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Feel Like You’ve Been Putting More Salt on Your Food Lately? There’s a Reason

Feb. 11, 2013 5:31pm Erica Ritz

Food Companies Quietly Cutting Salt From Favorite Recipes, Kraft, ConAgra, Au Bon Pain, Cereal

(Photo: Shutterstock/ Nenov Brothers Photography)

(TheBlaze/AP) — Salt has quietly been slipping out of dozens of the most familiar foods in brand-name America, from Butterball turkeys to Uncle Ben’s flavored rice dishes to Goya canned beans.

A Kraft American cheese single has 18 percent less salt than it did three years ago. The salt in a dollop of Ragu Old World Style pasta sauce is down by 20 percent. A serving of a Wishbone salad dressing has as much as 37 percent less salt. And a squirt of Heinz ketchup is 15 percent less salty.

Their manufacturers are among 21 companies that have met targets so far in a voluntary, New York City-led effort to get food manufacturers and restaurateurs to lighten up on salt to improve Americans’ heart health, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Monday. While it’s unclear whether consumers have noticed the changes, campaigns aim to get more salt out of the national diet in the coming years – a challenge for an ingredient that plays a role in the taste, preservation and even texture of food.

Salt reduction has become a recent focus of public health campaigns in the city and elsewhere. Salt, or sodium chloride, is the main source of sodium for most people.

A standout display holds Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, part of the Kraft Foods Inc. family of brands and products, are seen at a Ralphs Fresh Fare supermarket in Los Angeles Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. (Photo: AP)

Sodium increases the risk of high blood pressure, a major cause of heart disease and stroke. Dietary guidelines recommend no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day, equal to about a teaspoon of salt; the American Heart Association suggests 1,500 milligrams or less. But average sodium consumption in the U.S. is around 3,300 milligrams, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found.

Officials said the first step was a meaningful one.

“The products they’re making healthier are some of America’s most beloved and iconic foods,” noted Mayor Bloomberg, a fan of Subway’s meaty Italian BMT sandwiches, which are now 27 percent less salty.

Health officials say Americans get the vast majority of their salt from processed and prepared foods, and not necessarily the foods they’d imagine: Bread and rolls are the No. 1 source.

“The problem is not the salt on the table. The problem is the salt on the label,” city Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley warned.

A sign explaining the absence of salt shakers is posted on a table inside a Boston Market restaurant on August 21, 2012 in San Francisco, California. (Photo: Getty Images)

The amount of salt in any given food item can vary widely. A slice of white bread can have between 80 and 230 milligrams of sodium, for example. A cup of canned chicken noodle soup has between 100 and 940 milligrams. A 1-ounce bag of potato chips ranges from 50 to 200 milligrams.

In one of a series of healthy-eating initiatives on Bloomberg’s 11-year watch, the city announced voluntary salt guidelines in 2010 for various restaurant and store-bought foods. Besides trimming salt levels in the foods by 25 percent by 2014, the campaign aimed to reduce consumers’ overall sodium intake by 20 percent in the same timeframe. Interim targets for the foods were set for 2012.

For instant hot cereals, as an example, the guidelines called for a 15 percent salt reduction by last year and a 31 percent cut by 2014.

Boston-based cafe chain Au Bon Pain lowered salt in sandwiches and breads by getting suppliers to use fresh vegetables, whole grains and herbs, CEO Sue Morelli said in a release.

Fresh bread is sold at Borough Market on February 7, 2013. (Photo: Getty Images)

Kraft Foods Inc. squeezed salt out of products ranging from steak sauce to bacon partly by substituting potassium chloride, research Vice President Russ Moroz said. It’s also salty-tasting, but potassium lowers blood pressure, and most Americans don’t get enough of it, Farley said.

The switch works up to a point – generally, about 10 to 15 percent of the sodium content – before potassium chloride causes a bitter or metallic taste, Moroz said. Northfield, Ill.-based Kraft can use other flavors to mask that, but maintaining the taste is “really the challenge in continuing to reduce sodium,” he said.

“If you don’t make foods that taste good, people don’t buy them, and, in the end, we haven’t really done anything to impact the diet in the country,” Moroz said.

Bloomberg has seized on improving New Yorkers’ eating habits as a public health priority, leading charges that have banned trans fats from restaurant meals, forced chain eateries to post calorie counts on menus and limited the size of some sugary drinks.

