If no prepared food could contain added Sodium Chloride, well, they'd probably make up for it with a bunch of alternative compounds that also bring Sodium into the food.
Or consumers will add their own salt.
I don't know if there is a good answer from the regulatory standpoint. I think the consumer has to be educated and aware.
Something else I think is interesting is the effect of nicotine on sodium gates at the cellular level. IIRC, it locks them in the open position creating a persistent craving for salt.
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*grumble* Is it just going to get to the point where they manufacture a tasteless, highly nutricious mush?
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I seriously doubt anyone is going to completely ban salt. You'd have gastronomes everywhere up in arms. Regulating the amount of sodium in food? That's not a bad idea. Have you ever looked at the nutrition label on a box of, say, Lunchables? That crap has so much sodium in it, it should have been illegial years ago.
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The problem with this article and the proposal is that it brands salt as the cause for hypertension. I have yet to see any evidence to back that up. Certainly if you have hypertension, salt can exacerbate the problem and proper regulation of your salt intake can help in controlling the problem.
What I haven't seen is any evidence that consuming salt causes hypertension in the first place. Even worse the evidence that reducing salt consumption leads to measurable improvement in health is scanty to non-existent. The claim this article makes that changing the FDA classification of salt could save 150,000 lives a year simply aren't scientifically supported.
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I think some kind of moderating policy makes a lot more sense than banning it as an unsafe additive.
I can just see a black market in foreign snacks blossoming.
The sad thing is that people who are less educated are often poorer, and bear the brunt of the health affects. Baltimore has a lot of health initiatives trying to get the population aware of the dangers of stroke and heart attack.
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What happens if you mix a well known poisonous gas with a substance that explodes when it comes in contact with water?
We eat it.
Then, worse, it delivers a ravenous desire to consume a dangerous chemical (it kills thousands every year) that is in realty the concentrated mixture of two extremely explosive gases.
And you are surprised that there are some suggesting we limit our intake of this mixture?
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: What happens if you mix a well known poisonous gas with a substance that explodes when it comes in contact with water?
quote:The problem with this article and the proposal is that it brands salt as the cause for hypertension. I have yet to see any evidence to back that up. Certainly if you have hypertension, salt can exacerbate the problem and proper regulation of your salt intake can help in controlling the problem.
What I haven't seen is any evidence that consuming salt causes hypertension in the first place.
Thank you. I'm tired of this distinction being lost in the media - let alone amongst nutrition professionals.
Proper seasoning (including amounts and timing) has made an enormous difference in the quality of my cooking.
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I'm fine with regulating the amount of sodium in foods. I'm so sick and tired of having to say no to my mother when she wants anything "prepared" for dinner - everything from spaghetti sauce to frozen foods to, well, almost everything in the grocery store - because she is on a restricted-salt diet due to high blood pressure.
I really don't have the time, the talent, or the inclination to cook everything from scratch...and even then, the ingredients (for example, tomato sauce for spaghetti sauce) often have too much sodium to use in her food.
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*runs home to huddle in corner and eat fried spam and macaroni 'n cheese with an obscene amount of Tabasco sauce and ketchup.*
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Dan's been aware, The Rabbit, from way back before the "Don't you agree?" discussion concerning whether if folks agree that multiple elements of an argument are true, then they must also agree that a conclusion arising from those elements must also be true.
"Is it just going to get to the point where they manufacture a tasteless, highly nutritious mush?"
Salt is dirt cheap, almost literally. The reason food manufacturers use lots of salt* is to make their mush palatable (to most people) without going through the expense of purchasing costly spices and using decent cooking techniques.
I love salt-preserved foods from salted plums (and I hate prunes) through pickled vegetables to salted cod. On the other hand, I find almost all canned and frozen pre-prepared/precooked meats/vegetables/soups/entrees/meals to be close to inedibly salty. ie I must mix them with enough other ingredients to dilute their salt level down to a degree I find tolerable. I even bake an extra pizza crust to toss over pre-prepared/precooked pizzas after they've browned.
