How salty is too salty? A look at high-sodium menu items

A new study analyzes chain restaurant menus to identify the items highest in sodium levels and shows how many items would be required to carry sodium warnings if these policies were adopted in the US. Learn more about how you can navigate restaurant menus to lower your sodium intake.

Why is sodium overconsumption dangerous?

When you look at a food’s ingredient list for harmful chemicals, you may not be on the lookout for a simple-sounding, common ingredient like salt. But the fact is, sodium chloride, or common table salt, is truly one of the deadliest ingredients in in the US food supply. And the dose makes the poison: While a small amount of sodium is safe and necessary for health, excessive amounts cause high blood pressure, or hypertension, increasing the risk of heart disease.

The amount of sodium in the typical American diet definitely reaches these excessive levels. The average American eats about 3,400 milligrams (mg) of sodium a day—close to 150 percent more than the daily limit recommended to avoid disease risk, 2,300 mg. This consumption puts us at increased risk for disease. One study estimated that cutting sodium levels in the American diet by a third (about 1,200 mg) could prevent between 44,000 and 92,000 deaths annually from conditions such as heart disease and stroke.

Restaurant foods are a particularly concerning source of sodium for American consumers. Restaurant dishes contribute on average 31 percent of daily sodium consumption among adults and 26 percent among children. And most of our sodium comes from foods sold in restaurants or manufactured outside the home—not the salt we add to home cooking.

Which chain restaurant menu items have the most salt?

One step that could help address this problem is for restaurants to start putting less salt in the dishes they serve. New York City and Philadelphia have already adopted menu warnings that identify the saltiest items—those with more than a day’s worth of sodium. This can encourage restaurants to lower the sodium in those items to avoid the warning labels, and help consumers understand which foods have extreme levels of sodium.

Just how salty are the foods sold in restaurants? A new study from CSPI staff published in Nutrients on June 7, 2024, looked at the sodium content of menu items from the top 91 highest-grossing US restaurant chains, and found that many menu items at these large chains exceeded the daily recommended sodium value for US adults.

For example, the Deep Deep Dish Specialty Pizza, 3 Meat Treat from Little Caesars has 7,240 mg of sodium, which is more than three days' worth of the daily recommended value for adults—hardly a treat for your heart! And the Hickory Brisket and Bacon Burger from BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse contains 4,773 mg of sodium, more than double the daily recommended value. Some categories of food, like soup, tended to have saltier items than others: The saltiest dish the authors found was the Chicken Noodle Soup Bowl from Frisch’s Big Boy, which has 10,320 mg of sodium—or four and a half days’ worth of sodium.  

Those sodium numbers are from today’s menus (current as of July 24, 2024). The study used data from 2019, the most recent year available from a national database at the time of analysis, which allowed us to make comparisons between restaurants. The salt content in many menu items has remained high over time—and in some cases has gotten worse! You can read the full study and see the list of the saltiest items from 2019 here:

How salty is too salty? Designing sodium warning label policies to identify high-sodium items on restaurant menus in the United States

How can sodium menu warnings help reduce salt consumption?

The study also looked at how many menu items would carry sodium warnings under warning label policies set at different warning thresholds. Current warnings in New York City and Philadelphia only require sodium warnings on menu items with 100 percent or more of the recommended daily value. But other cities could adopt policies at lower thresholds.

In the study, the researchers estimated the percentage of menu items that would be labeled with warning labels at different daily value thresholds: 20 percent, 33 percent, 50 percent, 65 percent, and 100 percent.

The researchers found that around five percent of chain restaurant menu items exceeded 100 percent of the daily value, meaning they would have to carry warnings in New York City and Philadelphia. If a lower cutoff of 20 percent were adopted (which is the threshold the FDA uses for “high in” claims on packaged foods and beverages), around 42 percent of menu items would be labeled, providing more information to consumers about how to avoid high-sodium dishes.

This research also found excessive levels of salt hiding in unexpected menu items, like soups and salads that consumers might otherwise think are healthy, as well as sweet foods like desserts. Menu warnings on the saltiest items can help inform consumers and may help restaurants think twice about pouring on the salt.

We're not the only ones who are alarmed by the high levels of sodium in restaurant foods. Just last week, the FDA released findings that restaurants have been increasing the amount of sodium in many of their foods over time. The FDA has now proposed new voluntary sodium reduction targets for the restaurant industry to hit—targets that we think could be more ambitious.

What can you do?

If seeing all this excess sodium in restaurant foods is making you salty, you’re not alone! Thousands of consumers have already joined CSPI in calling for action from policymakers—and putting pressure on restaurant executives to lay off the salt. You can join them by taking action.

Tell Chain Restaurants to Slash the Salt