He and city officials say they’re making pioneering reasonable efforts to save lives and cut health care costs, but some food industry interests and consumers have said New York is turning into a nutrition nanny.

CBS News has more on the story:

Still, many companies are making the call on their own.

ConAgra, which makes Chef Boyardee and Marie Callender’s products, is following its own 2009 commitment to shave the amount of sodium in its foods by 20 percent by 2015.

Salt was simply reduced in some recipes; others have swapped some table salt with potassium chloride or sea salt, which has lower sodium levels, said Mark Andon, vice president of nutrition at Omaha, Neb.-based ConAgra Foods Inc. Another technique is using finer salt particles, which spread the taste over more surface area; that approach has reduced salt in its Orville Redenbacher and Act II popcorn by 25 percent.

But ConAgra hasn’t broadcast the changes on its food labels.

“If you put that on your packaging, that can be a negative taste cue,” Andon said.

PepsiCo Inc., which makes Frito-Lay products, announced in 2010 that it would cut sodium in key brands by one-fourth in five years. Spokesman Christopher Wyse said Monday the New York-based company is looking for alternatives after a plan to use smaller salt crystals didn’t work.

Front page image via Shutterstock.

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Comments (77)

Buckwylds
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 12:14pm
Jimmy John’s has no salt and pepper for customers in his stores (if they do, they can be reported to the franchisor). I believe this is a good thing. Mainly because people refuse to taste the food before salting it up. 99% of people love the sandwich they get and enjoy. Jimmy says he seasons his meat for a certain taste and he wants the people to taste it for what it is, not for added salt.

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AndrewoftheTauri
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 10:10am
Sodium, Chloride, Potassium, and Calcium are needed for normal nuerological function. As such, I view attempts to ban any of these four salt ions as, essentialy, an attempt to ban thought.

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Tigress1
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 9:50am
I don’t care if salt is eliminated from foods such as canned vegetables. I can’t ever taste the salt in them anyway and sprinkle my own on top. However, foods like potato chips and nuts that are SUPPOSED to be salty should have salt on them! I’m sick of them putting sea salt on my chips. If I wanted sea water I’d go swim in the ocean. Blah!

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shogun459
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 9:42am
The British controlled India by controlling Salt.

Salt isn’t just for flavor, without it you die.

Food chemistry also needs salt.

Only Tyrants withhold that which is vital to life, Liberty and Freedom.

Salt, Free Speech, Freedom to practice your Religion, the GOD Given Right to Defend yourself i.e. a pistol.

Why do folks vote for someone that advocates taking these away from us?

Why do folks vote for a Tyrant?

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SilentRunner
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 8:29am
The saltine crackers that I buy are now just ‘ine crackers. I wish to hell lying thieving politicians would mind their own damned business.

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Melika
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 7:59am
I hate to break it to ConAgra, but I don’t need any label “cues” to taste the difference. Stop Effing with my food!!! If I want Potassium Chloride in my food, I’ll put it there. I’m not a F-ing child, I can make up my own mind!! Guidelines are just that – guidelines. Everyone is different and no one reacts the same to chemicals.

Anybody want to make a wager that within 5 years, we’re going to be seeing reports on the dangers of too much Potassium Chloride? After all the drones are convinced that it is a good substitute, we’ll get the truth as to what a crapper it is.

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- shogun459
  Posted on February 12, 2013 at 9:47am
  Good thing it isn’t, Potasium Nitrate
  
  Give them time that’s going in the food next.
  
  For those educated in America that’s Salt Peter, a known cause of impotence.
  
  So, when it happens to you, and it will, is it you or something in the food?
  
  Report this comment
hoosierblue
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 6:19am
YOU, YES YOU! Do you have a license for that salt?

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rosie1000
Posted on February 12, 2013 at 4:28am
Oh yeah we’ve noticed alright and we knew the direct source of why our food taste like s— now. The fat butt in the white house has decided we all need to reduce salt because she has no self control. The new research shows clearly that unless one already has high blood pressure, there is no need to reduce salt intake. What is wrong with the fools who don’t also see the correlation that the more “diet” foods we have eg diet sodas, the fatter we get. YOU CAN’T FOOL MOTHER NATURE. Feed your pancreas diet sweetner and it thinks it needs to dump some insulin to process it. All of the diet foods and unsalted foods leave us unsatisfied, so we eat more and get fatter. Leave our foods alone dictators. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs demonstrates that food, clothing, shelter are the basic needs and if we can’t get them met, one can become cranky, scared, and perhaps desperate, affecting one’s decision making processes. Is this the intent? Screw with the food to increase the anger and sense of helplessness against a dictatorship? Stop buying the unsalted foods, let the manufacturer know why you are stopping and when their sales drop, they will decide that perhaps they need to satisfy the public instead of the dictators.