Personally I blame it on the burned-out taste-buds of senior citizens who comprised the majority of the original "focus group"s / test-kitchen guinea pigs. Then everybody else just got used to it. Haven't the slightest clue whether that is true, but I can't imagine any chef voluntarily creating those oversalted recipes for his/her own taste-buds.
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In breaking news, the FDA has arrested and deported Popeye the Sailor, Andrew "Dice" Clay, and Henry Kissenger.
"Why" asked one reporter.
"Ones and old salt, one uses salty language, and the other was involved in the S.A.L.T and S.A.L.T.II talks." was their response. "If we are going to ban salt, we are going to ban all the salt. You are either with us or you are helping the coronaries."
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quote:I'm fine with regulating the amount of sodium in foods. I'm so sick and tired of having to say no to my mother when she wants anything "prepared" for dinner - everything from spaghetti sauce to frozen foods to, well, almost everything in the grocery store - because she is on a restricted-salt diet due to high blood pressure.
I'm absolutely fine with better labeling. Although I think the labeling now provides the information required to properly judge salt content, I can see making it even easier to read the label.
But I'd hate to see the option for more heavily salted prepared food removed from the buying public. There are plenty of low-sodium prepared foods available, and public demand will lead to even more of them.
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I disagree. Even "low sodium" prepared foods tend to have a higher salt content than my own cooking. If folks want more salt, there's always the salt shaker. But there ain't no way to take salt out of a prepared food.
And nutrition labels are in fine print for a reason that has nothing to do with printing costs.
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quote:I disagree. Even "low sodium" prepared foods tend to have a higher salt content than my own cooking. If folks want more salt, there's always the salt shaker. But there ain't no way to take salt out of a prepared food.
But why should the law make that a requirement?
Moreover, adding salt with a shaker is not at all the same as adding it during cooking to individual components.
If there is really a demand for lower-sodium prepared foods, the products will be made.
quote:And nutrition labels are in fine print for a reason that has nothing to do with printing costs.
Good. Then my support of better labeling would actually be useful.
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Yeah, like if there was a demand for better movies, better movies would be made. Almost nothing works that way except on the smallest, almost person-to-person scale of eg a good restauranteur.
In the mass-production corporate world, everything else is "consumer focus group" tested to the least common denominator, the least objectionable or least "boring" to the most people. Never mind that the original purchasers bought the product for its distinctiveness, eg: Tabasco used to be HOT. And INTENSELY flavored with the non-heat (non-capsacin) pepper components. Now it's mildly hot, and extremely bland in the non-heat pepper flavoring. Squirt used to be grapefruit juice (including those little celled-off "droplets" found in all citrus fruits) and a little sugar in some carbonated water. Now its carbonated water with LOTS of high fructose corn syrup and spiked with citric acid and small amount of grapefruit-flavoring to match the tastes of folks who liked the more popular 7Up/Sprite/MountainDew. I never minded paying premium prices for Hagen Daz (which was always a mega-corp product) or Ben&Jerry's (which was bought out by a mega-corp) until the mega-corp mindset of "least production cost for the most profit" turned their years-of-good-reputation into disposable advertising slogans for cheapened products. Premium-priced Archway cookies used to be close-to-homemade and Orowheat bread used to be somewhat near close-to-homemade -- the closest one could get to homemade short of the neighborhood baker -- until they were bought out and turned into the typical industrial sludge.
I like some industrial sludge, eg Oreo cookies and Jack-in-the-Box tacos, but that doesn't mean that the mega-corps should use their money/muscle to turn everything into industrial sludge.
quote:Yeah, like if there was a demand for better movies, better movies would be made. Almost nothing works that way except on the smallest, almost person-to-person scale of eg a good restauranteur.
I can't tell what you're advocating here. If you don't support the government forcing companies to remove high-salt products from the shelf, then you're not discussing what I'm discussing. It sounds like you're just complaining about big companies not providing products you like.
Do you really think there is a government solution for your favorite cookies not being good to you any more?
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quote:Originally posted by aspectre: If folks want more salt, there's always the salt shaker. But there ain't no way to take salt out of a prepared food.
