Salt in the American Diet

[Guest guest]

Please forgive me for my soap box. Perhaps one of you can enlighten me. I

simply don't get the new recommendations for reduced sodium in the American diet

to 2000 mg for up to age 40 and 1500 mg after 40 yo. Studies are saying the

current average intake is 3400 mg and that this is " twice the recommendation "

and unacceptable. When I was in school, in the dark ages, the average intake

was 5000-6000 mg, 3000-4000 (a NAS diet) was the recommended goal, 2000mg was a

low sodium diet requiring all salt free foods and 1000-1500mg was considered an

extremely restricted diet requiring control of amounts of food in all food

groups to achieve, even with all salt free products like salt free bread. How

is this considered to be a realistic goal for the American public? Articles are

saying there has been no change in the sodium intake in the American public in

the last 30 years. I believe that decreasing the average intake to 3400 mg from

5-6,000, by my math, is a 32-43% reduction in average intake. It doesn't take a

statistics degree to recognize that this is significant.

The further arguement is that heart disease is still the number one killer in

the US. Excuse me for stating a few unpopular facts. 1.) We all are going to

die. 2.)We all basically die when our heart stops 3.)Something has to be number

one, what is the recommendation to replace heart disease in the number one spot?

I don't mean to be dense. I certainly agree that much can and should be done to

make our food supply healthier by reducing sodium, fat, sugar and processing.

We are an obese, overfed, undernourished nation. It just seems that the new

sodium recommendations are unrealistic, impractical and just plain stupid.

However, I am ready to be enlightened. What do you all say?

Mavis , RDLD