Legislative LULZ(serious discussion discouraged)

:w00t:
hey, remember that time Texas accidentally banned marriage?

sauce

Texas lawmakers wanted to make sure gay people couldn't be married. Instead, it seems, they may have made sure no one can.

it's like the weird cousin at the reunion who really only gets invited because we wanna see what crazy thing they'll try to do this year.

New York City Seeks to Ban Salt
this is just getting silly.

LULZ

Some New York City chefs and restaurant owners are taking aim at a bill introduced in the New York Legislature that, if passed, would ban the use of salt in restaurant cooking.
:lol:

Good attempt to fix the discussion in your favour by asking people to treat the proposed ban as a joke in advance. But I'm afraid you are wrong.

From the UK Food Standards Agency web site:

Eating too much salt can raise your blood pressure, which triples your risk of developing heart disease or stroke.
• Coronary heart disease is the most common cause of death in the UK, with about 94,000 people dying each year.
• Stroke is the third biggest killer and a leading cause of severe disability in the UK. More than 250,000 people live with disabilities caused by stroke.
• In 2006, about 55,000 deaths in the UK were caused by stroke.
You can reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke by cutting down on salt, eating a healthy diet, being active and maintaining a healthy weight.

It's no joke.
The good news is if you give up salt everything is flavourless for a week then you stop noticing and start tasting the food.
The Sock

While it is true that many foods are salt laden to an unhealthy degree, it is also true that salt deficiency has unhealthy and unpleasant consequences - headaches, nausea, and impaired performance, especially during vigorous exercise in warm environments. Been there, done that.

You need salt - in the appropriate quantities. Like so many substances, too little is bad, too much is bad. The problem with salt is that we don't realize how much we are ingesting in highly processed foods. A total ban in restaurant cooking does seem just a tad silly.

The best solution is probably to fix more of your own stuff and quit eating out so much.

>The problem with salt is that we don't realize how much we are ingesting in highly processed foods.

Exactly there is no need to add salt to your food at all. There's plenty already in the food you buy .
Personally I'm in favour of a ban in restaurants as it's my taxes paying to keep those people in hospital. But I can understand the argument against it.
But treating the idea as being as laughable as banning marriage is a wild distortion.
The Sock

A reduction of salt in your diet will not reduce hypertension at all.

Salt - as we tend to use the term, the regular tablesalt (sodium chloride) in its pure form is not what the body needs and too much of anything is toxic.

If you like salt on your food stop using the refined ones and instead use the unrefined variety which can contain another 80 or so of other minerals that is "beneficial" to the body.

and here is just one article of thousands on the topic:
http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/abstract/25/suppl_3/247S

what it actually boils down to is whether you are sensitive to salt or not and the reasons to why a person is sensitive or not, that is the interesting part.

Do we REALLY need more laws telling us what we can, or cannot do though? Cant people take responsibility for their own actions?

Evidently we do, for apparently in New York, you are "not on your own".

It's the 'let me exercise my right to injure my body and then hand you my hospital bill' bit I care about.
The Sock

Am I the only person that sees a connection here?

(That's as subtle and unpolitical as I can make it. Some things are better left unsaid on ETS.)

New Yorkers could lower their blood pressure by moving out of the city.

Washington, D.C. has the highest per capita alcohol consumption.

Governing-while-intoxicated explains a lot.

And speaking of food, interesting article in today's Washington Post on "food fraud:"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032903824.html?hpid=topnews

FDA pressured to combat rising 'food fraud'

The expensive "sheep's milk" cheese in a Manhattan market was really made from cow's milk. And a jar of "Sturgeon caviar" was, in fact, Mississippi paddlefish.

"Food fraud" has been documented in fruit juice, olive oil, spices, vinegar, wine, spirits and maple syrup, and appears to pose a significant problem in the seafood industry. Victims range from the shopper at the local supermarket to multimillion companies, including E&J Gallo and Heinz USA.

