Posted on 06/18/2014 6:07:09 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The FDA, perhaps still smarting from the recent artisanal cheese kerfuffle, is setting its sights on a bigger target: salt.
“The current level of [sodium] consumption is really higher than it should be,” said FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg. That’s why they’re preparing “voluntary guidelines” for the food industry encouraging them to stay below certain salt levels.
While the guidelines will initially be voluntary, health groups are lobbying for mandatory standards — lobbying that will only grow more intense if businesses refuse to comply once the standards are released. If businesses don’t go light on the salt “then FDA should start a process of mandatory limits,” said Center for Science in the Public Interest Executive Director Michael Jacobson. (RELATED: Do our diets have to be progressive too?)
The health effects of reduced sodium diets are hotly debated, and in fact low sodium consumption may even threaten the health of those with congestive heart failure, according to a May 2013 study by the Institute of Medicine — the same NGO that’s been pressuring the FDA to crack down on salty food.
Health and science writer Gary Taubes, writing for The New York Times in 2012, explained that “With nearly everyone focused on the supposed benefits of salt restriction, little research was done to look at the potential dangers. But four years ago, Italian researchers began publishing the results from a series of clinical trials, all of which reported that, among patients with heart failure, reducing salt consumption increased the risk of death. Those trials have been followed by a slew of studies suggesting that reducing sodium to anything like what government policy refers to as a ‘safe upper limit’ is likely to do more harm than good.”
The FDA is determined to press forward despite the ambiguous relationship between salt consumption and health, saying that Americans’ sodium levels are “of huge interest and concern” and that they hope to release the guidelines soon.
Former NYC Mayor and notorious “public health” warrior Michael Bloomberg was a trendsetter in this regard, having launched the National Salt Reduction Initiative, “a nationwide partnership to reduce sodium in the U.S. food supply,” in 2008–not that that’s stopped him from being liberal with the shaker on his own food.
As NYT science columnist John Tierney noted way back in 2009, regulatory policy based on unsettled science “makes test subjects of us all.”
CDC Salt Guidelines Too Low for Good Health, Study Suggests
WEDNESDAY, April 2, 2014 (HealthDay News) -
Avery Island, LA, where Tabasco is made, is the protruding tip of a subterranean salt mound that is estimated to be the size of Mt. Everest. Don't think I'll be running out any time soon :-)
When he said he wanted to fundamentally transform America he meant it. Down to our salt shakers.
It helps cover the taste of the crap we’ve been force fed for the past 6 years.
That poster is chock full o’ fugly.
With families with little children losing their homes because the parents have lost their jobs or been forced to work part time, stop bugging them about what they eat. Food prices are soaring. With milk at $5/gal. and bread at $3 a loaf, they are more worried about eating at all.
There in negates everything else.
They use no science and have no interest but lining their pockets.
More vegetarian propaganda. Salt isn’t killing people, the dietary guidelines of the government are. Salt doesn’t cause high blood pressure, fat doesn’t make you fat, soy is NOT healthy.
I had majorly cut back on salt in my diet but now that they’re telling me to...hello again, Morton Salt Girl!
The Obama Administration eats something else.
Stop eating so much salt and Michelle wants you to stop being a lardass.
I want the Obama administration to stop telling me what I can ingest into my body.
GFY OBAMA!
Tell me about it. I made pasta for perogies (sp?) yesterday and forgot to add salt to the dough - yuck - so bland. Extra salt in the water to cook them did nothing to help.
And I want the Obama administration to start eating sh*t.
Oh, forgot, they are already full of s***.
It’s because Christians NEED their saltiness...gird your loins, Chritians and watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysQl4aW7tME
Christians-—YIKES!
(sorry for the mis-spelling!)
maybe a little blooooooooooooooow
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