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The War on Salt… Crystallized.

This administration is kind of anti-choice, isn't it?

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  May 18th, 2010 at 11:30 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

This article (H/T: The New Ledger) says absolutely everything that you need to know about the messianic zealots assailing the Food and Drug Administration right now. Quick context: somebody in North Carolina (quick, North Carolinian voters: how does your legislator feel about wrecking the taste of your bacon?) noticed that the FDA is gearing up a set of rules on sodium levels that might have an adverse effect on North Carolinian foodstuffs, like country hams.  And by ‘adverse’ I mean ‘endangers consumers’:

Candace Cansler, director of the National Country Ham Association, said U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations require country hams to have at least 4 percent salt content. Any less and the meat is subject to microbial contamination.

DeWitt said the FDA probably wouldn’t write a rule contradicting the USDA’s 4 percent minimum rule, but it might set a salt content maximum at 6 or 7 percent.

Bolding mine.  Here is a hint for Christina Dewitt of the Institute of Medicine and [Oklahoma State University; my apologies for the error]: when somebody informs you that there needs to be a minimum level of a particular food additive present to prevent people from becoming infected, saying that the rule ‘probably’ won’t be changed is not very… smart, really.  It suggests a certain sort of close-minded, theocratic fanaticism that is no less worrisome for not being violent.  After all, the problem here is not that Christina Dewitt wants to eat ham that is less sodium-enriched; she wants me to eat ham like that, too – whether I want to, or not.  And her definition of acceptable risk is broader than mine.  And her sect has some say in setting FDA standards, apparently.

Put another way: I don’t particularly care one way or another about the Institute of Medicine’s religious beliefs.  But I do care if they’re trying to turn said religious beliefs into public policy, particularly when doing so raises a health risk.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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COMMENTS

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  • wilfranc

    I can see people adding more salt or by being made aware of the danger of salt turning to a salt substitute. A salt substitute can be composed of potassium, and an increase can raise blood potasium levels, which can affect the heart.

    Lawmakers wanted to drastically reduce the amount of nicotine in cigerattees once leading drs. to protest. A reduced amount of nicotine means a lot of smokers would probably smoke more cigarettees, and it it s the smoke that is bad for health, making low nicotine cigarettes potentially more dangerous.

    It’s not what a politician sees that bothers me, but what they don’t.

  • http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/ reaganiterepublicanresistance

    Obama, who when he’s not sneaking smokes in the WH garden chomps Nicorette like fiend?

    Botox Pelosi?

    lolol

  • TXCHLInstructor

    Politicians have no useful knowledge on any of the following subjects:

    1) Diet & Nutrition
    2) Healthcare
    3) Global warming
    4) Science in general

  • davidsongirl

    Even extreme liberal Kay Hagan’s office said, “This is ridiculous.” Thank you for bringing it to our attention. North Carolina is very proud of it’s country ham, as well as our Mt. Olive pickles and other southern foods.

  • blooch

    the minimum at 4% because 1 or 2% ir really enough, and they were playing it safe with bureaucratic overkill. Any idea what the current average salt content is? The hams we ate when I was growing up tasted like 50% salt content.

    The FDA must be trying to kill the salt-cured ham industry by establishing an impossibly narrow range of salt content for manufacturers to fall within. I guess they think that killing a few people to kill this industry is acceptable collateral damage.

  • http://www.libertytreehugger.com reverelth

    the water treatment facility messed with the chlorination chemistry at the behest of the (then) tree hugging mayor. Next thing you know, a microbe called cryptosporidium got into the water system and sickened or killed dozens.

    Of course, there was no corporate boogeyman to blame. Not sexy.

    Uh, who forced BP to drill in 5000 feet of water, anyway?

  • RedBeard

    It’s called personal responsibilty. I know, it’s a bit much to expect a gang of statist thugs to understand such an arcane concept, but it really does work.

    Hard to believe, I know, but I have actually been able to reduce my overall salt intake to a proper level without a gaggle of moral busybodies and control freaks forbidding me to eat certain things. How can this be? Oh, gee, I dunno… could it involve educating myself and then applying what I have learned to my choice of foods?