If people really were the connoisseurs they think they are, these frauds would be impossible. In fact you can change the label on a lot of things and people don't notice.
In the UK we have a very popular tv program 'Masterchef'. Last week 5 competitors were asked to identify the ingredients in a meal of spicy pork. They got most of the spices and sauces right, but two of them identifed the meat as lamb and one as duck.
And these were excellent amateur chefs aiming to become professionals.
The Sock

It's been a joke in the Eu for years that Italy manages to export more tomatoes and olive oil than it grows - somehow it has a negative consumption!

There is a $LOTS business for anybody that can make a fast/cheap reliable system that can tell 'extra virgin' ie cold pressed olive oil from the mechanical stuff.

The restaurant law is the usual 'government', the average guy is fat because they eat too many hamburgers so the response is to cut the amount of cream allowed in a high end restaurant meal.

According to my own experience and observation, nope.

Most people's diets and lifestyles are so harmful that adding or subtracting a little salt will make little difference to their overall health. For example, some people I know are overly concerned with whether their vegetables are organic or not, completely missing the fact that they live in one of the world's most polluted cities. IMO, getting caught up in the details makes one lose sight of the overall picture. Oh, and enacting more laws is surely not the way to advocate personal responsibility.

And here is written the truth!
-Blast

Not all proposed laws are intended to become actual law. According to the Ortiz office the proposed law was intended to raise awareness of salt use and the health hazards.

Then again not all proposals that are not intended to become law get winnowed out. A friend pointed out that there is a law passed making it illegal to fish from the back of a giraffe. It was inserted to see if anyone was paying attention but didn't get removed and was passed as part of a larger state bill.

It also has to be noted that many cooks lean on using salt in part because they have little idea of how to build in flavor by use of spices, herbs, and creative cooking. Some small amount of salt is needed but it is easy to use salt as a crutch to cover for a lack of culinary skills.

How about this one.
If you are in Quebec Canada all business signs have to be in French. If there are any English words the letters can only be half the size of the letters in the French words.

Also if you are a teenager in Fort Qu"Appelle Saskatchewan you are committing a crime if you walk around town with your shoe laces undone.

So basically you want to ban something you don't like, would you still be so righteous when they want to ban something you like but they don't?


Welcome to my life.

Here's something else, in French schools, student are not allowed to speak English outside actual English class, or they will be punished by detention.

I was absolutely shocked when I confirmed this with a woman whose kid is in school.

Reminds me of a stunt we did to make a mock point about the representativeness of our student democracy: Out of 6.000 students, a group of 15 was plenty enough to hijack an all-students meeting and dictate that the student's board would implement the University as gravitational free area. Yup, the student's board was now required to suspend the law of gravitation at campus ...

This story could logically continue to comments about direct democracy in, say, California and Switzerland, but that would be political.

>So basically you want to ban something you don't like, would >you still be so righteous when they want to ban something you >like but they don't?

My disliking anyones action is irrelevant. Read what I wrote. If I simply don't like their activity, that should be my problem not theirs
But living unhealthily and then handing me the bill is an activity I'd like to have an input on.
And YES if I am doing something other people are going to have to pay for; (like those we routinely criticise for calling out search and rescue due to their being unprepared).
Then the payer should have a say in my actions.
And as I said; I can see the merits of giving people the choice. It's not a black and white case.
The Sock

Never underestimate the power of the public's stupidity.

Recently there was a drive to ban a certain chemical - it had found it's way into our tears even. When the chemical name was changed to what it really was -- people were signing a petition to ban water.

A legislator in (I think) Ohio at one time wanted to pass a law rounding pi to 3.14. Another wanted to pass a law to increase education spending so all children would "be above average" in test scores (freaking duh, just freaking duh).

You can fool all of the people some of the time - and make them look like morons as you do it. Bernie Madoff did quite well, just didn't know when it was time to cut and run.

What is frightening is, these people passing laws think they are doing good things.

I sometimes wonder if legislative bodies - where ever they might be - feel like those who elected them will only feel a good job is being done if the body is actively passing new laws ... so they keep searching for new laws to pass - whether they're needed or not.

Actually the people in NYC are on average healthier than many other places. In part because they can walk to most places they need to go and public transport get them to within walking distance of everything else.

While many people in the rest of the country drive their car to pick up the mail at the end of the driveway most people in NYC live quite well without a car.