FDA Final Rule Opens 139 Standardized Foods to Salt Substitutes — Bread, Cheese, and Canned Goods Can Cut Sodium Without Breaking Their Standards of Identity

FDA Final Rule Opens 139 Standardized Foods to Salt Substitutes — Bread, Cheese, and Canned Goods Can Cut Sodium Without Breaking Their Standards of Identity

October 9, 2026. The FDA issued a final rule permitting the use of salt substitutes in foods with standards of identity (SOI) — the formal recipe regulations that define what foods like bread, cheese, and canned vegetables must contain. Per the agency's constituent update: "Before today's final rule, 139 SOIs allowed or required the addition of salt, but did not permit the use of salt substitutes in these foods¹. This meant manufacturers had few options to lower the sodium content in these standardized foods."

The public-health logic. The agency frames the rule around sodium's toll: "Americans consume too much sodium. Excess sodium increases the risk of high blood pressure, a leading cause of heart disease and stroke." The change lets manufacturers reformulate products like bread, canned peas, and sour cream (Bloomberg Law's examples) with potassium chloride and other substitutes while still labeling them by their traditional names. Before this rule, per Bloomberg Law, "Only three standardized foods are currently allowed to contain salt substitutes under federal law: margarine, low-sodium cheddar, and Colby cheese."

Policy context. The FDA ties the rule to the Make America Healthy Again initiative and its multi-phase Voluntary Sodium Reduction Goals, and says it will publish a report "later this year" evaluating industry progress against the Phase I sodium targets (a 2024 preliminary assessment showed progress). The rule amends 139 SOI regulations at once — an unusually broad deregulatory edit to the food code, and one of the few MAHA-era food policies with a direct chronic-disease mechanism behind it.