The agency wants to lower how much salt we consume over the next three years to an average of 2,750 milligrams per day. That’s still above the recommended limit of 2,300 mg.
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday laid out fresh goals to cut sodium levels in packaged and processed foods by about 20%, after its prior efforts to address a growing epidemic of diet-related chronic diseases showed early signs of success.
The FDA in October 2021 had set guidelines to trim sodium levels in foods ranging from potato chips to hamburgers in a bid to prevent excessive intake of salt that can trigger high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.
The agency is now seeking voluntary curbs from packaged-food makers such as PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz and Campbell Soup. The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Homing in on a single number at a time is like plugging one leak and having another spring up. The laser focus on reducing fat, for example, led to foods using more salt and sugar to compensate and that created other problems. We need a more holistic approach to diet.
The 1980s was a time of great over reporting of unfinished science. From there through the 1990s was a nonstop mood swing over what was good or bad for you.
Doesn’t seem like much has changed since then.
I think you’re right, thematically. But we also know a heck of a lot more about all this than we did back then. Much more settled science compared to anecdote or conjecture.
And in the 80s they felt confident what they knew was a heck of a lot more than what was known in the 40s, probably would even have argued it was much more settled science compared to the anecdote and conjecture of yore.
Personally I am of the opinion that for all our knowledge there is still vastly more we don’t know than do, and that we should always try to be mindful of possible ignorance and “of-the-time-ness” of our knowledge in all things.
Thats great, but can we do high fructose corn syrup next? That shit is just evil on multiple levels.
This is so dumb. You can’t fix this problem at the packaging level. You have to convince people to eat less, or eat smarter.
You definitively can fix many things at the product level
Food in Europe is generally less bad for you due to regulations
Now do the same for sugar
Cut sugar by 75% and we’re getting somewhere.
a former coworker sat and tried to convince me that sugar is neither bad for you nor addictive. the sugar lobby psychological manipulation propaganda machine is the behemoth that has to be dismantled before any meaningful change can even be attempted
this coworker was an instructional academic librarian who included confirmation bias and how to avoid it in her teaching
Sugar is NOT bad for you. Too much of anything is what’s bad.
Drinking too much water can kill you.
yea, the whole “everything is bad for you if you do enough of it to kill yourself!” is a pretty common response. and yes, that’s true. there IS a threshold for everything. one cigarette won’t kill you either.
one cigarette won’t kill you either.
Interesting. The fearmongers at school told us it could.
Agreed but the cigarette analogy is not really accurate.
Sugar is arguably good for you in moderation. We evolved to seek out sugar in the form of fruits, berries, etc. Quick energy, fast acting carbohydrates etc.
Can’t think of how this translates to a single cigarette lol.
“In moderation” being the key part. As in, not selling drinks and snacks that are like 30% sugar
As in, not selling drinks and snacks that are like 30% sugar
On the flip side, those snacks and drinks are ideal for athletes.
I wouldn’t want to stop having those foods available, simply because the majority of the population are idiots when it comes to fueling their bodies.
People need to have some self control, ffs.
Agree 100%. And arguably “in moderation” is much lower than people might want it to be. Plus most of this stuff is processed with high fructose corn syrup trash.
HFCS is literally just liquid sugar.
We evolved to seek out sugar because it is energy dense in a time when food wasn’t plentiful
Today we have more food than we know what to do with
Agreed but the cigarette analogy is not really accurate.
why not? if you’re going by “too much of anything is bad for you,” then doesn’t it follow that “NOT too much of anything isn’t necessarily bad for you”?
so yea, one soda won’t kill you = true. also one cigarette won’t kill you = true.
what i’m getting at is that your “argument” isn’t one
The human body doesn’t need nicotine to survive
That’s like saying arsenic isn’t bad for you, but too much is.
Sugar is indeed bad for you. Like any refined carbohydrate.
Too much sugar as it happens is an insanely small amount. Most people have had too much sugar before they’ve left the house in the morning.
We need carbohydrates, but as it happens we only need a little and we can get everything we need from a few servings of green vegetables.
100% of the people that come in contact with dihydrogen monoxide die.
Agreed, corn syrup shouldn’t be added to almost all food on the taxpayers’ dime.