    Godfrey Daniel! Astounding, ain’t it? Who would ever think of doing that?

    Back off, you FDA apparatchiks. Just back off. And tell your idiot boss to stop smoking and eating all that ice cream.

  • http://pocketchangeproductions.net/ anotherindyfilmguy

    would that make it crystalnight-lite?

  • obladioblada

    What the heck is an “average American” and by what right does the federal government impose a diet dictatorship on individual Americans?

    First and foremost, this is not the government’s right, but it is also illogical. If some Americans eat more salt than some professor thinks that they should, it does not follow that all Americans should have government-imposed dietary regulations.

    The “average American” is a mythical creature. If the US consumes X quantity of salt each year and there are 300 mil Americans, it does not follow that my salt intake is x divided by 300 mil nor does it mean that I cannot have a kosher pickle.

    Only a progressive can believe that killing an unborn child is a privacy right and a woman’s choice but my soy sauce is a federal issue.

  • Tom_Holsinger

    These are the same wowsers who tried to force the delegates at the recent Democratic national convention in Denver to eat only politically correct food.

    They know what’s good for us and want to run every little detail of our lives. They haven’t changed a bit in a hundred years.

    “Mommmyyy! A Democratic took my corn dog!”

  • grandma

    Wonder why they haven’t just proposed a special federal tax on anything containing salt! Or is this just the introduction to the tax?

  • acat

    Or, in this case, on the back of a bag of Lay’s baked chips. One serving, 1 1/8 oz, 200mg sodium, i.e. salt. (there’s also 290mg potassium, not sure what that’s about)

    Canned meats are very salty, salt is a cheap (nowadays) preservative, and we do need some salt to keep functioning. Not nearly as much as we get, but some.

    Mew

  • acat

    they read the names of States at the Democrat Convention in random rather than alphabetical order because “alphabetism” was considered unfair.

    Yep. They never change.

    Mew

  • stephaniet

    I shall continue to buy Mt. Olive pickles unless they start tasting gross. But if an extreme liberal agreed this is nuts, I doubt grossness will happen.

  • wayneepalmer

    There will be no taste when you are only allowed to eat at government cafeteria’s (surrounded by tv’s blaring ideological propaganda) on your walking and public-transit way from your government issued living quarters (with its externally controlled channels that alternate between propaganda and watching other people in their quarters and reporting any signs of unhappiness and camera’s all around to insure your needs and happiness are fulfilled as observed by your neighbors of your bland if somewhat fearful smile) on your way to your government societal-service job.
    This is followed by your attendance at public education (more propaganda and citizen-unity activities) a return to the cafeteria and then to your abode, watching propaganda and your neighbors, then regulated sleep and waking schedules. Repeat. Bah, bah, bah, sheeple and a dramatically shortened lifespan. Get used to it. This is the future in B-1-a-9-r-8-r-4-y’s World. Smile – Big O’brother is watching!

  • voxoreason

    My wife of 35 years has a condition (problem with digestion of fats) such that she can’t eat bacon , a fave food of hers (and mine). When she first told me of what the doctor had ordered, I told her that I wasn’t going to sit there chomping down on bacon (and Man Alive, do I EVER love bacon!) while she was eating a salad.

    I am comfortable with this decision, so I guess the issue doesn’t really affect me. On the other hand, this was entirely MY personal decision, not something I was forced to do. (I would privately eat bacon just for the hell of it. Screw the evil do-gooders, which sounds like an oxymoron, but isn’t.)

    On the other hand, I do sneak some Jimmy Dean’s frozen pre-cooked microwave sausage from time to time. (You can’t just eat two slices of bacon, then leave the rest of the pack sitting in the frig for a month or until it doesn’t pass the smell test.)

    Sometimes everything just comes down to one’s priorities.

    Kagan is one of my senators; Richard Burr is the other. Occasionally, the two vote the same. I always wonder which one of them is screwing up. As a straight-ticket republican voter, I’d like to think that Burr, like me, is going for the lesser of two evils.