(Jan. 12) -- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has had good luck with previous public health initiatives, successfully enacting bans against public smoking and trans fats, and requiring chain restaurants to label the calories on their menus. His new campaign against the overconsumption of salt, however, presents a more ambitious -- and complicated -- set of challenges.Humans can live without smoking or trans fats, but not without salt. Americans eat too much salt today. But our relationship to this occasionally problematic crystal goes much deeper than that.A "salt" is, technically, an ionic compound made of a positive cation and a negative anion. "Salt," as we usually think of it, is NaCl, or sodium chloride, the chemically stable combination of a poisonous gas and an explosive metal. It gets to our table by mining rock salt or evaporating saltwater.
Salt may be cheap and plentiful in modern Western society, but it used to be one of the most prized substances on the planet. Human beings during any other point in history would be dumbfounded by the sight of a public official begging his people to eat less of it. Salt was so valuable that the ancient Romans occasionally paid soldiers with it -- the origin of the term "salary," or the phrase "worth his salt."When the British empire attempted to control the Indian salt economy, Mahatma Gandhi used the simple act of making salt as one of his most powerful demonstrations against colonial rule.According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, human beings need a minimum of 250 milligrams of salt every day to function; most adults should not consume more than 2,300 mg. Sodium ions -- the villains of Bloomberg's campaign -- are essential to maintaining our electrolyte balance and operating our nervous systems. Some studies suggest that salt may also function as an antidepressant.But hyponatremia, caused by sodium deficiency, is extremely rare in modern society. The average American consumes 4,000 mg a day, eight times the required amount and almost twice the suggested maximum. High salt diets have been linked to high blood pressure and hypertension, as well as increased risk for heart attack and stroke.None of this would be a problem if salt weren't delicious. Human beings likely developed a taste for calories, sweets and salts, which are necessary to live but rare in the wild. But those same natural preferences that helped our ancestors find what they needed to survive cause us to overindulge when those substances are readily available.For many companies, salt is a cheap way of enhancing flavor. Some scientists also suspect that the abundance of salt in the modern diet causes symptoms of addiction. Because we eat so much processed food, we require much more salt to get the same flavor. The New York City mayor's office views this natural love of salt as a lurking culprit in the huge numbers of New York deaths."If we achieve our goal, we would talk about saving tens of thousands of lives," city Health Commissioner Farley said.Prominent nutritionist and author Marion Nestle agrees, applauding the mayor's office for coming out in favor of health."The Health Department is sending a clear message," she said. "Reducing the salt content of packaged and restaurant foods will help New Yorkers stay healthy."Some, however, disagree. Aside from the usual complaints about Bloomberg's "nanny state," libertarian New York Times writer John Tierney has previously criticized Bloomberg for legislating based on inconclusive science, essentially turning the entire city into an uncontrolled experiment."Even though lower blood pressure correlates with less heart disease, scientists haven't demonstrated that eating less salt leads to better health and longer life," Tierney wrote in April.The mayor's office is being careful in this new campaign. Unlike the previous ban on trans fats, the sodium-reduction program is still strictly voluntary. Some food companies, like Subway and Food Emporium, already have endorsed the plan. Others, like Campbell's, are more cautious, calling Bloomberg's goals "quite aggressive." Bloomberg's public smoking ban and ban on trans fats had the weight of legislation behind them and attacked simple, yes-or-no questions. The National Salt Reduction Initiative may prove unwieldy and difficult to define. Campbell's has noted that its decisions are based on the strength of the market for low-sodium products.Essentially, the company is saying to the consumer, "The shaker is in your hand."
Filed under: Nation, Health, Only On Sphere
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