The Hard Sell on Salt
30th May 2010
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.
And that’s exactly all that the New York Times spends on what we Real People would consider the fundamental question: Is the purported link between salt and high blood pressure actually a fact? Or merely a suspicion? For the Times, saying “government health experts” apparently settles the question — a remarkable bit of handwaving from a publication that is disinclined to accept the word of “government experts” in any field where said experts disagree with the preconceptions of the Times.
I wish I had a nickel for every time that “government experts” were damned sure of X, only to be equally damned sure of -X five years later. And of course I an congenitally disposed to think that, if “government experts” say X, the truth is more likely than not to be -X.
But that aside, one would think that an article discussing the Crust’s attempts to strong-arm the public into using less salt would delve a little deeper into whether such fascist thuggery is actually in truth justified.
Since processed foods account for most of the salt in the American diet, national health officials, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and Michelle Obama are urging food companies to greatly reduce their use of salt. Last month, the Institute of Medicine went further, urging the government to force companies to do so.
But no.