10/02/08 Outlawing Salt

Wouldn't you just love to be a "fly on the wall" sometimes? Particularly if it were the kitchen wall of a self appointed food cop such as Thomas Frieden. With a long history of being a nutrition zealot, Frieden, with calorie counts in restaurants and a failed attempt to outlaw margarine on his resume, is now going after table salt. With claims that high blood pressure is "the leading cause of early death in New York City and nationally" Frieden is now trying to pressure the FDA to put salt on the "unsafe" food additives list. But just why he has decided that salt is solely responsible for New Yorker's high blood pressure is a mystery. Obviously Mr. Frieden hasn't tried to hail a taxi in his home town lately. I'm sure there is a much longer list of culprits contributing to high blood pressure disease in New York City than just salt. Or perhaps Frieden just isn't aware that sodium is an essential nutrient, a mineral that the body cannot manufacture itself but yet requires for life and good health. But probably more likely he really doesn't care about the facts, just the fame.