Consumers must lead the way.

     The new government Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends less than 2300mg of sodium daily for most people....a maximum of less than 1500 mg for people ages 51 and up.  The Adequate intake (AI) for people ages 51 and up is only 1300 mg.   It would be impossible to follow these guidelines and eat a processed food diet.
    They also give guidelines for other nutrients.  They are still pushing dairy, although they recommend fat free or low fat, but they do have a vegetarian and vegan section and mention that people in those two groups are generally healthier. 
     The guidelines recommend increasing fruit, vegetables, and whole grains, and increasing exercise.  There are calorie guidelines, and intake guidelines for those on the DASH diet, the Mediterranean diet, lacto-ovo vegetarians, and vegans.  It is generic advice, but tries to be well-rounded.  It is worth skimming through.

               www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2010/dietaryguidelines2010.pdf

     Thus, we did a pantry cleaning and are discarding soy sauce, black bean garlic sauce, ketchup, mustard, pickle relish, and a couple of brands of salsa.   There is one brand of spaghetti sauce that has more than a third less sodium than most of the rest.  I will have to compare labels when shopping for anything processed.  Eventually manufacturers will come around if consumers lead the way.
     Since we are not adding salt or high-sodium sauces when cooking, we are trying new substitutes.  Vinegars work great to add flavor, as does fresh lemon juice.  We use balsamic vinegar by itself for dressing on salads, and red wine vinegar in pasta.  Mrs. Dash lemon pepper is good.  Also we are increasing the amounts of herbs and spices used.  It is a learning process and gradually our tastes are changing to enjoy the taste of food sans salt.  Dry beans which you cook yourself have no sodium, but the canned ones have around 400mg per 1/2cup serving, unless you buy the no-salt-added variety.  This will be an interesting cooking journey.  Won't you join us?

Update: Another week has gone by.  I have a new, more reasonable exercise plan in place due to time  constraints:  Jog 3x/week;  work out (stretching, modified push-ups, crunches, yoga, etc) 3x/week;  and one total rest day per week.  It is going well.  To your health and ours!