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.

    • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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      4 months ago

      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.

      • Emerald@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        one cigarette won’t kill you either.

        Interesting. The fearmongers at school told us it could.

      • Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        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.

          • Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            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.

              • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                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

                edit: corrected first source link

          • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
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            4 months ago

            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.

        • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          4 months ago

          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

        • v_krishna@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

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

        • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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          4 months ago

          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@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                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.

                • RidgeDweller@sh.itjust.works
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                  4 months ago

                  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.

                • humorlessrepost@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  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@lemmy.world
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                    4 months ago

                    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@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                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@lemmy.zip
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                  4 months ago

                  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

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          4 months ago

          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.

    • BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

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

    • Wogi@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      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.

        • Wogi@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          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@midwest.social
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            4 months ago

            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@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              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@midwest.social
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                4 months ago

                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@lemmy.ca
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                  4 months ago

                  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.