Nutrition

How to cut back on sugar and salt

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Most Americans consume much more than the recommended levels of sugar and salt. However, you can retrain your palate to be satisfied with less of both.

If you own a sugar bowl and a saltshaker, you may be wondering if you should ever fill them again. The panelists crafting the 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans emphasized that we're consuming much more sugar and salt than is healthy for us and have advised us to pare our intakes of both considerably. That said, they have acknowledged that the sugar bowl and saltshaker aren't the principal villains at the dining table. About 80% of the sugar and salt we eat is added to packaged and commercially prepared foods.

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