The Road to Serfdom
Conservatives have evidently worked themselves into something of an incoherent snit over the FDA’s plans to limit sodium in processed foods. If I understand the anxiety correctly, a cooperative effort between the federal government, industry representatives and public health experts to gradually (and I would imagine quite modestly) reduce sodium levels over a ten-year period is pretty much the sort of thing that Pol Pot did before depopulating the cities and having everyone gouged to death with bamboo.
As a public health matter, reducing sodium levels in the food supply seems like a perfectly decent idea and would be the most efficient way of addressing the problems caused by a diet overloaded with salt. Americans consume more sodium (by most estimates twice, by some estimates three times) than we need; most of our sodium comes from processed food; the epidemiological data demonstrate a compelling link between excessive sodium intake and unpleasant health outcomes like coronary heart disease and stroke (among other misfortunes); gradual reductions sodium intake seem to have measurable benefits for blood pressure; and the best available evidence suggests that we might reduce deaths from CHD, stroke and heart attack by tens of thousands (if not more) simply by knocking back average sodium consumption to the levels currently recommended by the CDC (i.e., 2300 mg/day for the general population). Although there’s the usual degree of uncertainty and qualification in the science, critics of the policies being mulled over by the FDA — most notably Michael Alderman, who has long been the go-to guy for salt regulation skeptics — are well-known within the field for overstating the ambiguity in the data and for undervaluing the weight of randomized clinical studies that support the public health consensus on sodium reduction. (That’s not to say he’s a hack, or that the debate about sodium is anything as nonexistent as the “debate” about climate change. Indeed, when boneheads like Ed Morrissey cite his work as “the latest research” — while completely botching his academic affiliation — it’s difficult not to take pity on the guy and wonder if he’s not being ill-served by the attention.)
in any event, there’s obviously always room for debate about the potential efficacy of public policy — but it’s probably not a debate worth having with people harboring primal fears that Barack Obama is coming to steal their Funyuns. Unfortunately, that seems to be the level at which the public discourse about food and public health usually takes place, so wingnuts should at least take heart in that.
UPDATE [SL]: In today’s installment of non-sequitur theater, William Jacobson announces that this plan to set modest limits on the amount of sodium in pre-processed foods totally vindicates his fear that isolated legislators will be able to completely ban the use of salt in restaurants. And, also, giving consumers the ability to control the amount of salt in their food is just the prelude to banning the private use of salt, or something. As a mere political scientist, I must confess that I can’t really follow the logic here.
UPDATE THE SECOND [SL]: See also.
Perhaps they’ll be less worked up about such things when their blood pressure isn’t artificially high from all the added salt in their diets?
“Perhaps they’ll be less worked up about such things when their blood pressure isn’t artificially high from all the added salt in their diets?”
Hell no. They’ll double down on salt. Look for them to start bringing salt licks to the teabag rallies.
Shorter wingnut: First, they came for the Cheetos, and I did something!
it’s probably not a debate worth having with people harboring primal fears that Barack Obama is coming to steal their Funyuns. Unfortunately, that seems to be the level at which the public discourse about food and public health usually takes place,
Coming in 2011: “The Sodium Myth”…
Such an odd view of “Freedom”; you can always add salt to the finished product, but you can’t remove it. For most people, starting with a lower amount of salt then adding it to personal taste represents a greater control over the final product, and there fore more consumer freedom. Yet the rights of corporations to pile on the sodium ahead of time is apparently more important than the ability for consumers to more easily control their sodium intake.
They can have my saltshaker when they pry it from my cold, head hands, shortly after I suffer a massive cardio-vascular event.
Why do you think they want to take away our guns? So we can’t defend ourselves from gubmint agents trying to steal our salt!
First they came for my high-fructose corn syrup, and I said nothing, for I was not an Iowa farmer.
If current wingnuttia had lived in the 1920s: Can you believe the gummint is forcing the adding of iodine to salt?! It’s a conspiracy to deny everyone’s right to cretinism, dwarfism, and goiters! Where will they stop?! This sort of government intervention will lead to Nazism, even though it hasn’t gotten into power in Germany yet!
