Thread: This is why people hate big business v.salt wars

Alcohol is an antiseptic, and has a use. Salt is not only a spice, but a useful preservative. If people make a choice to consume too much of any product, that's their own fault. Salt does not cause the deaths of 150,000 people a year. They cause their own deaths with salt. It's like blaming salt when idiots throw it in their eye while driving and then crash.

With everyone from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to First Lady Michelle Obama pushing foodmakers to cut the salt in their products, the salt industry is fighting back. And they warn that without enough salt, processed meats start to taste like cardboard or "damp dog hair." Yum!

The New York Times sent its correspondents to the front lines of the salt wars:

By all appearances, this is a moment of reckoning for salt. High blood pressure is rising among adults and children. Government health experts estimate that deep cuts in salt consumption could save 150,000 lives a year. ...
But the industry is working overtly and behind the scenes to fend off these attacks, using a shifting set of tactics that have defeated similar efforts for 30 years, records and interviews show. Industry insiders call the strategy

Oh god. See, here's another example of you not really knowing at all what you're talking about.

Because the government doesn't get shit back from the salt industry.

Government gets huge taxes from Cigarettes and Alcohol, so those aren't going to be outlawed even though they kill much much much more.

I'll preface by saying I don't think salt is bad. Even for an epidemiological study (Using gov't survey data, not actual tests), it's pretty far fetched for that blogger to declare that they debunked the myths of salt. I mean, did you read the methods they used to come to their conclusion? They didn't even measure what a high sodium diet does to a person.

Conclusion Observed associations of lower sodium with higher mortality were modest and mostly not statistically significant. However, these findings also suggest that for the general US adult population, higher sodium is unlikely to be independently associated with higher CVD or all-cause mortality.

...while trends for a direct association were not observed.

How did they even come to the conclusion that high sodium is unlikely to be independently associated with cadio disease? They didn't even look into it.

I accidentally cut my finger today. My immediate reaction was to put the cut finger in my mouth. Tasted like salt.

Note to self: Cut out the salt in your diet and start drinking large quantities of maple syrup so that if you happen to cut your finger in the future and involuntarily stick the cut finger in your mouth, it will taste like breakfast at IHOP rather than the ocean...

20,000 people a year commit suicide with a firearm of some sort. Better ban all firearms so people won't kill themselves!

Shit, but what if there are other means of committing suicide?

Ban bridges; people often jump from them.

Yep. Tall buildings as well.

We hate big business because they dare to give us food that tastes good ?


Salt is a fucking spice, without it a lot of food taste bland.