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FDA wants to cut sodium in packaged and processed foods by about 20%

The agency wants to lower how much salt we consume over the next three years to an average of 2,750 milligrams per day. That’s still above the recommended limit of 2,300 mg.

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday laid out fresh goals to cut sodium levels in packaged and processed foods by about 20%, after its prior efforts to address a growing epidemic of diet-related chronic diseases showed early signs of success.

The FDA in October 2021 had set guidelines to trim sodium levels in foods ranging from potato chips to hamburgers in a bid to prevent excessive intake of salt that can trigger high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.

The agency is now seeking voluntary curbs from packaged-food makers such as PepsiCo, Kraft Heinz and Campbell Soup. The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Cosmonauticus ,

Now do the same for sugar

normalexit ,

Agreed, corn syrup shouldn’t be added to almost all food on the taxpayers’ dime.

solsangraal ,

a former coworker sat and tried to convince me that sugar is neither bad for you nor addictive. the sugar lobby psychological manipulation propaganda machine is the behemoth that has to be dismantled before any meaningful change can even be attempted

this coworker was an instructional academic librarian who included confirmation bias and how to avoid it in her teaching

Yawweee877h444 ,

Sugar is NOT bad for you. Too much of anything is what’s bad.

Drinking too much water can kill you.

solsangraal ,

yea, the whole “everything is bad for you if you do enough of it to kill yourself!” is a pretty common response. and yes, that’s true. there IS a threshold for everything. one cigarette won’t kill you either.

Yawweee877h444 ,

Agreed but the cigarette analogy is not really accurate.

Sugar is arguably good for you in moderation. We evolved to seek out sugar in the form of fruits, berries, etc. Quick energy, fast acting carbohydrates etc.

Can’t think of how this translates to a single cigarette lol.

SkybreakerEngineer ,

“In moderation” being the key part. As in, not selling drinks and snacks that are like 30% sugar

Yawweee877h444 ,

Agree 100%. And arguably “in moderation” is much lower than people might want it to be. Plus most of this stuff is processed with high fructose corn syrup trash.

SkybreakerEngineer ,

HFCS is literally just liquid sugar.

partial_accumen , (edited )

HFCS is literally just liquid sugar.

HFCS isn’t even just one product. There are different blends that are all HFCS. At the extreme, HFCS-90, is far FAR different than table sugar. HFCS-55 is close to table sugar (which would be numbered “50” if table sugar used that same numbering scheme), and there’s HFCS-42 which is farther away from table sugar.

The Corn Refiners Association (CRA) have been successful in rebranding HFCS under a bunch of different names so you don’t know it anymore. Current labeling has HFCS-90 (the worst kind) simply called “Fructose” on ingredient labels now. source

source2 which is a bit more sketchy to me

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/52797036-6fd6-4835-ab3f-54adf6a7158d.png

edit: corrected first source link

willya ,
@willya@lemmyf.uk avatar

TIL thanks but source one is just a betting website ad from the link.

partial_accumen ,

Thanks for replying, update with archive.org link

Showroom7561 ,

As in, not selling drinks and snacks that are like 30% sugar

On the flip side, those snacks and drinks are ideal for athletes.

I wouldn’t want to stop having those foods available, simply because the majority of the population are idiots when it comes to fueling their bodies.

People need to have some self control, ffs.

solsangraal ,

Agreed but the cigarette analogy is not really accurate.

why not? if you’re going by “too much of anything is bad for you,” then doesn’t it follow that “NOT too much of anything isn’t necessarily bad for you”?

so yea, one soda won’t kill you = true. also one cigarette won’t kill you = true.

what i’m getting at is that your “argument” isn’t one

Organichedgehog ,

The human body doesn’t need nicotine to survive

solsangraal ,

i never said it did, nor did i imply that it’s good for you

Organichedgehog ,

Comparing cigarettes to nicotine is a bad analogy. The body needs sugar (albeit a small amount) to survive. Cigarettes contain nothing the body needs.

solsangraal ,

the body needs glucose which is A sugar. but “sugar” in the context of the conversation is referring to refined sugar, which the body absolutely doesn’t need, and when it contains fructose (as in sucrose or HFCS, by far the most consumed sugars), then sorry, it’s not good

RidgeDweller ,

The human body also doesn’t need added sugars to survive.

