started to use less salt.
In Britain, that is.
Ideally, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would also encourage companies to slash the salt ... and they'd do so. But when the FDA tried that in the early 1980s, it didn't work.
Judging from a market basket of 7l processed and fast foods that the Center for Science in the Public Interest (Nutrition Action's publisher) began monitoring in 1983, at the current rate it will take 100 years to reach a SO percent reduction in the sodium content of the food supply.
(We're actually consuming more sodium now than we did in the 1970s, in part because we're eating more food.)
But change is in the air. Last October, CSPI cosponsored a conference with the Grocery Manufacturers Association, with the aim of putting salt reduction on every company's radar screen. A number of firms, including ConAgra, General Mills, and McDonald's, said that they were starting to cut the salt.
And the FDA held a public hearing last November on a petition filed by CSPI to regulate salt levels. Needless to say, industry pushed for voluntary measures instead.
There's still time for you to weigh in--with the coupon at left or, better, with a personal letter to the FDA about why it needs to require companies to reduce the salt. We need to show the Feds that millions of Americans want to cut their risk of heart attack and stroke.
Lowering sodium is tougher than getting rid of trans fat or sugar, because there's no easy substitute. And while each of us can read nutrition labels and stow the salt shaker, unless government and industry do their part, salt will continue to take its deadly toll.
Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Center for Science in the Public Interest
COPYRIGHT 2008 Center for Science in the Public Interest
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
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