Regulation isn’t worth its salt

There’s a new government project aimed at making Americans healthier, but this time it isn’t sweet.

The National Salt Reduction Initiative, as it’s called, proposed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, encourages restaurant owners and food manufacturers to reduce sodium in their products by 25 percent over the next five years.

It’s true that too much sodium can cause a myriad of health problems. But it’s also true that too much of anything will make you sick. Although the initiative is well-intentioned, it is simply impractical and unnecessary.

The push for healthier food options (especially in New York) is nothing new. In 2006, New York became the first city in the nation to implement a ban on trans fat as well the first to require many restaurants to post caloric information. California followed suit by implementing legislation in 2008.

While America’s declining health is certainly a problem, it is not one that can always be remedied by rigid government policies.

If the government wants to make America healthier it should focus on education. Studies done at Columbia University and the City College of New York show that while smoking went down by 18.5 percent between 1993 and 2008, obesity went up an astronomical 85 percent within the same years. Government-funded antismoking campaigns have aggressively attacked the suave and savvy image of smokers.

Such public service announcements and warning labels have undoubtedly helped construct a negative image of smoking ““ in fact, according to The New York Times, most high school students now have a negative image of smoking. Government taxes on cigarettes, though financially persuasive, would hardly have had such a powerful psychological effect.

You might compare the new initiative to the ban on trans fat. But banning trans fat is necessary because it’s a chemical akin to plastic that has no place in the human body ““ in fact, a panel at the National Academy of Sciences deemed it so harmful that they found the only safe amount to consume is “zero.”

Salt, on the other hand, is vital for good health ““ too little can cause muscle cramps, nausea, and, in extreme cases, even death. In addition, the iodine added to salt is crucial in maintaining proper thyroid health as not enough iodine leads to goiters, which manifest as rather unpleasant swellings of the neck.

Nutrition labeling already allows customers to see exactly what they are eating and decide for themselves the relative healthiness of a meal. As long as enough restaurants are required to post the nutritional information of their meals, Americans need not rely on superfluous government measures like Bloomberg’s proposed initiative.

It should be common knowledge that just because something is low in sodium and trans-fat free doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Almost everyone knows that sugar and saturated fats are harmful, but is anyone limiting those?

Not only does regulating sodium give consumers a false sense of security, but it also implies that we would have to control the amounts of every other potentially “bad” ingredient.

Moreover, the initiative is only voluntary at the moment (though this could change, as trans fat removal was also optional at first) since forcing a reduction in sodium is no easy task. New York City Associate Health Commissioner Geoffrey Cowley said, “There’s not an easy regulatory fix. You would have to micromanage so many targets for so many different products.”

Americans should read nutrition facts at restaurants the same way they would a warning label on a pack of cigarettes, keeping in mind daily health requirements. For example, the Food and Nutrition Board recommends eating less than 2450 mg of sodium a day, so you may want to avoid eating an In-N-Out cheeseburger ““ which has 1000 mg ““ too often.

So take the initiative with a grain of salt. Educating oneself is more effective, more reliable, and less expensive than relying on the government to limit the ingredients in our food.

Think the health initiative isn’t worth its salt? E-mail Nijhawan at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].