Organichedgehog ,

But it does need sugar to survive. Comparing sugar to cigarettes is kinda dumb. But you keep making whatever false equivalencies support your argument, boo.

humorlessrepost ,

You absolutely do not need to consume any sugar to survive.

What little sugar you do need (an absolutely tiny amount) your body can easily make itself.

flicker ,

The person you’re replying to is clearly uninformed but I do want to let you know that like most things involving the human body, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all problem. I did keto but I have nondiabetic hypoglycemia, which is how I got an A1C of 3.9, and how I found out how dangerous that is and that I do actually require some (preferably complex) carbohydrates every day.

I understand nondiabetic hypoglycemia is pretty rare so I still support you fighting misinformation (and especially that no one requires added sugars, which should, by now, just be common sense) but I did want to throw this out there, that folks should absolutely seek a doctor before going all in on a zero sugar diet.

Organichedgehog ,

Lol I’m not uninformed. Arguing that the human body doesn’t need sugars is a braindead take, but ok.

RidgeDweller ,

Yes, sugar is needed to survive, but a normal diet with little processed foods will supply more than enough. OP is talking about added sugars which are known to increase risk of heart disease, diabetes, liver disease, etc.

I agree that the comparison is dumb. Regardless, I think a better way to frame your previous statement is nicotine is a known carcinogen while glucose itself is not. Thanks for the snark lol not everything is confrontational. Ease up on your quills, hedgehog.

v_krishna ,
@v_krishna@lemmy.ml avatar

Nicotine helps with neural degeneration and things like dementia and alzheimers.

LucidNightmare ,

I think you’re conflating natural occurring sugars to manmade sugars.

The natural sugars in fruits is okay. Adding 75-80% of the daily value of man made added sugars to ONE drink are what we are talking about.

queermunist ,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

Processed sugar is arguably never good for you, even in moderation.

SkyeStarfall ,

We evolved to seek out sugar because it is energy dense in a time when food wasn’t plentiful

Today we have more food than we know what to do with

Emerald ,

one cigarette won’t kill you either.

Interesting. The fearmongers at school told us it could.

Wogi ,

That’s like saying arsenic isn’t bad for you, but too much is.

Sugar is indeed bad for you. Like any refined carbohydrate.

Too much sugar as it happens is an insanely small amount. Most people have had too much sugar before they’ve left the house in the morning.

We need carbohydrates, but as it happens we only need a little and we can get everything we need from a few servings of green vegetables.

athairmor ,

Arsenic actually does seem to have a role in the human body. We might need 12-25 μg per day.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2246629/

Wogi ,

Huh. TIL.

Lead? Heroin?

I stand by my point, refined sugar isn’t even arguably good for you. A handful of jolly ranchers won’t kill you but it’s not a good source of carbohydrates.

frezik ,

No arguing about it. You need sugar to live. You should be getting it alongside other nutrients in regular food.

You don’t need soda to live. Empty calories are what’s bad.

Wogi ,

You need some carbohydrates.

In no universe do you need refined sugar. You absolutely don’t need hundreds of grams of carbohydrates a day. Your body needs less than 100 grams a day and that’s being generous.

You can literally get all the carbohydrates your body needs from green vegetables or a single piece of fruit.

frezik ,

In other words, you should be getting it alongside other nutrients in regular food.

from green vegetables or a single piece of fruit.

Which is fructose. Do you know what “refined sugar” (HFCS) is?

Tlaloc_Temporal ,
@Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca avatar

Well, about fructose…

In nature, fructose is usually found in about equal parts with glucose, but high-fructose corn syrup (at least the stuff used in beverages, maybe more) has more fructose than glucose.

Weird quirk about our digestion, fructose is absorbed 1:1 with glucose, so if there’s less glucose than fructose, some fructose gets left behind as excess free fructose, and that fructose can go and play with other parts of the body. It’s been found to cause childhood asthma, hypertension, coronary heart disease, and allergic sensitization.

Not all sugars are the same.

7U5K3N ,

100% of the people that come in contact with dihydrogen monoxide die.

BruceTwarzen ,

Yeah except that every can of coke is too much, and most people don’t have a problem with water addiction

sexy_peach ,
@sexy_peach@feddit.org avatar

And fat!!

teft ,
@teft@lemmy.world avatar

Fats aren’t bad for you like sodium and sugars are.

