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The New York City health Department has decided to regulate another ingredient in packaged food and restaurant meals. This time the city is going after salt. The health department has asked for a 25% reduction in the amount of salt in packaged foods and restaurant meals over the next five years. The reasoning behind this regulation is to prevent heart attacks and strokes by reducing the amount of salt in packaged and restaurant foods.
We consume roughly twice the recommended amount of salt every day and this overconsumption leads to high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes. Research has shown that we are not getting that sodium in our diets because we are shaking salt on our own food. Only 11% of the salt we ingest comes from salt we put in our own food; nearly 80% is added to foods before they are sold. So we are getting the sodium from restaurants and the freezer section of the grocery store.
As an example a half cup of Campbell’s low sodium soup contains 480 mg of sodium. That 480 mg is the limit per serving for children. When you get home tonight look at a 1/2 cup measuring cup and see just how small it is.
Of course the obvious answer is to eat more food at home. You know that is what I want you to do; I try to make it easy for you. We don’t have much disagreement about the salt content of an apple. But I’m realistic and know many of you will eat “outside” food. So..what do you think?
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You can't blame restaurants and other businesses for these salt issues. The people order this product. The government should not regulate what we eat. People should learn when they have had enough salt or any other unhealthy desire.
But people aren't learning, if the government controlled our diets and reduced our salt intake by half a teaspoon per day per person, America would save 24 billion dollars in health care cost. Not to mention, over 150,000 lives would be saved (according to the New England journal of Medicine)
They might save 24 billion dollars in health care costs, just to spend it on something else. The problem is they just can't stop their spending. if they saved that much money do you really think that our premiums will go down. NO it will go in their pockets. really people!!!
I agree with that guy. The number of heart attacks in the U.S. could decline by up to 13 percent if adults could slash their daily salt intake by 3 grams. People aren't just going to do that by themselves.
If they are not going to stop it by themselves then, that is their own problem. What happened to our freedoms. They are just taking them away. We all pay for our ungodly priced health insurance so if we want to eat salt and have a possible heart attack well them so be it. It is our choice. Not the governments.