It is all about their Cheetos and the fact that they are too stupid and inept to add their own salt to food.
As to Jacobson’s “logic”, you cannot follow what is not there.
Alderman cites 11 observational studies. In four of them, reduced sodium intake is associated with increased CVD and stroke. In three higher sodium intake is associated with the same. In four no significant relationship was observed.
More strikingly, in what he describes as the only randomized clinical trial to date, lower sodium intake led to increased risk.
I should say, following Paul, that this doesn’t mean that the policy is right; it could well be that sodium intake is an overrated problem. But if it’s bad policy it’s because of a misreading of the evidence, not because it’s some great threat to freedom per se.
Right, the problem isn’t regulation per se, it’s that the regulation may not be justified on the basis of the available evidence.
I wrote “coming in 2011 – The Sodium Myth” – I should have written “coming later the same day”…
Before Campos gets too close to Alderman, though, it’s worth noting that the linked op-ed finishes with the sentence “And in the meantime, to help people lower their risk of heart attack and stroke, health officials should concentrate on promoting the benefits of weight control…”
I don’t think they’re going to be friends.
This has been a discussion for a couple years since Michael Bloomberg started his war on salt. Since Obama hired Tom Frieden for CDC it’s been more or less inevitable that something like this would happen. I have mixed feelings; less salt in prepared foods couldn’t hurt but I don’t really think they’re coming from a sound scientific basis and if it leads to something like the proposed bill (A. 10129) in New York…
“No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant…”
well, I do indeed think that goes a bit too far. Not that I think that’s likely to pass in NY much less get picked up nationally but I’m not a fan of Frieden even if I am glad to be rid of trans fats.
I’m not sure this has anything to do with the CDC. In any event, I’d imagine the proposed guidelines (when they’re eventually released, most likely years from now) will be drawn withing the broad context of trying to reduce average sodium intake by about 1200 mg/day per person. That would bring average consumption down to about 2300 mg/day, which is the recommended amount for normotensive adults.
Nutpicking, I suppose, but the comments are great.
One guy says this is an example of liberals parodying themselves, and is followed by someone saying it’s all part of Michelle Obama’s plan to grab power for the SEIU.
I’m going to dump a full shaker of salt onto my lunch this afternoon. I’ll make sure I buy at Whole Foods thanks to their CEO’s opposition to Obamacare. FREEEEEEEDOM!!!!!!
If the feds ban salt altogether, couldn’t the tea baggers march to the sea to make their own salt, a la Ghandi?
Silly, that would imply that white people were wrong once in the history of the world. Plus the Brits were all for free markets. Except when they weren’t.
FREEEEEEEDOM!!!!!!
Wait, wait. You need the whole quote: “They may take our heart-damaged lives, but they’ll never take our FREEEEEDOMMMMM!!!!
Adding salt is a cheap and easy way to process food. That’s one reason the corporations love it and why they want the government to level the playing field by pushing them all into lowering it at the same time.
“Adding salt is a cheap and easy way to process food.”
Also a cheap & easy way to get people to overeat: pretty well everything with a stomach craves salt because it’s relatively rare in nature, & satisfaction follows only after one has made a pig of oneself.
Needless to say, makers of beverages are going to compare this to the Holocaust … “gentlemen, America must not allow the emergence of a Thirst Gap!”
Isn’t the issue more sodium to potassium ratio rather than just sodium. Our ancestors ate diets high in potassium (~9000 mg) and low in sodium (~750 mg), pretty much the opposite of today (~2600 and ~3200 mg respectively).
Finland has implemented control of sodium and potassium in processed foods and found a 60% decrease in deaths due to stroke and a 75% decrease in deaths due to heart disease in men. http://www.nature.com/jhh/journal/v19/n3s/full/1001955a.html
Depriving us of salt-enhanced hypertension is the Obamatons’ way of trying to prevent us from defending ourselves from them by shooting blood out of our eyes, a la the horned toad. Wake up, sheeple!
[...] The Road to Serfdom – [...]