Yawweee877h444 ,

Sodium and sugar are not “bad” for you. Sodiums/salts are arguably an absolute necessity for brain function lol (electrolytes). It’s the too much that is the bad part. There’s natural sugar in fruits and stuff, which you already know. Blanket statements like “sugar is bad” are dumb.

Addv4 ,

Maybe if the issue wasn’t soo widespread, but the manufactured over abundance has tipped the scales enough that simple statements of sugar/sodium being bad for you (even if not entirely correct) are a step in the right direction.

Yawweee877h444 ,

No, you are wrong and so is your ridiculous statement.

even if not entirely correct

It’s not that it’s “not entirely correct”, it’s entirely incorrect. Full stop.

We evolved to seek out sugar. Originally in the form of fruits and berries and whatnot, as its an efficient fast acting carbohydrate for quick energy. It is good for you. Period.

Over consumption due to over abundance and the capitalist profit motive not giving a shit about the consequences on people’s health, because muh profits, is why people eat to much of it.

Your solution is to blatantly lie, which is dumb and wrong. Lying is not a step in the right direction ever.

Educate people, and hold capitalists accountable, in the form of violent regulation. You ain’t gonna do that cuz you have no power and never will. Lying is dumb. Sugar is good for you in moderation.

BruceTwarzen ,

Yeah because searching for berries all day is exhausting, ordering a pizza and 2l of coke is not you muppet.

slackassassin ,

But that doesn’t make sugar bad. It makes too much sugar bad, which seems to be what they were saying. Albeit, ineloquently. **Insert thought terminating insult.

RidgeDweller ,

Exactly what someone with a sugar addiction would say lol

sexy_peach ,
@sexy_peach@feddit.org avatar

They are, refined fats and sugars are bad. Unrefined both are good.

AA5B ,

Now that trans fats are gone, the best way to improve fats is you can’t just add sugar and call it low fat.

Wogi ,

Cut sugar by 75% and we’re getting somewhere.

callouscomic ,

How about 50%. Also do sugar and probably saturated fat. Also ban high fructose corn syrup.

whotookkarl ,
@whotookkarl@lemmy.world avatar

And some dyes, bread additives, BVO, etc. commercial food processing in the US is a bit of a mess.

skuzz ,

The US FDA has addressed BVO finally, even though everyone else already stopped. fda.gov/…/fda-revokes-regulation-allowing-use-bro…

Sharkwellington ,

Also also, can we revisit nutritional information on the packages? Make the serving sizes more easy to understand to humans, I’m not measuring out cups, ounces, or grams of food. Every container should have a label, even if it came in a bigger package. Sweeteners should be combined into parentheses too so the ingredients don’t look like “water, flour, glucose, sucrose, dextrose, maltose, high fructose corn syrup, sugar” (now with less sugar!)

postmateDumbass ,

How many bites per megabite?

Sharkwellington ,

Depends, are you a hard drive or a router?

postmateDumbass ,

Normally i route food down the Hershey Highway, but when yer mom/sister/(18+)daughter is around i can be a hard drive.

callouscomic ,

And rounding down shouldn’t be allowed. There’s a lot where you can see this on 2 different sizes of the same product or if they give a per serving and a per container, where the serving is zero but the larger package is non-zero.

If they say it’s zero, then it had better be actually zero.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

ban high fructose corn syrup.

Won’t happen as long as the corn subsidies are in place. Corn is literally everywhere and the US is probably #1 in the world in terms of converting corn into things that aren’t corn.

MediaSensationalism ,
@MediaSensationalism@lemmy.world avatar

I went to visit family recently, and they were sipping on a carton of Bright and Early by HI-C with an orange on the label. I had to look. Ingredients: High-fructose corn syrup, citric acid. NO JUICE

Disgusting.

GraniteM ,

I feel like I recall a story about a chip company that slowly reduced their salt content by like 50% over a number of years and literally no one noticed or complained.

I definitely saw another story about how they were researching pyramid-shaped salt crystals because they have higher surface area to volume, and with cuboid salt you wind up swallowing it before the whole thing even dissolves, so you’re not even getting a theoretical flavor experience, it’s just going straight into your gut.

We eat too much salt. It’s absurd.

