As a working mom, I used to purchase processed food products to prepare meals in a short time. However, at the same time, I have worried about high sodium intake from the processed food because many of bottled sauces, cured meat, canned vegetables, instant soups and chips contain more amount of sodium than recommended daily sodium intake, and 77% of average sodium intake of the US consumers is known to come from processed foods (25 Surprisingly Salty Processed Foods).

In the article of Sodium in Your Diet: Using the Nutrition Facts Label to Reduce Your Intake, to reduce the sodium intake, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends to check the nutrition label that shows the percent daily value (%DV) of sodium in one serving of a food. Moreover, FDA suggests a tip to use 6 hierarchy of sodium containing level on the front label to be seen at a glance. I think it is a good habit to check the label and compare products with their sodium contents. Nevertheless, if all the food in a certain category contains more than 100 %DV of sodium, what should I choose? Therefore, I hope there would be an additional protection for the consumer from high sodium intake. For instance, introducing an upper limit of sodium content for each food category, or providing incentives for lower sodium containing products could lead the prevalence of low sodium products. With the developed packaging technology, food could be stored for a certain period with less salt concentration and without other artificial preservatives. If people are accustomed to a less salty taste, public health cost related to hypertension would be lowered.

If you want to request more active action for the government to lower the sodium content in the processed food products, please sign this petition.