Salt

Americans get 71% of their daily sodium from processed and restaurant foods.² What is processed food?

Sodium is already in processed and restaurant foods when you purchase them, which makes it difficult to reduce daily sodium intake on your own. Although it is wise to limit your use of added table salt while cooking and at the table, only a small amount of the sodium we consume each day comes from the salt shaker.

CDC is working at the national, state, and local levels to help reduce sodium in the food supply. CDC’s approach to sodium reduction includes supporting and evaluating ongoing initiatives to reduce sodium, providing technical assistance to the public health community, expanding the scientific literature related to sodium reduction, collaborating with stakeholders, and educating the public. More information may be found here:  CDC’s Sodium Reduction Initiative [PDF-338K].

Did you know that sodium and potassium both affect blood pressure? In general, people who reduce sodium, who increase potassium, or who do both benefit from having lower blood pressure and reducing their risk for other serious health problems. Eating enough potassium each day can help balance out some of the harmful effects that high sodium intake can have on blood pressure. But lowering sodium intake is key to this balance.

The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that Americans consume less than 2,300 milligrams (mg) of sodium per day as part of a healthy eating pattern.

Nearly everyone benefits from lower sodium intake. Learn more about who benefits in a recent CDC report.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released draft, voluntary sodium reduction targets for processed and prepared foods. This new guidance lays out achievable short-term and long-term goals for sodium reduction in about 150 categories of food. To learn more about sodium reduction, read the article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). For more information about the science supporting sodium reduction and why accurate measurement matters, read the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) article.