Reason Writers Randomly Grabbed on the Sidewalk and Asked to Comment About Sodium Levels for Typical Local TV Story About the Salt Menace

Sadly, they edited out the withering anti-government critique:

Reason on salt here.

Comments

[Kool]

C'mon Matt, you're just a "District Resident?" They wouldn't plug Reason for you?

[Matt Welch]

They didn't ask, so I didn't tell. Often they won't follow through on the interview if they know you're in the media.

[Kool]

OK OK, you get a pass.

[Suki]

You are still in the media? I thought you left the LAT 😉

[Joe M]

"I don't consciously think of sodium in any way shape or form."

Come on, that's a big disingenuous. You clearly think about it when you're slamming the nannies on this site.

[Matt Welch]

In the context of eating food, is what I meant (as was the context of the question). I also said I never add salt to food, don't eat disgusting potato chips, and so on.

[Suki]

I love potato chips so much I could never work at a Ted's Montana Grill without becoming as big as a house. I don't even remember if theirs are salted, but they are awesome and sitting right there in a big bin at the end of the bar.

[Old Man with Candy]

How does a bot get fat? I'm very, very confused.

[Frito-Lay CEO]

The day I let some "district resident" talk shit about my product...

[Skid Marx]

http://www.google.com/url?q=ht.....M9oXx01OJA

[Russ 2000]

There's plenty of no-salt potato chips to choose from.

I was interviewed by a Boston TV station once around 1998 or so (I never lived there) while my sister who does live there and I were walking to a Red Sox game - she lives a few blocks from Fenway Park and since they were playing the White Sox I had a White Sox cap on. The reporter stops us and asked if I was from Chicago which I answered "yes" and then proceeds to ask me questions about Wrigley Field and if the Red Sox need a new park as the owner was trying to get done at the time. From the tone and wording of the questions it was clear they wanted some "Fenway love" but I chose to give them honest answers. Knowing full well that I wasn't going to give them anything they wanted to use, I looked straight into the camera and said "I don't go to Wrigley Field, I'm a White Sox fan" whereby I was told NOT to look straight into the camera and was then asked about Fenway Park itself along the lines of "you came here to visit Fenway Park" to which I said "No, I came to see the White Sox and some family. Fenway Park is a dump!"

Then they turn off from me and start asking my sister questions. And she said "I'm president of the Fenway Action Committee and I've met John Harrington several times. He's trampling all over the neighborhood and as much as I like the Red Sox, and I go to several games a year, every year he asks the neighborhood to put up with more and more nuisance so as far as I'm concerned they can leave and I'll go to wherever they move to when I want to go to a game." The dumbfounded look on the reporter's face I will never forget. There is no way anyone who bothered to put in 20 minutes of effort researching the Harrington/Fenway kerfuffles could NOT know who my sister was. I did everything I could to stifle my laughter and add a few insults the idiot reporter so rightly deserved.

[wylie]

MSM: taking the "investigative" out of Investigative Journalism for 30+ years.

[?]

You blew it, Welch. It's headlock hug a reporter week.

They leave me alone because I can't get the sweet killin' huggin' look off my face for long enough to get within reach, but you look totally innocent. You could have choked out a motherfucker out hugged.

[Kiwi Dave]

yeah, Welch should've grabbed the reporter and yelled "who are you? who are you? who are you?"

[Colonel Pickering]

Hear! Hear!

[?]

Shit.

[Kant feel Pietzsche]

Hey, it's the thought that counts.

[Skid Marx]

DAMN YOU BIG FOOD!

[Suki]

LULZ

[Jack Woods]

Oh wow, that must have been pretty cool dude.

http://www.feds-logging.at.tc

[CoyoteBlue]

So they cut the "recommended daily intake" to a even lower level that we will ignore even more than the previous ignored level.

Just don't ask him if he supports the "Obama Agenda." Those are fightin' words.

[Pope Jimbo]

Coyote

They do that so that in a few months they can issue a report about the skyrocketing use of salt.

The report will say something like: 1 year ago the average diner overconsumed salt by about 50% of the recommended daily amount. Now [cue scary music] the average diner is over consuming by 125% of the RDA. Think of the children! We must do something!

And I GAY-RON-TEE that not one reporter will ever figure out the math involved. Look at the fudging of the BMI standards for a real life example of this.

[Joe_D]

Furthermore, at the rate of increase of 75% of RDA per year, we'll be at 750% of RDA in a decade. This is a *lethal* amount of salt!!!

[Tym]

I tend to have unusually low sodium and chloride levels, so I need MORE salt in my food. I am sure they didn't think of us folks.

[Predicador]

That's why "one size can't fit all" is a simple yet pretty strong argument against food regulation.

[Skid Marx]

That's why "one size can't fit all" is a simple yet pretty strong argument against food regulation centralization.

