Posted on 11/14/2010 6:24:52 AM PST by mattstat
What’s better: (A) voluntarily reducing your salt intake, or (B) having the government mandate that you do so? Naturally, if you don’t opt for A, you get B, which we can call the Bloomberg option.
Why reduce salt? Well, there’s a chance—a small one, but non-zero—of exacerbating your high blood pressure, assuming you have that condition, and because of the possibility of exacerbation, you might live a slightly shorter life. Sure, this possibly shorter life you lead will be full of flavor, and the time you spend here will be more savory, but no citizen should choose quality over quantity when it comes to life. Right?
Linda Cobiac spends her days fretting about the amount of salt Australians ingest. She is so worried that she wrote the peer-reviewed paper “Cost-effectiveness of interventions to reduce dietary salt intake” in the eminent journal Heart. She and her co-authors conclude that “maybe there is an ethical justification for government to step in and legislate” the amount of salt citizens can buy in their food.
How did they come to this—nowadays, non-remarkable—conclusion? Why, with a computer model. Specifically:
We consider strategies ranging from those that aim to change individual dietary behaviour, to the current programme of incentives for voluntary changes by food manufacturers, to a more paternalistic approach with government legislation of more moderate salt levels in processed foods.
Shouldn’t that have read, in our more sensitive age, maternalistic approach? But never mind...
(Excerpt) Read more at wmbriggs.com ...
Nice work, FrankR. Thanks for all of your talented work.
It seems that we citizens are in a non-stop battle against our government. Anticipating this, I’ve begun to stockpile table salt; it’ll also come in handy as a trade item if TSHTF.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do if they dictate to processed foods (think corn chips) manufacturers how they can make their stuff.
>> Do YOU like subsidizing the unnecessary care of people who inflict themselves with expensive, long-term, chronic conditions, and forcing ME to pay for it as well? That is socialism.<<
And government control of every aspect of our lives isn’t socialism? Or would it better be described as fascism?
Hey, plain old salt.
Nobody needs chlorine. It’s a total myth that stomach acids and digestive enzymes need chlorine.
And nobody needs sodium. We all have way too much potassium in our cells anyways. The whole sodium-potassium pump, that maintains high potassium in the cell and high sodium outside, thus providing the electrical potential for things like nerves and brain cells to work, that’s outmoded thinking.
I truly wish these jerks would stay away from medical theory.
Yes, sodium chloride can kill you.
But if it does, it’s because you are already deficient in other things.
The majority of modern folks have enough sodium, too much calcium, not enough potassium, and nowheres near enough magnesium, zinc, and selenium. (Selenium, btw, is the only mineral explicitly coded for as an amino acid complex)
And the whole “Whole grain” fetish? Utter bullshit. Ancient man didn’t wander down like 17 trees worth of distance and all the sudden find a field of barley to grind up.
He ate mostly leaves, nuts, roots, fruit (seasonal), and the semi-rare meat he could get.
And he drank mostly groundwater - loaded with calcium, magnesium, and other limestone ingredients.
Just look at any primitive society like the Yanomamo and you immediately know what we’re missing.
I write something like this and I wonder “Why even bother with all the complete idjits out there...?
Um, where did I say I was in favor of government control of every aspect of our lives? Actually, I said (twice), that I do NOT want the government trying to regulate things to protect people from themselves and their own bad decisions.
I was complaining about being forced to subsidize the costs incurred by the poor choices of others. Big difference.
I trust you don't like your tax money subsidizing welfare mothers to stay at home in public housing, have more kids, and spend their money on cigarettes and scratch tickets, right? Neither do I.
I also don't like my exorbitant health insurance premiums going to subsidize people who trash their own lungs smoking and wind up with COPD, blow out their livers from drinking too much, or destroy their kidneys or heart by ignoring high blood pressure and/or being obese.
What's the difference? Seriously... what is the difference?
All the more reason to stick to bacon.
>>So yeah, even though I don't want the government to step in and try to do silly things like control sodium intake, it DOES piss me off to have to pay exorbitant health insurance rates to subsidize the expensive, long-term care of people who develop chronic health problems thanks entirely to their own crappy choices.<<
It’s the “even though” comment that leads one to believe that “even though” you don’t want it that it’s your opinion that it is needed. If I misconstrued that comment shame on me but I would suggest that others did as well and it’s exactly what the left uses to justify government intervention.
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