Consumer Law

FDA Planning to Establish Legal Limits on Salt in Foods

By Brian Wolfman

The lead story in today's Washington Post explains that the Food and Drug Administration, citing health concerns, plans to limit the amount of salt in foods. Given that only 6% of salt intake comes from salt added at the table and 77% comes from processed foods, the food industry will likely not go way quietly. Here's the first paragraph of the story:

The Food and Drug Administration is planning an unprecedented effort to gradually reduce the salt consumed each day by Americans, saying that less sodium in everything from soup to nuts would prevent thousands of deaths from hypertension and heart disease. The initiative, to be launched this year, would eventually lead to the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in food products.

Check out this handy chart, which shows that the average American takes in a lot more salt than the amounts considered healthy:

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on April 20, 2010 (boomark / email).