Mexico City tries to get salt shakers off tables

MEXICO CITY – Salt and lime with tequila. Salt with your iced "michelada" beer. Salt and chili on fruit and even candy.

Mexicans love salt, so much so that some estimates show them eating nearly three times the recommended amount and significantly more than what Americans put down.

Add this to rising obesity and a hypertension epidemic, and you have a potential health nightmare that has spurred Mexico's massive capital city to try to get residents to shun the salt shaker.

Mexico City Health Secretary Armando Ahued launched a campaign, dubbed "Less Salt, More Health," late last week to get restaurants to take salt shakers off their tables.

Officials and the city's restaurant chamber signed an agreement to encourage eateries to provide shakers only if guests ask for them. The program is voluntary but the chamber is urging its members to comply.