October 10, 2011--Recently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) recently announced the establishment of dockets to collect comments, data, and evidence relevant to the dietary intake of sodium. 

They are interested in current and emerging approaches that promote sodium reduction.  The agencies would like to see research that will help organizations understand current and emerging practices by industry in sodium reduction in foods; current consumer understanding of the role of sodium in hypertension and other chronic illnesses, sodium consumption practices; motivation and barriers in reducing sodium in their food intakes; and issues associated with the development of targets for sodium reduction in foods to promote reduction of excess sodium intake.

The School Nutrition Association plans to formulate and submit comments in response to this notice.  Please email cschuchart@schoolnutrition.org if you have comments you would like included within SNA’s comments, or you are welcome to submit your own comments as well. 

The submission deadline is: November 29, 2011.

Electronic comments may be submitted online at: http://www.regulations.gov.

To read the detailed Federal Register Notice and for information about submitting comments see: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-09-15/html/2011-23753.htm