Starting today, chain restaurants in New York City must put this warning

Health officials say the average American consumes about 3,400 milligrams of salt per day, which raises the risk of high blood pressure and heart problems.

Still, New Yorkers consume slightly less salt – about 3,239 mg of salt on a daily basis – a health department report shows. “Americans are consuming risky levels of sodium, most often found in processed or restaurant food”.

The USA Today reported that this measure has been approved in September by the New York City Board of Health.

“These warnings are needed in restaurants because the majority of sodium in our diet is not coming from what we decide to add with the salt shaker at the table, it’s already in the food when we buy it”, Dr. Mary Bassett, New York City Health Commissioner said in a statement.

The NYC Health Department sites a study by the Nutrition Society that between 1997-98 and 2009-10 the mean sodium content of eight of the leading fast-food restaurants in the USA increased by more than 23 percent-and further notes MenuStat in claiming that: “Roughly 10 percent of menu items sold in NYC chain food service establishments covered by the proposed rule have at least 2,300 mg of sodium and will require a warning label”. Among these are required calorie counts, city-banned smoking, and limits on sugary drinks, the World Street Journal said.

Restaurants will actually have until March 1 to comply with this New York City Board of Health requirement, but city inspectors will begin educating them on their responsibility tomorrow. Now, Mayor Bill de Blasio is following his predecessor’s steps in public health matters.

Instead of posting the individual sodium content, any menu item above 2,300 mg (or the daily recommended dosage of salt), will be labeled with an icon that looks like a salt shaker inside a black triangle. Yet, the agency proposed the new rules in June, while a public hearing on the topic was held in August. The chain, which declined to comment on the association’s plan to sue, also removed salt from its bread bowl and its Italian combo sandwich. And while it’s easy to review online nutritional information either at home or at the office, many time-starved consumers fail to research how much sodium is in their favorite menu items prior to their order. “Local mandates like the one the board of health put forth unravel that uniformity”.

“If they want to sell their products in New York City”, Huenning said, “they can either choose to create a whole separate packaging and industry or just change everything they do, and usually they just change everything they do”.