Mary Ellen Kuhn

Americans are consuming too much sodium, and to help them cut back, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should establish mandatory federal standards to regulate the amount of salt that food manufacturers and foodservice operators can add to their products. That is the key message in “Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States,” a report released last month by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and available online at http://www.iom.edu.

Current average daily sodium intake is more than…Figure 1. Trends in mean daily sodium intake from food for three gender/age groups, 1971–1974 to 2003–2006. Reprinted with permission from “Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States,” 2010, by the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.





Figure 2. Tracking salt concerns vs reduced-sodium product consumption. From The NPD Group’s National Eating Trends® Service


Premium Content
You've reached your monthly limit of free articles.
Access Food Technology
Log in Subscribe