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I consume a politically incorrect amount of table salt. It's not often that the taste of my food cannot be enhanced by a supplemental sprinkling of this much-maligned condiment. Occasionally, my thoughts turn salty, especially when confronted by one of those elfin, formal dining table shakers. You know, the ones with the bullet-like cap and one tiny hole that defies passage except by one grain at  a time, and not without athletic effort. I much prefer something on the order of perhaps a small mason jar, maybe with a side handle. I avoid low-sodium food products like the plague. They...

Several months ago I wrote an article about the FDA’s move to regulate salt content in food in order to wean Americans from consuming unhealthy amounts of the substance. My overall point was clear – the FDA has no constitutional authority to regulate food choices despite their seemingly kindhearted attempt to help Americans. However, I received mixed feedback from that article. Some people surprisingly did not mind Big Brother stepping in and regulating their choices. To them, this was all much ado about nothing. I pose this question to that response: Is your freedom that cheap? Our Founding Fathers knew...

How many ways can you use salt? According to the Salt Institute, about 14,000! The salt website has tons of handy tips for using salt around the house, and the best of the bunch -- plus my additions -- are listed below. I can't think of another more versatile mineral. Salt is the most common and readily available nonmetallic mineral in the world. In fact, the supply of salt is inexhaustible. For thousands of years, salt (sodium chloride) has been used to preserve food and for cleaning, and people have continued to rely on it for all kinds of nifty...

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Nine out of 10 Americans eat too much salt with most of them getting more than twice the recommended amount, according to a survey by U.S. government researchers. They said an estimated 77 percent of dietary sodium comes from processed foods and restaurant foods. "Sodium has become so pervasive in our food supply that it's difficult for the vast majority of Americans to stay within recommended limits," said Janelle Peralez Gunn, public health analyst with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who led the study of salt consumption. "Public health professionals, together with food manufacturers,...

... A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health suggests that the heart risk long associated with red meat comes mostly from processed varieties such as bacon, sausage, hot dogs and cold cuts—and not from steak, hamburgers and other non-processed cuts. The finding is surprising because both types of red meat are high in saturated fat, a substance believed to be partly responsible for the increased risk of heart disease. But the new study raises the possibility that when it comes to meat, at least, the real bad actor may be salt. Processed meats generally have about four...

<p>Your fries may never taste the same again!</p> <p>For the first time in 40 years, Heinz ketchup is changing its famous recipe -- by lowering the salt content in an effort to appeal to more health-conscious consumers, the company said yesterday.</p>

Midway through D.C.'s February Snowpocalypse, with dystopian visions dancing in my head, I rented the 1982 sci-fi classic "Blade Runner." The movie's noir-ish picture of Los Angeles in 2019-dimly-lit and rainy, with flying cars, sexy replicants, and gruff, chain-smoking detectives-seems less prescient (and less foreboding) the closer we get to the year it depicts. As the DVD played, one thought kept distracting me: "It's so cute that they used to think you'd be allowed to smoke in the future." From a 2010 vantage point, the 21st century seems to promise an entirely different flavor of nightmare-one in which every individual...

Will you need to do your buying of bacon for your bacon sandwich on the black market if the Obama White House gets its way? With the Food and Drug Adminstration working to control the salt intake in food, many food companies are in a race to lower the amount of sodium levels in advance of the new upcoming FDA rules. Plus these same companies are working hard to change the thinking of the culture in respects to junk food.

If it weren’t tyranny, it would be funny. But it is tyranny, so it’s not. The Obama Administration has claimed for itself the right to determine how much salt is in your food. In this last area of personal choice – taste – you have lost your choice. Or at least you will. Under a plan being floated by the Obama Food and Drug Administration, the federal government will set salt levels in food the same way it sets emission levels for cars. In the name of protecting you, the government will enslave you. And it will order food companies...

FDA should regulate salt, panel says Photo 9:18am EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should regulate the amount of salt that can be added to foods to help Americans eat less sodium, an influential federal panel said on Tuesday. Because Americans get most of their sodium from processed and restaurant foods, it is not enough to simply tell them to eat less salt and regulation of the food industry is needed, the Institute of Medicine said. The FDA is already putting together measures to do this, the Washington Post reported. Too much salt can cause high...