FIFY

[BakedPenguin]

You don't really need any chlorine. AFAIK, it's a good idea not to ingest any. Also, some foods (esp. potato chips) are salted with sodium acetate, which has no chlorine.

[Zeb]

Chloride ions and chlorine are not the same thing.

[BakedPenguin]

Good point, but do we actually need chloride? I know sodium is a necessary electrolyte, but if your only sources were sodium acetate or monosodium glutimate, wouldn't that work as well?

[Robert]

No, chloride is necessary, if for no other reason than to allow the highly ionized HCl to be secreted into the stomach.

[Jason]

I wonder what the government will do if people start dying of hyponatria.

[Surly Chef]

Ban water. Deep down you knew that.

[Brett L]

DHMO. Nobody would agree if they call it water.

[David]

Unfortunately, they edited it such that you come across as a helpless consumer who needs the government to protect you from salt. I can get that they edited out some material, but they completely replaced the context of the interview in order to fit the one-sided narrative of the story. Bad reporting.

[?]

Bad reporting is safe reporting.

[skr]

We have become use to a high level of salt consumption? As though this is a new thing. We have had a high level of salt consumption since the dawn of food preservation thousands of years ago.

[Lox Police]

Yeah, we're looking at you, salty and delicious salmon.

[Jordan Elliot]

Shhh! Don't go gettin' all logical now.

[skr]

Can't let logic get in the way of doing something.

[Old Mexican]

But the government is looking out for you. Why do you all resist?

Salt is bad because our sage overlords have said so - they hold their truths to be self-evident . . . or else!

[Pope Jimbo]

OM,

Do you really think the overlords of sage have enough pull to wean us off the salt, just so we can start consuming more of their smelly herb?

About the only place I use sage is on a turkey. And the mule deer I shoot is naturally spiced from grazing on the sage flats in ND.

When the food revolution comes, I'll be fighting for the garlic masters and not the sage overlords.

[Skid Marx]

Withholding salt is how one turns a person into a zombie.

[wylie]

They'll be no match for your Garlic Fu.

[Robert]

Reminds me -- I'm almost out of the rosemary I inherited.

[Advisory Panel]

AND STOP BLOGGING SO MUCH- YOU FAT ASS!

[R C Dean]

"The only time I consciously think about salt is when some idiot nanny-stater tries to preach at me or control what I eat. Even then, salt is pretty incidental, because mostly I'm thinking about what irritating morons they are."

[Suki]

+1

[Joe M]

Ah, yes, much better.

[P Brooks]

Unfortunately, they edited it such that you come across as a helpless consumer who needs the government to protect you from salt.

duh

[?]

"It's time for Americans to shake off their addiction to salt."

(Sigh.)

[Jordan Elliot]

Yeah! It's not like it's essential for life or anything.

I hate people.

[Jordan]

The War on Salt coming to a country near you. The healthcare-fascists (i.e. Progressives) are just drooling at the thought of it, I'm sure.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Margot Wootan is a Reason writer?

[Matt Welch]

Unfriendly.

[Fist of Etiquette]

How do you people always end up being grabbed for street interviews? Be it snowball/gun fights or food-related man-on-the-street reports, there seem to be a disproportionate number of Reason contributors around.

Admit it, Reason hands out police and newscrew scanners, don't you?

[Tara Davis]

Apart from churning out brief opinion pieces and showing up over on Bloggingheads or Stossel once in a while, they don't actually spend much time doing anything that would keep them off the streets.

[Matt Welch]

Unfriendly.

[Suki]

Doesn't she have a clan?

[John Thacker]

And the Senate moves closer to requiring states to allow cops and firefighters to collectively bargain. Too bad, Virginia and North Carolina.

[R C Dean]

Probably unconstitutional. Sure to be challenged. There are limits on what the feds can force a state government to do.

[Resident Smartass]

"Probably unconstitutional"

*looks at Healthcare bill*

*reads a Balko article on police raids*

*looks at legislation forcing states to have their drinking ages at 21*

*gives a special shoutout to the NSA at the end of every phone call*

When has "probably unconstitutional" stopped them?

[RM]

Possibly, but despite my deep-seated hatred of unions I'm not sure that it's either constitutional or a good idea for states to forbid them for police and firefighters.

[healthscarequotes]

so no one cares that the cast of Monster's Ball is hosting the Channel 7 news now?

[brotherben]

There apparently is a "Salt" ban here in south Alabam. I have searched high and low for a copy of teh Adam Roberts book and can't find one anywhere. I did find a cheap second hand copy of "The Tao of Jesus."

[Jordan]

Welcome back! Haven't seen you around lately.

[brotherben]

Thanks! I'll be here all weak.

[SugarFree]

Damn, bb. Just email me your address and I'll send you a copy.

[brotherben]

Mighty kind of you.

