General Tso's Crime Against Humanity

…was creating a tasty chicken-based meal that is typically prepared with mondo amounts of salt. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest and other public health scolds, that's fatal for the U.S. population at large.

This AP story reports on a push to cut back the amount of salt in the average American's diet. As we await the convening of a dietitian's version of the Nuremberg trials, read this snippet:

Time-crunched families depend on the convenience of processed foods, so the American Public Health Association, backed by dozens of other health and medical groups, issued a challenge to the industry: Cut in half the sodium in those foods over the next 10 years.

"Nobody ever said, 'Do you want that salt in your food?' Somebody put it there for you," says Havas, who wrote APHA's policy.

…

"There's only so much people can worry about when it comes to food," said nutritionist Bonnie Liebman of the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest. "But the fact is high blood pressure rates are going up, the evidence that salt raises blood pressure has only gotten stronger, and people need to hear that message."

To the AP's credit, they elsewhere report that obesity and sedentary lifestyles are the real health issue, not sodium intake per se.

Reason's July cover story, "The Anti-Pleasure Principle: The 'Food Police' and the pseudoscience of self-denial," by Jacob Sullum is an in-depth look at how CSPI routinely stretches the truth in making its headline-grabbing claims about our food supply.