"Many chefs and food product developers are already hard at work on multipronged initiatives to reduce sodium," said Greg Drescher, CIA's executive director of strategic initiatives and a member of the IOM sodium reduction committee. "We encourage all chefs to think as broadly as possible about ways to reduce sodium, since the sodium issue is not merely about saltiness. It's about flavor, and about the many different strategies chefs and all of us can use to create sensational flavors."

Americans, on average, consume the equivalent of about a teaspoon and a half of salt each day (3,400 milligrams of sodium). The IOM report outlines the steps needed to cut that back to a teaspoon per day (2,300 milligrams of sodium). Doing so will be a major public health achievement, Willett notes, and once we meet that goal, we shouldn't stop there. "The latest research finds that most adults should limit themselves to only 1,500 milligrams of sodium each day, about two-thirds of a teaspoon of salt," Willett says. "To reach that target, we need to make it easy and delicious for consumers to choose foods with less salt."

The top 25 list can be found at "Cutting Salt and Sodium," (hsph.harvard/nutritionsource/salt) a new section of The Nutrition Source (thenutritionsource), HSPH's nutrition website and one of the leading online sources of science-based nutrition information. The website also has questions and answers on the scientific case for sodium reduction, delicious lower-sodium recipes from the CIA, and in-depth coverage of sodium's effects on health.

Source: Harvard School of Public Health