SupraMario ,

Salt is not an issue if you’re healthy and drink enough water. Our problem is we’re not healthy and don’t drink enough water…we eat chips and drink coke with it.

lennybird ,
@lennybird@lemmy.world avatar

I’d caveat it’s not unhealthy if you sweat a lot, drink lots of water, AND consume a level of dietary potassium 2x that of your sodium intake, which pretty much nobody is. (and disclaimer I’m no doctor).

Sodium and potassium work together with opposite functions via the sodium-potassium pump. Too much salt leads to water retention within cells. That’s the best case scenario so long as you’re drinking lots of water. Too much salt absent of potassium will send blood pressure up due to vasoconstriction.

Potassium helps the body regulate fluid retention and helps to concentrate urine while helping with vasodilation of blood vessels (among many other important functions).

Just learning all this as I’ve taken a deep-dive on this stuff for my own health as well as my mom’s.

AA5B ,

I’ve read this a lot but have no idea how to increase potassium. There’s only so many bananas you can eat and clearly one every day is not enough

Even if there’s a salt substitute with potassium, I’m not sure the point when there’s no problem with salt you intentionally add. Especially since I rarely do

lennybird ,
@lennybird@lemmy.world avatar

Getting large amounts of potassium is definitely tough, and for me it basically comes down to eating a lot of green salads, potato, banana, and coconut water.

I confess I’ll also add some potassium citrate to my water here and there to get a little more. But I don’t advise that unless you know what you’re doing.

Dozzi92 ,
@Dozzi92@lemmy.world avatar

I drink like 8L of water a day, run four days a week, but I am confident that Ruffles are going to be the death of me, they’re just too good to care about the years at the end of my life.

SupraMario ,

Dill pickle lays here… I feel your pain

AlecSadler ,

Can confirm, source: I eat ~7000mgs/day

SolarMonkey ,

As someone who has always been on a low-sodium diet, but who nonetheless has a hankering for processed food, thank fuck.

Everything has become so ridiculously salty, if you aren’t already used to the salt, that it’s largely inedible. It would otherwise be really good, but holy shit.

If we can get people consuming less salt in some places, they will want less in other places as well, maybe food as a whole will be less salty… that would be a win in every single way for everyone. Everyone who regularly eats with me tends to want less salt in their food overall as a result, so I know it works, and it doesn’t even take that long.

thejoker954 ,

Thats great, but can we do high fructose corn syrup next? That shit is just evil on multiple levels.

buzz86us ,

great hopefully next they reduce plastic by 100%

chimasterflex ,

or at least ban things like styrofoam

buzz86us ,

Sorry I can’t say I need my food packaging to last thousands of years

Tlaloc_Temporal ,
@Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca avatar

We’re lucky if styrofoam lasts the week, and when it breaks it gets everywhere. Hard plastic would be an improvement in every way.

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Already banned in some areas. I haven’t seen Styrofoam food packaging in a long time.

Poem_for_your_sprog ,

I like chips and guac, but every time I go to the store and the low sodium chips are out of stock…I don’t buy chips.

Once you get used to it the regular ones are disgustingly salty.

AA5B ,

For sure, and my grocery is frequently out of their fresh pico de gallo, trying to push me to buy their ketchuppy sugar-filled “salsa” with infinite shelf life

I also don’t buy chips

Trainguyrom ,

I grew up in a low salt household and now I’m extremely sensitive to salts, so most chips are a no-go for me

metallic_substance ,

Casa Sanchez (if available in your area) makes great tortilla chips that are noticably lower in salt than other brands. They aren’t marketed as low sodium, but because they aren’t super coated in salt like, for example Tostitos, it’s the only brand I buy. They also taste way better imo

Linnce ,

I’ve been raising the cocoa % on the chocolates I buy and I’m on 80% now. I had a regular bar recently that was gifted to me and I could barely take a bite because it was so excessively sugary. Unfortunately I can’t go any higher than 80% as it is not sold here (expensive imports only) but I definitely would if I could, and honestly I would recommend anyone to try this starting at 40%.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

It’s especially bad, in my experience, with plant-based foods that they’re trying to make taste like meat.

I had the Impossible Whopper once… it was almost like eating a soft block of salt.

homura1650 ,

Plant based meats are bassically the definition of highly processed food.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, not really my thing overall, but I was curious.

If they started selling lab-grown meat, I’d give it a try.