And fat!!
Fats aren’t bad for you like sodium and sugars are.
Sodium and sugar are not “bad” for you. Sodiums/salts are arguably an absolute necessity for brain function lol (electrolytes). It’s the too much that is the bad part. There’s natural sugar in fruits and stuff, which you already know. Blanket statements like “sugar is bad” are dumb.
Maybe if the issue wasn’t soo widespread, but the manufactured over abundance has tipped the scales enough that simple statements of sugar/sodium being bad for you (even if not entirely correct) are a step in the right direction.
No, you are wrong and so is your ridiculous statement.
even if not entirely correct
It’s not that it’s “not entirely correct”, it’s entirely incorrect. Full stop.
We evolved to seek out sugar. Originally in the form of fruits and berries and whatnot, as its an efficient fast acting carbohydrate for quick energy. It is good for you. Period.
Over consumption due to over abundance and the capitalist profit motive not giving a shit about the consequences on people’s health, because muh profits, is why people eat to much of it.
Your solution is to blatantly lie, which is dumb and wrong. Lying is not a step in the right direction ever.
Educate people, and hold capitalists accountable, in the form of violent regulation. You ain’t gonna do that cuz you have no power and never will. Lying is dumb. Sugar is good for you in moderation.
Yeah because searching for berries all day is exhausting, ordering a pizza and 2l of coke is not you muppet.
But that doesn’t make sugar bad. It makes too much sugar bad, which seems to be what they were saying. Albeit, ineloquently. **Insert thought terminating insult.
They are, refined fats and sugars are bad. Unrefined both are good.
Now that trans fats are gone, the best way to improve fats is you can’t just add sugar and call it low fat.
The risks of sodium aren’t universal (some people appear to have immunity), and were exaggerated by the sugar industry.
THIS! My cardiologist has instructed me to eat 7-10 grams of salt a day. He literally encouraged me to eat things like chips, pretzels, pickles, salted nuts, and ramen to get more.
I supplement with electrolyte mixes with 1g sodium. They cost over $1 each and I am supposed to drink 2-3 a day. I still don’t get enough salt to feel my best.
It’s fucking obnoxious to have health conditions that mean I need a thing that so much of the world tells me is bad, and everyone else is trying to get rid of.
It’s especially bad, in my experience, with plant-based foods that they’re trying to make taste like meat.
I had the Impossible Whopper once… it was almost like eating a soft block of salt.
Plant based meats are bassically the definition of highly processed food.
Do we already know what manufacturers would replace it with to maintain flavour? Eg in the past when manufacturers had to cut down on fat, they’ve replaced it with sugar and hydrogenated oils?
They should be putting fats back in and cutting out carbs/sugars
I feel like I recall a story about a chip company that slowly reduced their salt content by like 50% over a number of years and literally no one noticed or complained.
I definitely saw another story about how they were researching pyramid-shaped salt crystals because they have higher surface area to volume, and with cuboid salt you wind up swallowing it before the whole thing even dissolves, so you’re not even getting a theoretical flavor experience, it’s just going straight into your gut.
We eat too much salt. It’s absurd.
Salt is not an issue if you’re healthy and drink enough water. Our problem is we’re not healthy and don’t drink enough water…we eat chips and drink coke with it.
I’d caveat it’s not unhealthy if you sweat a lot, drink lots of water, AND consume a level of dietary potassium 2x that of your sodium intake, which pretty much nobody is. (and disclaimer I’m no doctor).
Sodium and potassium work together with opposite functions via the sodium-potassium pump. Too much salt leads to water retention within cells. That’s the best case scenario so long as you’re drinking lots of water. Too much salt absent of potassium will send blood pressure up due to vasoconstriction.
Potassium helps the body regulate fluid retention and helps to concentrate urine while helping with vasodilation of blood vessels (among many other important functions).
Just learning all this as I’ve taken a deep-dive on this stuff for my own health as well as my mom’s.
I’ve read this a lot but have no idea how to increase potassium. There’s only so many bananas you can eat and clearly one every day is not enough
Even if there’s a salt substitute with potassium, I’m not sure the point when there’s no problem with salt you intentionally add. Especially since I rarely do
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