You are mistaken. Simply heat the food to a few thousand degrees Kelvin and run through a fractional distillation. You will see the nasty sodium and chlorine separate from the healthy carbon, hydrogen, and traces in a very neat fashion!
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quote:Originally posted by aspectre: If folks want more salt, there's always the salt shaker. But there ain't no way to take salt out of a prepared food.
You are mistaken. Simply heat the food to a few thousand degrees Kelvin and run through a fractional distillation. You will see the nasty sodium and chlorine separate from the healthy carbon, hydrogen, and traces in a very neat fashion!
Or you could filter the food first through a coarse filter and then an ultra-filtration membrane and finally through a dialysis membrane or perhaps an ion exchange column.
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: Something else I think is interesting is the effect of nicotine on sodium gates at the cellular level. IIRC, it locks them in the open position creating a persistent craving for salt.
Since I started smoking, I noticed an increased craving for salty foods. From what I've heard simply by word of mouth from other smokers, this is a common occurrence. And now I know why...
quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: What happens if you mix a well known poisonous gas with a substance that explodes when it comes in contact with water?
We eat it.
Then, worse, it delivers a ravenous desire to consume a dangerous chemical (it kills thousands every year) that is in realty the concentrated mixture of two extremely explosive gases.
And you are surprised that there are some suggesting we limit our intake of this mixture?
... I don't know how serious you're being, but to quickly quote wikipedia, "Chloride and sodium ions, the two major components of salt, are necessary for the survival of all known living creatures, including humans."
Not sure how you should take that... perhaps with a grain of salt?
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quote:Originally posted by DevilDreamt: I don't know how serious you're being, but to quickly quote wikipedia, "Chloride and sodium ions, the two major components of salt, are necessary for the survival of all known living creatures, including humans."
If Dan posts something and you think that he might be joking, chances are you're right.
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In response to Noeman: I'll keep that in mind. I find the fact that sodium and chloride are both lethal but necessary for life to be, in and of itself, amusing. His comment just struck me as odd.
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I don't eat most of those foods, but nonetheless, the fact that there is so much salt in them makes me feel sick.
quote: 1: The Saltiest Dish in America Romano's Macaroni Grill Chicken Portobello # 7,300 mg sodium, 1,020 calories, 66 g fat
With three items on our top 20 list, plus a slew of dishonorable mentions, Macaroni Grill earns its title as America's saltiest chain restaurant. But what makes this the saltiest dish in America? One word: demi-glace, a fancy French name for the viscous salt slick that blankets this disastrous dish. You would have to eat 32 cups of potassium-rich broccoli to compensate for this sodium avalanche.
quote:1: The Saltiest Dish in America Romano's Macaroni Grill Chicken Portobello # 7,300 mg sodium, 1,020 calories, 66 g fat
I find that number very hard to believe. That's about teaspoons of salt. It's hard to imagine that a serving with that much salt in it would be edible.
Once again I'm irritated that this article speaks in such inflammatory language about salt. Salt is not a universal evil. Most people can eat all the salt they want with no adverse effects.
A demi-glace is not a disasterou salt slick. Its something you want to avoid if you have the type of hypertension that is sensitive to salt, but that's it. I'm much more concerned that the dish has 1020 calories or over half the total calories an average American adults need in a day.
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What is really scary was the overall worst foods listing. I never knew that the Awesome Blossom had 2710 calories- even splitting with 4 people, that's a full meal, not an appetizer.
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: *grumble* Is it just going to get to the point where they manufacture a tasteless, highly nutricious mush?
I can't wait until this happens. Take the guesswork out of things. Perhaps tastiness would be nice, but the nutritious would be good.
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quote:Originally posted by DevilDreamt: I find the fact that sodium and chloride are both lethal but necessary for life to be, in and of itself, amusing.
Except that metallic sodium is quite different that ionic sodium, and molecular chlorine is at least as different from chloride ions.
They're simply not the same things. Consuming sodium metal or chlorine gas would kill you.
