Thanks, Theodore, for your interesting observation and question.

There are different ways to approach this. As you argue, one can simply say that the RDI for salt is up to 2300 mg/day in which case you would be right, the pizza slice and chips doesn’t quite get the pizza slice eater above the limit.

However, consider this more nuanced argument. In 2005, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) published updated guidelines: a reduction of daily sodium intake to <1500 mg for those at higher risk for sodium-intake-related illness. Those considered at risk are 1) anyone with hypertension, 2) anyone >50 years old, 3) African Americans, and 4) anyone with kidney disease. Amazingly, 69% of american adults meet at least one of these criteria and should therefore be consuming <1500 mg of sodium per day.

Among children, recommendations vary widely. That said, the Institute of Medicine sets the Adequate Intake for sodium at 1000 mg/day for children ages 2 to 3, 1200 mg/d for 4 to 8 and 1500 mg/day for boys and girls ages 9 to 18.

So, we can conclude that the Sodium RDI for the vast majority of people is <1500 mg/day.

Now back to your question. I took the pizza nutritional information from here. According to this information, a walk-in slice of pizza pizza pepperoni pizza has 1710 mg of sodium. Whether we add the 150 mg of salt in a bag of chips or not, this slice does exceed 1500 mg/d which is the upper acceptable recommended intake for more than three quarters of the US population – probably Canada too.

Thanks for the interesting observation…

DF

I agree completely with your post here, but one thing that struck me as odd was the sodium intake comment. From what I can see, two large slices of pepperoni pizza from Pizza Pizza + a bag of Lays chips would be ~1400mg of sodium MAX. This is not the daily recommendation of 2500mg. Could you elaborate on this?