Interesting article in The Independent about the proposed bill to ban the use of salt in the kitchens of New York’s restaurants. The motivation? To reduce the salt consumption of the population. Why? Because it is too high, and some people think that this dietary salt intake could be contributing to diseases such as heart attacks and strokes.
The consequences for New York’s restaurant scene would be severe. And the health benefit that would accrue would be uncertain. There’s some controversy about whether dietary salt is a significant factor in hypertension, and it may be that reducing it would not have the health benefits that would justify destroying NY’s serious restaurants.
- Here’s a scientific review indicating that salt reduction may be an important public health measure.
- A more sceptical position.
- An article from the BMJ reporting a meta analysis of studies.
- A sceptical article from Science entitled ‘The Political Science of Salt’.
Hard to imagine this actually happening! However in terms of far-flung bans, I can imagine sugar on the chopping block in the United States a lot sooner than salt.
Well, it’s your classic authoritarian panic. I guess it (or something depressingly similar) will happen in our lifetimes, sad though I am to say.
Not many of us would argue that a big Mac, fried chicken from KFC or fish and chips are not over salted. Unfortunately they are all classed as coming from restaurants, no matter that they are all take-away joints. Cheap grog and alcoholics will destroy our hobby/job (wine) – cheap food and fat bast@#$ds will destroy my other great love.
Time to outlaw the Nanny state.