Federal dietary guidelines target salt, saturated fats
How soon before the wingnutosphere starts spamming articles about Obama’s Army coming for your table salt?
The federal government unveiled new dietary guidelines Monday that urge certain people to cut down on salt.
The guidelines, which are updated every five years, recommend that people over age 51, African-Americans and people with a history of hypertension, diabetes or kidney problems limit their daily salt intake to a little over a half a teaspoon. For everyone else, the daily recommendation remains at 2,300 milligrams — about one teaspoon of salt.
But that could be tough. A cup of spaghetti and meatballs has approximately 1,000 milligrams of salt in it, and an average frozen meal can have 500 to 1,500 milligrams in just one serving.
The guidelines also recommended that Americans consume less than 10 percent of their calories from saturated fatty acids by replacing them with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. They also should limit their daily dietary cholesterol to 300 milligrams or less.