Banning salt?

 Why am I not surprised? This is of course an absurd proposal... Their ever increasing number of nanny state proposals worries me.

mod edit:  No politics please

Competely ABSURD and Ridiculous!  I try to limit my salt intake, but damn, this is one of the most assinine things I've ever heard.

 I just read that and I don't understand that at all. Here in Chicago we had a foie gras ban for those of you who might remember but it did not last long. That was a ban I kind of understood not being cruel to ducks/geese etc etc. But the no salt doesn't make any sense at all. I mean if you are going to ban something for health concerns then why not ban McDonalds before you ban salt?

This is a classic case of the pendulum swinging too far the other way to counteract a problem. Reading things like this just makes me worry that much more about our country.

I think this is a stunt.  It must be.  There's no other explanation.

Nickos exactly right, i mean, banning salt come on. Yet no fast food stores are closed, and school lunch is still served the same. Imagine what will happen to all good restaurants in New York.

yes ban the fast food chains
they are way to carried away with sodium content
come on Foodies what the hell? I love salt but always taste before I decide on the salt shaker which is very rare

Meanwhile, think of all the publicity that clown is getting.

Y'all reckon he's up for reelection?

I think a number of chefs should give the guy a taste test.  Seasoned vs. unseasoned.  After much time I'm finally getting seasoning down, not as much as I see some celeb chefs on TV but definitely more than I used to.  I have heart disease but I'm not about to give up salt and my blood pressure is quite fine, thank you.   What I have done is eliminate most processed food and cook with fresh ingredients.  I'll bet my sodium intake is less than one Big Mac or even a can of processed soup.

The dweeb is just trying to get some soundbites.  As others have mentioned, if they were to make this law virtually every restaurant/fast food joint would be out of business.  The sad part is that this is the level of intelligence of most of our politicians.

Maybe I better start stockpiling kosher salt along with brass, primers, and powder. 

Rich

ps.  Where can I order a t-shirt that says they'll take my salt pig from my cold fingers?

Well said I completely agree.

Even better would be for all of the Execs in the city to come together and throw this guy a catered party.  No salt allowed in anything.  Everyone there will soon realize the error of their ways and go after certain international chains.  

Another point to people who seem to think that what most would consider good to be evil(and yes, I know I'm preaching to the choir here.)  I lost about 30 pounds a few ears ago eating things fried in duck fat, wrapped in bacon, and covered in cheese.  Flavor isn't the enemy.  Fat isn't the enemy.  Sugar in everything and super-hyper-massive portions are.  


Edited by ChefRay - 3/12/10 at 7:02pm

"In 2000, Assemblyman Ortiz achieved passage of the nation’s first law to ban the use of hand held cell phones while driving a motor vehicle."

He said he doesn't want salt added,  it can be part of the original dish.  There's miscommunication somewhere.  All mammals bodies need salt, don't they?

Driving with cell phones is incredibly dangerous.  It endangers others. 

Eating salt, IF it is dangerous (which is a whole other question),  endangers only the one who eats it. 

And so what would it mean to have salt in the original dish but not added as Francie12 points out.  No salt shakers??? It would make more sense, if you were to be concerned with the health effects, to ban the salt in the original dish, not ban adding it at the end, which is up to the client. (Not arguing that it makes sense at all, but it makes even less sense to ban individuals from salting their own food). 

On the other hand "Government" bans lots of stuff that it considers dangerous to the individual - drugs like marijuana for instance - though strangely it doesn't ban herbal concoctions that have been demonstrated to be dangerous and even fatal if they don;t say on them that they have curative value. 

The fact is that politicians have a weird job, and laws are a weird thing - they reflect what the politician imagines his constituents want, combined with his own self-perpetuating interest to continue to be a politician - if he didn't he would not be in office, but if he does, he does some pretty stupid things - doesn;t matter really what political current he follows. 

>He said he doesn't want salt added,  it can be part of the original dish.  There's miscommunication somewhere. <

This also says something about today's media. The man introduced a bill. All a real reporter needs to do is read the bill. It will say exactly what Ortiz meant.

When I was a newsman the goal was to work until we got the story. Now the goal is to work until you have a story---no matter how incomplete or possibly incorrect it might be.

Yes!  and the more absurd or the more outrageous or the more disastrous the better.
In fact, ever notice that the last snowstorm (or whatever) is the worst in history (on the first monday of a  january in a leap year on an even day of the month in a year when christmas fell on a thursday....)

I don't claim to understand this.
It sounds like he has no issue with the cook seasoning the food properly, but has a problem with salt at the tables.
Is this correct?

I guess it's going to freak everyone out when I open up my little bindle of white substance at the table.

madness!!!

 Whats next...

Sugar, Caffeine...   I remember off Demolition Man where salt was banned.  Who would want society to turn out that way?   

The U.S.' fore-father's must be turning in their graves.

