FDA: Aims To Reduce Sodium Intake, Allows Salt Substitutes In Food Products

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is proposing a new rule allowing food makers to use salt substitutes in place of salt in an effort to reduce sodium intake from various processed and prepared foods.

Announced on Friday, the FDA is amending the exclusion of salt substitutes on food labeling as part of the White House’s National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. Currently, salt substitutes are not permitted to be listed in place of salt on the over 250 standards of identification (SOIs) the FDA currently allows. For food and beverage brands, the change allows for greater flexibility in ingredients that can be used for flavor enhancement and preservation.

“Today’s action is another step forward in our efforts to improve nutrition and reduce chronic disease by providing manufacturers another tool to lower the use of sodium in food production. This approach may help reduce Americans’ sodium intake and lower their risk of hypertension, a leading cause of heart disease and stroke,” said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, M.D. in a statement. “Reducing sodium in the food supply may also advance health equity — unfortunately, hypertension and other diet-related diseases disproportionally impact underserved communities.”

SOIs were first introduced by the FDA in 1939 in an effort to provide consumers more transparency in what ingredients were used in the production of packaged, processed and prepared foods and to establish a standardized nomenclature between brands when describing food products. The FDA is currently working to modernize SOIs to better align with current principles of food production and technology.

Using a “horizontal approach,” the rule applies across multiple SOIs in several categories The proposed rule does not specify which salt substitutes can be used.

There are currently 80 SOIs – impacting 140 SOIs in total through SOI cross-referencing – that specify salt as a required or an optional ingredient including dairy products (such as milk, sour cream and eggnog), bread, flour, chocolate, pasta products, some condiments, syrups and canned fruits, vegetables, and seafood. (Cheeses are categorized differently due to the use of salt in the cheese-making process through labeling terms like “salted” or “salted in brine.”).

Under the existing rules, products labeled “reduced-sodium” must decrease the sodium in the food by at least 25% but cannot use a salt substitute to make up the difference.

Currently there are three SOIs where a salt substitute is allowed in place of sodium chloride: low sodium cheddar cheese, low sodium colby cheese and margarine.

“The extent to which salt can be replaced depends on the ability of a salt substitute to replace the functions of salt in food without compromising food safety and the characteristics of the food,” wrote the FDA in the proposed rule. “The proposed definition would require that the salt substitute be used to replace some or all of the added salt, to reduce the sodium in the food, and serve the functions of salt in the food.”

This means that the substitution of a lower-sodium ingredient must also serve the same preservation or microbial safety properties as salt; yet, the FDA has left some room for interpretation by allowing food manufacturers to determine the level of salt replacement it might be substituting into a food product.

According to the FDA’s 2021 industry guidance on reducing sodium intake, upwards of 70% of total sodium consumed by the average American is added during food manufacturing and commercial food preparation. The guidance reports that the average sodium intake for individuals 14 years and older in the U.S. is approximately 3,400 milligrams per day about 1100 milligrams higher than advised by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020-2025. In the guidance, the FDA aims to reduce average sodium intake from 3,400 milligrams to 3,000 milligrams per day.

The FDA has been attempting to modernize the agency over the last few years, updating SOIs as part of this push with mixed results. In April 2022, the the International Dairy Foods Association and Chobani called the FDA’s announced that it wasn’t enacting specific provisions from the 2021 Yogurt SOI unsatisfactory. Recently, the FDA has come under-fire from industry organizations over its handling of the infant formula shortage and has embarked on a restructuring of its Human Foods program in order to provide a more centralized leadership structure to oversee the agency’s food testing and traceability system.