The city Board of Health last week voted to order restaurants to put salt warnings on menus — even though the science behind salt-phobia is in serious question. Isn’t the Bloomberg era supposed to be over?
Then-Mayor Mike did his best to “improve” New Yorkers’ diets, from his (failed) big-soda ban to rules forcing eateries to post calorie counts. Sadly, the new team seems just as eager to play nanny.
Ignoring the well-established fact that those calorie-counts don’t shift diners’ behavior, the board voted unanimously to force most restaurants to use salt-shaker symbols so customers will know they’re eating more than the federally recommended daily limit of 2,300 milligrams of sodium, which is just about a teaspoon.
“It’s quite difficult for consumers to understand which products might have too much sodium in them,” said Dr. Sonia Angell, a Health Department deputy commissioner, pointing to longstanding fears that high sodium intake boosts your risk of heart disease and high blood pressure.
Yet those fears are looking less real. The federal Institute of Medicine admitted two years ago that its low-salt advice doesn’t stand up. Uncle Sam is due to release updated dietary guidelines sometime this year, and betting is still open on whether those will whistle a new tune on sodium.
A major study published in The New England Journal of Medicine last year was just the latest to raise doubts. One of its authors, Professor Andrew Mente of McMaster University in Ontario, says flat-out: “There is no longer any valid basis for the current salt guidelines” — and asks, “So why are we still scaring people about salt?”
The answer is simple: Lots of folks just love to moralize, but preaching about sex is now déclassé — so they aim to police kitchens instead of bedrooms, citing “science” instead of “faith.”
It’s still the same puritanical, authoritarian impulse — and it has no place in this town.