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NEW YORK (AP) — New York City could become the first city in the U.S. to require a warning label on high-sodium menu items at chain restaurants, health officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday, part of a wide-ranging campaign by officials and experts to encourage the nation to adopt a healthier diet.
The city's Health Department will propose Wednesday that all chain restaurants add a symbol resembling a salt shaker on menus next to food products that contain more than the recommended daily limit of 2,300 milligrams of sodium, equal to about 1 teaspoon of salt. The vast majority of dietary salt comes from processed and restaurant food, studies show.
New York City made a series of groundbreaking healthy-eating moves in recent years: banning trans fats from restaurant meals, forcing chain eateries to post calorie counts on menus and trying, unsuccessfully, to limit the size of some sugary drinks.
Public health advocates hailed the proposal as a pioneering step to tackle a major problem. Salt producers called it off-base, and some restaurateurs said it would needlessly mire already burdened eateries in more bureaucracy. But city Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Travis Bassett said it simply would give customers important information.
There's a wide variety of food items that would require the warning label under the proposed guidelines. At Panera Bread, for example, the Italian combo sandwich — which includes seared steak, smoked turkey, ham, salami and onions — has 2,830 mg of sodium, while the sesame jack chicken strips at TGI Friday's contain 2,700 mg of sodium.
"This doesn't change the food," Bassett said. "It enables people to identify single items that have a level of salt that is extremely high."
If the city Board of Health votes Wednesday to consider the proposal, a final vote could come as soon as September and the warnings by December.
Overconsumption of sodium increases the risk of high blood pressure, which can lead to heart attack and stroke. The average American consumes about 3,400 milligrams of sodium each day; only about one in 10 Americans meets the 1 teaspoon guideline.
Michael Jacobson, executive director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, called it "an extremely important proposal."
"High sodium levels are probably the biggest health problem related to our food supply," Jacobson said. "New York City is showing true leadership in doing what it can do to lower sodium levels in restaurants by highlighting to consumers the dishes that are the most outlandishly high in sodium."
Still, he called the measure a conservative approach, given that items would only get special labels if they have a full day's worth of sodium. A meal with even half that amount would still have too much salt, he said.
The head of the Salt Institute, a trade association for salt producers, called the proposal "misguided" and based on "faulty, incorrect government targets" discredited by recent research.
"They're too low ... and, if followed, could actually harm people," said the group's president, Lori Roman.
Federal law already requires restaurants to provide sodium content information on request, and the proposed menu labels will wrap restaurants in the nation's biggest city in more red tape, said Melissa Fleischut, president of the New York State Restaurant Association.
"The composition of menus may soon have more warning labels than food products," she said.
But Panera Bread expressed support for the city's plan. Panera advocates providing nutritional information with menus, and the New York proposal is "aligned with that same goal," CEO Ron Shaich said in a statement. He said he hoped such initiatives would prompt national and industrywide labeling requirements.
"These are necessary to create real change," he said.
Some other chains, including Burger King and Wendy's, declined to comment.
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Associated Press Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee, AP Food Industry Writer Candice Choi in New York, AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner in Chicago, Mike Stobbe in New York and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
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