Choose and prepare foods with less salt: Dietary advice for all Americans

The Nutrition and Your Health: Dietary Guidelines for Americans have includ ed dietary guidance on salt and sodium since they were first released in 19 80. This paper briefly reviews the impetus for including sodium guidelines, changes in them over time and factors influencing these changes. Although guidance appears to have changed little over the five editions, differences in wording reflect changes in knowledge of the link between sodium and blo od pressure, a shift in public health policy toward prevention and increase d consumption of processed and prepared foods. We examine methods to monito r sodium intake and assess whether Americans are following these guidelines . Available data indicate that American adolescents and adults are consumin g more sodium than recommended and are unable to judge whether the amount o f sodium in their diet is appropriate. Although Americans avoid adding salt to food at the table, their efforts may have little effect given that the majority of salt consumed is added during commercial processing and prepara tion. Thus, changes to the Dietary Guidelines that emphasize the major sour ces of sodium in U.S, diets and advice to "choose and prepare foods with le ss salt" may help all Americans meet recommended sodium intake levels in th e future.