Viking_Hippie ,

They’ll up the chloride content by 40% to compensate, though.

homura1650 , (edited )

Unironically, yes. A common substitute for table salt (sodium chloride NaCl) is potassium salt (potassium chloride KCl).

The good news is that the health problems with table salt is the sodium, not the chloride. Potassium actually has the opposite effect on the body, so a higher potassium intake would actually help treat a high sodium intake.

GluWu ,

Fun fact: potassium chloride is what the United States has primarily used in lethal injection which has been used to execute 1400 people since 1976.

greenskye ,

I’m absolutely going to hear some Karen later repeat this fact as a reason to protest against ‘government crackdowns on salt’ or something, aren’t I?

Samvega ,

“Swimming pools are bad! They’re full of water, which LESBIAN TERRORISTS use to DROWN CHRISTIANS!”

postmateDumbass ,

They are killing our roads!

buddascrayon ,

It’s also what we use to salt our roads.

postmateDumbass ,

I bet they just put 20% less food in the package.

jjjalljs ,

Is this going to turn into conservatives freaking out and just eating salt shakers to prove how not-woke they are?

It’s really annoying how every attempt to make things better seems to be met with “fuck you I refuse to acknowledge anything beyond my short term comfort”

frezik ,

The only downside I see is the hospital resources they’ll take up while dying of complications from high blood pressure.

AA5B ,

Some streamer should go with that and see if we can make it a thing! Conservatives will be so busy trying to figure out their high blood pressure, they’ll forget to vote to make everyone suffer

count_dongulus ,

No, not my salt and vinegar kettle chips! 😭

DragonTypeWyvern ,

Too bad, they’re vinegar and salt now!

dan ,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

Sea salt flavor is now just sea flavor.

theneverfox ,
@theneverfox@pawb.social avatar

Who cares about sodium, can we get rid of high fructose corn syrup? I mean reducing sodium sounds good, but it’s not even on the same playing field

n3m37h ,

Also stuff like sodium nitrate and other fantastic chemicals that make food last for 100’s of years

A_Random_Idiot ,

How else are we gonna ensure a stable supply of post-fallout Mac & Cheese, InstaMash, Salisbury Steak, and Cheezy Poofs?

brianary ,

The risks of sodium aren’t universal (some people appear to have immunity), and were exaggerated by the sugar industry.

Reyali ,

THIS! My cardiologist has instructed me to eat 7-10 grams of salt a day. He literally encouraged me to eat things like chips, pretzels, pickles, salted nuts, and ramen to get more.

I supplement with electrolyte mixes with 1g sodium. They cost over $1 each and I am supposed to drink 2-3 a day. I still don’t get enough salt to feel my best.

It’s fucking obnoxious to have health conditions that mean I need a thing that so much of the world tells me is bad, and everyone else is trying to get rid of.

hark ,
@hark@lemmy.world avatar

Homing in on a single number at a time is like plugging one leak and having another spring up. The laser focus on reducing fat, for example, led to foods using more salt and sugar to compensate and that created other problems. We need a more holistic approach to diet.

stoly ,

The 1980s was a time of great over reporting of unfinished science. From there through the 1990s was a nonstop mood swing over what was good or bad for you.

hark ,
@hark@lemmy.world avatar

Doesn’t seem like much has changed since then.

stoly ,

I think you’re right, thematically. But we also know a heck of a lot more about all this than we did back then. Much more settled science compared to anecdote or conjecture.

Vespair ,

And in the 80s they felt confident what they knew was a heck of a lot more than what was known in the 40s, probably would even have argued it was much more settled science compared to the anecdote and conjecture of yore.

Personally I am of the opinion that for all our knowledge there is still vastly more we don’t know than do, and that we should always try to be mindful of possible ignorance and “of-the-time-ness” of our knowledge in all things.

stoly ,

You’d have been correct then too! But I do think that things are different still. In the late 1970s, medical journals went from anecdote based to evidence based publishing. That surely took time to have an effect and now research physicians are rigorous professional scientists. I’m suggesting that the base is elevated compared to then.

queermunist ,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

cries in spironolactone

AlligatorBlizzard ,

Embrace tradition, eat an entire jar of pickles in one sitting.

queermunist ,
@queermunist@lemmy.ml avatar

I dust pickled jalapenos with flour and airfry/broil them 👍

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