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- Melika
  Posted on February 12, 2013 at 8:05am
  Further research indicates that people with high blood pressure CRAVE salt, indicating that the body is trying to use the chemical as a natural remedy. Reading between the research lines indicates that there is NO direct evidence to suggest that salt intake causes HBP. In other words, they don’t know if salt intake causes HBP or if HBP patients just want the extra salt as a symptom of their disease.
  
  Report this comment
eagle
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 11:44pm
I find most prepared/boxed/canned foods, and restaurant foods to be way over-salted.
If they cut the sodium 50% it would still be too salty.

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Verceofreason
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 11:44pm
All I know is, I am sick and tired of seeing fat people everywhere and having them shoved
down my throat as ‘normal’!

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RWH
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 9:23pm
I have noticed! I thought I was going crazy! I kept finding myself thinking “this needs salt” with foods that I didn’t used to, and now that I read this article I know why.

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OUTRIDER WRITER
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 9:07pm
I’ve noticed that I’m having to add extra salt to the fresh scrambled eggs I make myself several mornings a week. Stop the madness! : )

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tbb
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 7:24pm
It isn’t the salt that is bad for you. It is the anti-caking agents that they put in the salt that cause all the health problems.

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NickyLouse
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 7:23pm
The reason the “good” mayor is coming up with all of these regulations is COLLECTIVE SALVATION. He truly believes that he is a better person for saving the health and lives of people who are too stupid (in his opinion) to take care of themselves.

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oh_yeah
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 7:19pm
if a person needs a curtain amount of salt in their diet fine. pour it on a spoon and eat it like a pill. but, dont force me to eat over salted food.

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AmericaMustBeFree
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 7:18pm
No wonder everything has been tasting like caca!! Stock up now before they remove it from the shelf.. I have read where people who didn’t have salt for a long time craved it as much as sugar! Salt has been with us since biblical times.. and no one then was stopped from using as much as they wanted. These are things that Satan does.. and those who enforce this sort of crap are his minion. No Big Gulps.. no plastic, less salt.. because its not good for you. Clearly, those who tell anyone what they can and cannot do are Lucifers evil forces! Its all a power thing.. and Satan now more than ever has more power over the world than ever. God help us!

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rfycom
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 7:18pm
Obama did it

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Victoria1555
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 7:14pm
The only real problem with (industrial) salt is the CHEMICALS that are added to it! We need salt in our diets and if SEA SALT is used your body can deal with it. Sea salt contains essential micro minerals that have many health benefits…when I started using sea salt years ago some of the fine lines on my face just disappeared. The American system is so screwed up…many idiot myths. We get enough iodine in a natural diet that we should never be deficient. : )

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JUSTANOTHEROPINION
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 7:11pm
No problem, have salt and standing ready to pour. hehe!

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BlackCrow
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 7:11pm
Where is courage? Don’t change the recipe, let New York City go hungry! Serves them right electing communist pigs.

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purple_circles
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 6:57pm
Anything can be harmful if you over or under do it. We really do not need a moron nanny to tell us any different or inject new regulations. This is America the land of the free not the land of the bow to the Nanny

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fingerprintguy
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 6:52pm
What gets me is, nanny state morons are getting companies to reduce salt and fat (Where all the flavor is) to try and force people to what they deem better health, BUT, in order to get people to keep eating the food, they have to substitute something else to improve or maintain the flavor. That additive is usually SUGAR, which I can’t have because I am diabetic. So please mayor ******* and all you other nanny state morons, adjust YOUR OWN diets, and leave mine the hell alone.

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Ohio Guy
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 6:47pm
My doctor actually suggested that I add more salt to my diet. Can do doc!

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loveliberty83
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 6:43pm
i do not know if this is what happened to Kraft mayanase the only one i ever used for potato macroni salad omg had to throw salad out what a nasty taste no longer buy kraft products, even their ranch is nasty

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Magyar
Posted on February 11, 2013 at 6:42pm
This is so simple— DO EAT PROCESSED FOODS– none of them good for anyone!

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