Speaking of demolition man, Denis O'leary's character quoted it best and is applicable for this thread:

"You see, according to Cocteau's plan, I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think; I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I'm the kind of guy who likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecued ribs with the side order of gravy fries?" I WANT high cholesterol. I wanna eat bacon and butter and BUCKETS of cheese, okay? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section. I want to run through the streets naked with green Jell-o all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly might feel the need to, okay, pal? I've SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer Wiener".

Edited by FR33_MASON - 3/13/10 at 6:59pm

It not clear to me what the ban is.  Any salt, or just shakers on the table?  Either is ridiculous.  Your body needs some salt and the amount added at the table is negligible.  As others have commented, the real villian is the salt in prepared food that people don't know they are ingesting.  Along with the gross amounts of fat and calories.  The proposal is stupid.

My wife dined at a catered meal at the old "Brown Derby" location in Los Angeles some years ago and asked for salt from the table for her entree.  She was very surprised when the catering chef appeared from the kitchen and pointedly told her that the food was seasoned "perfectly".  Apparently not to "her" taste.  I do nearly all of the cooking so that has become a joke between us whenever she asks for the shaker.....Mame, did you taste the food?

Love the site

"You see, according to Cocteau's plan, I'm the enemy, 'cause.........

Or, as a patron at the old Wilkes House in Savannah put it so succinctly: "It would surely be a terrible thing to die of low cholesterol."

I'm not sure what the results of the ban were in NY, but in CA the cellphone ban has had no noticeable impact on accident statistics.  It has, however, made a good bit of money for makers and marketers of hands-free kits, and for any municipalities rigorous enough to cite violators.

Politicians like to appear as protectors of the people, and I totally get that - it is, after all, a big part of what they ought to be doing.

The problem is that actually protecting the people is really really hard to do, and always and only happens after an interminable period of legislative gridlock and general angst.  So elected officials pick scapegoats which allow them to appear to be protecting the public - cell phones, trans-fats, sodium, seatbelt-less drivers, helmetless cyclists - and they crusade against them.  You would think that people would notice that things really aren't any better off for the government's interference, but fortunately for the politicians the attention span of the voting public is astonishingly short.

Will this ban pass?  It very well could - many many people believe that salt is, in fact, about as evil as you can get.  Many others lack any sense of scale when it comes to the amount of salt in or on their food.  As far as they're concerned, the amount of salt on an order of McDonald's fries or in a can of soup is quite reasonable, but if they were to catch any of us here seasoning their food, they would be disturbed by the amount of salt they perceive us as using.  Moreover, they all know that good restaurant food just has SO much more flavor than other alternatives, and they know that salty = tasty, and will then assume that more flavor = more salt without really understanding how much salt is necessary to bring out those flavors.  This may seem like really sketchy reasoning, and likely no one on this board thinks like this - but we are talking about that "average" voter here.

Good luck, New York.  Write your representatives, put up posters, reach out to various food-related communities and start educating your consumers.  If the ban passes in NY, it's only a matter of time until the rest of the country will follow suit. 

The real answer is to make "living while stupid" a capital offense.

And I get to be one of the judges ;-)

mjb.

That sounds like a lot of work.

It already is, but on a fairly long time line and a very complex set of sentencing regulations.  At least it can be fun to watch.

Methinks everyone here likes salt, dislikes politcians riding a bandwagon.

Human bodies need salt, particularly iodised and flouridised, one reason being the function of the thyroid gland,,  There are certain medical conditions which it is not good for, but those at risk would or certainly should have been advised of this by their practitioner,

Lets face it the salt issue, is just another example of Big Gov. run amuck, another example is in my city two IRS agents demanding payment for 4 cents.  If you think past intrusion on your right to decide what you should eat or do with your body is something, wait till they pass nationalized health care, you will be told what to eat, drink, and how worse.  They interfere in many levels of food productions under the guise of preventative care, and saving money on the health care system, under the for he

 Glad that doesn't happen here in Canada because I eat what I want and guess what....?  My heath care is still free.  Since jan. 2009, I pay nothing here in Alberta.  I have never had a problem with The health care I have recieved.  I' m very active and lead a ventured lifestyle because I don't have to worry as much as to wether or not I might hurt myself.  A broken leg here doesn't equal a second mortgage on my house.  And with all that activity I'm fit so I don't see the inside of a clinic or hospital very often. 


  This topic is very subjective so I'm not saying I'm pro anything here just giving you a first hand account as to the other side of universal type health care.

 And to keep on subject...Horray for salt, boo to Felix Ortiz.

Edited by FR33_MASON - 3/14/10 at 9:44am

Banning Salt, would be like taking sand out of cement. It is the one spice in the Chefs kitchen, that brings the perfect balance of taste to every meal....................Chef Bill

You are absolutely right, Chef Bill, although salt is not considered a spice--rather are premier food flavor enhancer.