Washington ? Think cooking the perfect Thanksgiving dinner is stressful? Something else is far more likely to raise your blood pressure: salt hidden in all those goodies.

Don’t blame the chefs. Much of that salt was hidden from them, too.

Americans eat nearly two teaspoons of salt daily, more than double what they need for good health – and it’s not because of the table salt-shaker. Three-fourths of that sodium comes inside common processed foods like stuffing mix, gravy, and yes, pumpkin pie.

Even raw turkey, which is naturally low in sodium, sometimes is injected with salt water before it reaches the store. You have to read the brand’s fine print to tell.

Now public health specialists are pressuring the Food and Drug Administration to require food makers to cut the sodium. In a hearing set for next week, they will call the government intervention crucial to fighting heart disease.

“There’s just a growing scientific consensus that current levels of salt in the diet are one of the biggest health threats to the public,” says Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group that filed the FDA petition triggering the meeting.

The AMA says cutting in half the sodium in processed and restaurant foods within 10 years could save 150,000 lives annually.