Filed by consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the
Public Interest (CSPI), the citizen petition comes just over a
year after the group petitioned the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) to revoke the ‘generally recognized as
safe' (GRAS) status of salt.
According to CSPI's
latest petition, the wide variations in the amounts of salt
found in different brands of similar meat
and poultry
products “clearly demonstrate that – without affecting the
safety of the food – it is feasible for the firms making
high-sodium products to lower sodium levels and still have
tasty products that would be competitive in the market place.”
Excess sodium has been shown to increase the chance of
developing hypertension, heart disease, and stroke. And
according to the American Medical Association, most Americans
consume two to three times the amount of sodium that is
healthy, with an estimated 75 to 80 percent of the daily
intake of sodium coming from processed and restaurant foods.
Although the battle to reduce salt in foods has so far
remained voluntary, many food makers, such as General Mills
and Campbell, have responded to growing consumer and
regulatory concern with reformulation efforts.
The USDA already sets ceilings on numerous ingredients used
in the preparation of meat and poultry products - such as
citric acid, sodium citrate, potassium lactate, calcium
lactate, sodium lactate, tocopherol, sodium caseinate, dry or
dried whey, ascorbic acid, and sodium ascorbate – even though
the FDA says those ingredients are GRAS, said CSPI in its
petition.
In addition, the regulatory agency already has a ceiling on
the amount of salt that can be used in chilling raw poultry
products.
“USDA already has extensive regulations governing the
makeup of processed meat and poultry products, which set
nutritional standards such as limits on fat content for some
products, and limits on various preservatives or additives in
others,” said CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson.
“The agency should set similar reasonable limits for
sodium chloride,” he said, adding that at the levels it is
currently consumed, salt may be the “single most dangerous
ingredient in the food supply”.
In November 2005, CSPI petitioned the FDA to revoke the
GRAS status of salt in a move to force food manufacturers to
reduce sodium levels in processed foods.
The petition, which was backed by organizations including
the American Public Health Association and the American Nurses
Association, requested that salt should be treated as a food
additive for the purposes of regulation, with strict limits
placed on the sodium content of processed foods.
According to dietary guidelines issued in January by the US
Department of Agriculture (USDA), young adults should limit
their daily sodium intake to 2,300 mg. This is significantly
lower than the 3,400mg actually consumed, according to the
latest data from The National Health and Nutrition Examination
Survey (NHANES).
