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snousleAn interesting article about salt in processed foods:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/health/30salt.html
The article provides many examples of how salt is used to mask low ingredient quality. The descriptions of manufactured foods without salt are enough to make me never want to touch them again.
I'm a salt freak, but I also recognize that quality ingredients taste good without salt. I can't think of a single exception. If something seems inedible without salt, that's because your body is telling you not to eat it!
This is the best argument I've seen for regulating salt in processed foods. In my view, it's not about eliminating salt, its about exposing a profound lack of quality and sweeping the low-end crap out of the market entirely. I've long suspected that obesity is a reaction to an absence of micronutrients in processed foods. It may be the body's effort to get enough of some essential (but possibly unrecognized) compound without any instinct for where to find it. If salt regulations force poor quality products off the market, they might well improve health regardless of whether sodium intake is actually reduced or not.
Or, food manufacturers might just find another way to fuck up the nation's diet that will make things even worse.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/health/30salt.html
The article provides many examples of how salt is used to mask low ingredient quality. The descriptions of manufactured foods without salt are enough to make me never want to touch them again.
I'm a salt freak, but I also recognize that quality ingredients taste good without salt. I can't think of a single exception. If something seems inedible without salt, that's because your body is telling you not to eat it!
This is the best argument I've seen for regulating salt in processed foods. In my view, it's not about eliminating salt, its about exposing a profound lack of quality and sweeping the low-end crap out of the market entirely. I've long suspected that obesity is a reaction to an absence of micronutrients in processed foods. It may be the body's effort to get enough of some essential (but possibly unrecognized) compound without any instinct for where to find it. If salt regulations force poor quality products off the market, they might well improve health regardless of whether sodium intake is actually reduced or not.
Or, food manufacturers might just find another way to fuck up the nation's diet that will make things even worse.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 11:46 pm (UTC)Wikipedia has scratched the surface with this view of the economic important of salt and the almost insatiable consumer demand for the stuff (imagine a society with little or no salt, suddenly having access to it - would such a society 'give it up' or go to war to keep their access to it?).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_salt_tax_in_India