"because of its links to high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke."was actually rubbish?
Gary Taubes wrote a fantastic article for Science back in 1999 comparing the evidence for both sides of this debate (yes! there is another side to the debate).
The (Policitcal) Science of Salt
It just reminds me that time and time again people want a simple solution to a complex problem. People with high cholesterol and high blood pressure are eating special margarine and having oats for breakfast because they want a silver bullet. If the real solution was to change their flawed eating and drinking habits entirely, well, I wonder if they would do anything.
My father recently lowered his blood pressure levels dramatically. He didn't do it by eating more oats, exercising more (he already went to the gym every day), or adding an expensive margarine to his diet. He did it by cutting out those 2 glasses of wine every night. Switching from a small amount of alcohol every day to a small amount of alcohol every week had a significant positive impact on his health.
Wouldn't you much rather the big supermarkets cut salt from their bread?
It appears that the only thing more satisfying than solving a problem yourself is pretending someone else will solve it for you.
Gary taubes is my idol. just wait until you read that book, you'll be totally blown away, kind of slowly cos its almost 500 pages long and kinda heavy.
ReplyDeleteI've read that people looking to lose weight and begin a small amount of exercise are actually likely to gain some weight, because their 1km weekly walk is used to justify dessert every night.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this might have the same effect? As you say, there are a lot of companies trying to give the image that they are taking on board part of your health responsibilities by adding this and reducing that. Maybe these small goodnessess will justify some big badnesses.
I'm infuriated every time that I make a comment here, I have to solve a captcha. I'm authenticating with my Google account. If they consider a cookie secure enough for auto-logging into my gmail account, by Odin's beard I should be able to make a comment on a blog without justifying that I'm human.
ReplyDeletesorry, my fault. Captcha turned off.
ReplyDeleteBen, I can imagine thousands of people wandering through their suburbs just to get a 100 calorie ice cream.
ReplyDeleteThen, having spent more than necessary on the ice cream, they would be poorer and less healthy than if they'd stayed at home and spread butter on some cheese.
Oh David, butter on cheese. I just knew I would get to you eventually!
ReplyDeleteNice salt and pepper grinders!
ReplyDelete;-)