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quote:Originally posted by DevilDreamt: I find the fact that sodium and chloride are both lethal but necessary for life to be, in and of itself, amusing.
Except that metallic sodium is quite different that ionic sodium, and molecular chlorine is at least as different from chloride ions.
They're simply not the same things. Consuming sodium metal or chlorine gas would kill you.
In fact the reason that metallic sodium and chlorine gas are so toxic is because the react so readily with almost anything to form ions. Once they are in ionic form, they aren't toxic.
Compounds just do not have the same properties as the pure substances from which they are made. You will note that water is made from hydrogen and oxygen, two highly reactive gases and yet it is very non reactive. When hydrogen and oxygen are exposed to a flame or even a spark, you get an explosion and yet water (a chemical compound containing both) is great for putting out fires.
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And hence DanRaven's "Then, worse, it delivers a ravenous desire to consume a dangerous chemical (it kills thousands every year) that is in realty the concentrated mixture of two extremely explosive gases."
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quote:Originally posted by aspectre: If folks want more salt, there's always the salt shaker. But there ain't no way to take salt out of a prepared food.
You are mistaken. Simply heat the food to a few thousand degrees Kelvin and run through a fractional distillation. You will see the nasty sodium and chlorine separate from the healthy carbon, hydrogen, and traces in a very neat fashion!
Or you could filter the food first through a coarse filter and then an ultra-filtration membrane and finally through a dialysis membrane or perhaps an ion exchange column.
Please, may I have more science technobabble?
<--- is a technobabble fetishist.
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quote:1: The Saltiest Dish in America Romano's Macaroni Grill Chicken Portobello # 7,300 mg sodium, 1,020 calories, 66 g fat
I find that number very hard to believe. That's about teaspoons of salt. It's hard to imagine that a serving with that much salt in it would be edible.
Once again I'm irritated that this article speaks in such inflammatory language about salt. Salt is not a universal evil. Most people can eat all the salt they want with no adverse effects.
A demi-glace is not a disasterou salt slick. Its something you want to avoid if you have the type of hypertension that is sensitive to salt, but that's it. I'm much more concerned that the dish has 1020 calories or over half the total calories an average American adults need in a day.
The Rabbit, the Macaroni Grill lists the Chicken Portobello dish, on their own site, with 7300 mg of sodium. A third party source actually put it at 6980 mg.
I think it's likely some of the sodium content isn't from NaCl. MSG or some preservatives used in ingredients could be sources that wouldn't affect the saltiness as much. For any curious, more non-NaCl sources of sodium are listed here: http://www.alsosalt.com/sodium.html
The caloric content of that dish doesn't alarm me much since I usually don't eat more than about 1/2 of a typical chain restaurant entree anyway...and if I had a light lunch and breakfast eating the whole thing might not put me over my daily allowance anyway. But I get your point; if sodium isn't a risk factor for most people the calories are likely a greater concern.
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In The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America by Philip Howard, we read how sand is listed with OSHA as a dangerous industrial chemical and must be locked in a shed at such-and-such factory.
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Ear-Bending Cellmate: ...and when there was no meat, we ate fowl and when there was no fowl, we ate crawdad and when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand. H.I.: You ate what? Ear-Bending Cellmate: We ate sand. [pause] H.I.: You ate SAND? Ear-Bending Cellmate: That's right!
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quote:Originally posted by Qaz: In The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America by Philip Howard, we read how sand is listed with OSHA as a dangerous industrial chemical and must be locked in a shed at such-and-such factory.
You've given an incomplete account of the matter. For example:
quote:Or take the best selling Death of Common Sense by Phillip Howard, in which OSHA is chastised for regulating sand. It is true that OSHA has regulations governing sand. However, Mr. Howard's research seems to have overlooked the fact that although the sand found on a typical beach is harmless, the finely ground sand used in industrial settings can and does kill those exposed to it without respiratory protection with alarming frequency.
GASP I Love Sodium!!! ill always hve cheddar combos and Cheezitz (munching) (ill execise for 5 extra hours, just keep salt in some of the good foods)
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ill always hve cheddar combos and Cheezitz 