Sometime soon..."Hold it right there, buddy! Drop that salt and raise them hands. Slowly, now. One grain of that sodium falls into that soup and you're in a lot of trouble." Sergeant Grimwald of the FDA Food Patrol eyes were riveted on the illegal shaker. "It's down," said the diner. "Now would you mind putting away that gun?" "Don't you worry about the gun. It won't kill you, anyway. The bullets are covered with organically grown rubber." The diner shrugged. "Just who are you anyway?" "Grimwald: FDA. I was eating here undercover---we had reports this place was a salt den....

The Food and Drug Administration is planning an unprecedented effort to gradually reduce the salt consumed each day by Americans, saying that less sodium in everything from soup to nuts would prevent thousands of deaths from hypertension and heart disease. The initiative, to be launched this year, would eventually lead to the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in food products. The government intends to work with the food industry and health experts to reduce sodium gradually over a period of years to adjust the American palate to a less salty diet, according to FDA sources, who...

What did you have for lunch or for your afternoon snack? If it was sugary, fatty or salty, Michelle Obama understands. But she’d like to change that, and took her arguments directly to the Grocery Manufacturers Association today. < SNIP >“If you all create the supply, we know there will be a demand,” she told the companies. “If you have any doubt about that, just look at what we did for the hula hoop. I hula hooped.”

Company plans to reduce sodium by 10 percent in its products over 2 years NORTHFIELD, Ill. - Kraft Foods says it will cut the salt in its products sold in North America by an average of 10 percent over the next two years as food makers try to appeal to health-conscious consumers. Kraft said Wednesday that the move will reduce the sodium in Oscar Mayer Bologna by 17 percent and Easy Mac Cups by 20 percent. This comes on top of other cuts it has made in sodium levels in recent years.

New York’s restaurants could be banned from adding salt to food as part of the city’s latest health crackdown. Politicians are voting on a bill that, if passed, would see restaurateurs fined $1,000 (£660) each time they were caught adding the condiment to food. But the measure, which is designed to reduce blood pressure, has had the opposite effect among angry chefs who say that without salt customers would stay at home.

As power curdles into arrogance, the assumption of superiority becomes so intoxicating that the tyrant has no clue of how foolish or evil his conduct becomes. Like the thing with the salt. In New York, a state legislator has introduced legislation that would forbid restaurants to use salt. Each violation of the law would result in a $1,000 fine. Here’s how the legislation reads: “No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on...

This story could not come at a better time to illustrate the flaws inherent with a government run health care program. Set aside, for the moment, all of the arguments related to efficiency and costs and focus on the real consequences; the government can dictate how you lead your life. With the government holding the purse strings to your health care dollars it is not unreasonable to assume that they will try to convince people to lead a healthier life style. That may seem a noble and worthwhile goal but you have to ask yourself what is a healthy life...

American salt manufacturers began iodizing salt in the 1920's, in cooperation with the government, after people in some parts of the country were found to be suffering from goiter, an enlargement of the thyroid gland caused by an easily-preventable iodine deficiency. People require less than 225 micrograms of iodine a day. Seafood as well as sea salt contains iodine naturally and the supplement is unnecessary if there are sufficient quantities of either in one's diet. Note: Natural sea salt is a healthy replacement for ordinary table salt.

A new bill in the state Assembly would ruin restaurant food and baked goods as we know them.In a deeply misguided gesture that is also an abuse of the legislative process, a New York City Assemblyman is pushing a nanny-state bill that would ban the use of all forms of salt in the preparation and cooking of all restaurant food.If passed, the measure, introduced Friday by Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, would result in fines of up to $1,000 for each individual addition of salt by restaurant staff, whether before, during or after cooking. Customers would have the option of adding...

Industry crackdown on salt could save U.S. billions 5:41pm EST By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - Working with the food industry to cut salt intake by nearly 10 percent could prevent hundreds of thousands of heart attacks and strokes over several decades and save the U.S. government $32 billion in healthcare costs, U.S. researchers said on Monday. Eating too much salt is a major cause of high blood pressure, which the Institute of Medicine, one of the National Academies of Sciences, last week declared a "neglected disease" that costs the U.S. health system $73 billion a year. Several governments including...