Fighting the Sodium Battle

Back in the 80s, I worked on my first low-sodium product, a low-sodium cracker. The medical writing on the wall was writ large with the Intersalt study and the subsequent National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute focus on sodium and blood pressure. Several decades later, sodium reduction continues to be a high priority for the food industry.

A recent resolution from the American Public Health Association (APHA) urged the FDA to start regulating sodium levels in processed and restaurant foods, set a schedule to progressively reduce levels by 75% within 10 years, and remove or modify sodium’s GRAS status. APHA has asked for a standard sodium DV (Daily Value) of 1,500 mg by 2017.  It also wants a front-of-package label that identifies high-, medium- or low- sodium content.

This echoes the American Medical Association’s (AMA) 2006 sodium reduction call, “Promotion of Healthy Lifestyles I: Reducing the Population Burden of Cardiovascular Disease by Reducing Sodium Intake.”    The report recommended a plan to reduce sodium in processed and restaurant foods by a minimum of 50% by 2016, with 65% of the population consuming recommended levels of salt by 2010. AMA also asked FDA to remove salt’s GRAS status so manufacturers would be required to petition the FDA for salt’s approval as a food additive at specified levels.

So five (or 25, depending where you’re standing) years later, where are we? Last year, the CDC said the average American consumes more than 3,400 mg of sodium per day and recommended regulatory action because,  “For 40 years we have known about the relationship between sodium and the development of hypertension and other life-threatening diseases, but we have had virtually no success in cutting back the salt in our diets."

It isn’t that the food industry isn’t cooperating. The CDC report says consumers have gotten used to high sodium levels due to enhanced taste and refuse to give it up. (Cue the failure of Campbell’s lower-sodium soups to garner adequate sales.) “Evidence shows that a decrease in sodium can be accomplished successfully without affecting consumer enjoyment of food products if it is done in a stepwise process that systematically and gradually lowers sodium levels across the food supply,” it says. Otherwise high-salt, consumer-preferred formulations have a competitive advantage. Legislating salt would “create a level playing field for the food industry.”

My logical, scientific brain says, “Great. That sounds like a workable plan.” Then my practical, somewhat cynical brain says, “Yeah, right, that’ll happen about the same time we legislatively limit the amount of sugars, fat and anything else we shouldn’t eat in excess.” Meanwhile, my limbic brain (the one that makes me eat the salt from the bottom of the pretzel bag despite my sodium-sensitive hypertension) screams, “No! You’ll have to pry the salt shaker from my cold, dead hands”—which might happen five or 10 years earlier due to my irrational salt consumption. However, as I’m wont to say, a short life, but a happy one.

While other individuals might not suffer this degree of internal conflict, our society at large does, so it will be interesting to see where this leads. But one thing’s clear: Sodium reduction strategies are here to stay.

   -Lynn A. Kuntz