Another Regulation Not Worth Its Salt

7 April 2009 at 9:42 pm Michael Sykuta Leave a comment

| Mike Sykuta |

Thanks to Randy Westgren for calling attention to an April 7 article in the New York Times concerning a new regulatory initiative in the Big Apple. It seems Mayor Bloomberg has decreed that salt consumption should be cut in half and has pledged the coercive power of New York City’s food industry regulatory system to launch a “nationwide initiative” to pressure the food industry to change its salty ways.

Apparently Mayor Bloomberg has identified salt consumption as a major public health crisis. Never mind that scientific research fails to demonstrate a causal relationship between salt consumption and actual health outcomes. Never mind that the human body requires some level of salt and there is no research demonstrating the potential health consequences of restricting persons’ salt intake to the level the Mayor prescribes. And don’t even think about the idea of personal responsibility and liberty in choosing what to eat and whether (and how much) salt to consume.

“if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by people.” Perhaps a better approach would be to throw out such ill-founded regulations and trample them under foot.