: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.