Kraft to reduce sodium in foods 10% by 2012

Kraft Foods Inc. announced that it will be cutting the sodium content in its products by 10 percent over the next two years. For instance, they intend to reduce the salt in their Oscar Mayer bologna by 17 percent.

Kraft Foods Inc. is the largest food maker in North America. They announced on March 17 they will be reducing the amount of sodium in their North American products by 10 percent over the next two years. Kraft estimates it will reduce the amount of salt it uses by 10 million pounds a year. They intend to reduce the salt in their Oscar Mayer bologna by 17 percent. In some flavors of Easy Mac single-serve macaroni and cheese they will reduce the salt by 20 percent by the end of 2012. Consuming too much sodium has been linked to a high risk of high blood pressure which may lead to heart disease, stroke, heart failure, and kidney disease. Foodconsumer.org states if salt can be cut by 10 percent it can eliminate 500,000 heart attacks and 531,885 strokes over the lifetime of adults ages 40 to 85, according to a study led by Dr. Crystal Smith-Spangler. He was the lead author of the study and a health services researcher at the Stanford University Center for Health Policy. The study was published in the March 2, 2010 issue of Annals of internal Medicine. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 recommends consuming less than 2,300 mg (approximately 1 tsp of salt) of sodium per day. It advises to choose and prepare foods with little salt and to consume potassium-rich foods, such as fruits and vegetables.