[Chris]

Matt, what was your scathing critique? I mean, I have a pretty good idea, but how scathing did you make it?

[Matt Welch]

Just that it's wrong & none of the government's business to require producers and restaurants and consumers to produce/consume X levels of salt; that the legislative nanny impulse worries me much more than the amount of salt in my sandwich, that Americans are smart enough to understand that French Fries are salty, that we have a lot more pressing problems these days, and that Chuck Schumer is a jackass.

[Chris]

Yeah, figured it would be something like that. I was hoping for more expletives, though.

[Robert]

Well yeah, we recognize the saltiness of relatively dry foods, but it's easier to hide a lot of salt in (i.e. it takes a lot of salt to salt) much wetter foods. In fact the driest of salty-tasting foods (chips, crackers, pretzels) typically contribute much less Na+ to the diet than do wetter but not so salty tasting foods.

[JW]

The video was too stuttery for me to watch all the way through. Did they ever, once, bother to question the need for Big Nanny to control the amount of salt in our diets?

I'm guessing they didn't, but never give up hope, even when it floats.

[?]

Hell no. Local TV news, just like its big brother at the national level, is complicit in bringing about the nanny state. Every local TV news set is identical with every other. The stations are staffed with clones who seem to have graduated from the same re-education camps. They go along to get along. They're moral invertebrates.

[Tulpa]

It's telling that the video never mentions what is supposed to be so bad about salt. Even the CSPI fool just kept going on about how it was "processed into the food", which I assume has become a swear word in health nanny circles.

Obedience to government directives apparently needs no rational justification, even the laughably false ones they usually come up with.

[capitol l]

Chef's don't learn to put salt into food, they process it into the food.

You are a math guy you should have noticed this:

They blame restaurants and processed food, instead of people adding salt, for the high numbers. They use the fact that 67% of salt consumed is from restaurant and processed food.

The old daily recommended maximum amount was 2300mg. But, people averaged 3400mg.

67% of 3400mg is 2278mg...under the goddamn maximum amount! Ergo, people are choosing to add more salt. Though they don't define "processed", I think that it probably encompasses just about everything for these people.

Some argue that we naturally use as much salt as we need, our taste perception is reacting to an actual physiological state, and adjusting.

[Chris]

No, not at all. It was all very breathless. It had been a LONG time since I saw a televised local news show, and I had forgotten just how hammy it is. Anyway, they ended the piece by basically saying, somewhat relieved, that some agency wants to 'work with' restaurants and food producers to minimize salt gradually to the new suggested levels.

[Chris]

The above was to JW

[Adonisus]

There's a reason that none of them will tell you exactly why salt is bad for you.

It's because unless you have a medical condition that is effected by sodium (like, say, high blood pressure), sodium is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to your health. The worst it can do is make you retain water and look all puffy.

[Joe M]

OBESITY!!!

[salinophile]

Supposedly, it is a leading cause of stomach cancer. If that is true, I'm at big risk because I love salt and use a ton of the stuff.

http://tinyurl.com/255uel7

[Jim]

All I could think of as I was watching that story was this sketch from Kids in the Hall:

Salty Ham

[Dagny T.]

Next they'll be going after the salt content in Kraft Dinner and ketchup. Won't somebody think of the tapeworms?

[BakedPenguin]

KITH FTW. And "Kraft Dinner" is a hilarious Canuckism.

[Dagny T.]

That's how Kraft actually markets mac and cheese in Canada! It says "Kraft Dinner" right on the box. The Canadian concept of "dinner" is... problematic.

[BakedPenguin]

Yeah, I've seen it. Along with "Christie" Oreos, it's one of the easy ways to tell you're in Canada and not the US, in case you've forgotten.

I have Canadian relatives, I know a lot of Canadians tend to eat about as healthy as the Scots. I wonder if Poutine is less healthy than deep-fried Mars bars.

[Robert]

I first saw the phrase "Kraft Dinner" decades ago in Allan Sherman's autobiography, and a friend of mine here in the Bronx (whose book it was) confirmed the use of the phrase (with which I was unfamiliar) popularly as referring to their packaged macaroni & cheese. So perhaps the phrase fell out of use in the USA and became a Canadianism.

[objector]

That was excellent.

[wylie]

1. It'll be fun to watch iodine deficiency skyrocket. (Wait, do they use iodized salt in all that EVIL processed food?)

2. "also recommends...less refined grains," which squares beautifully with the carb-heavy bottom of the pyramid.

3. Get back to me after i eat this entire tub of olives in one sitting. With a nice chunk of feta. I scoff at your 3400mg/day. Now excuse me while i go brush off this salt crust that is forming on my skin.

[Resident Smartass]

I wonder how they'd react to a Salt Crusted Fish recipe?

Ingredients:

* 1 (1 1/2 to 2 pounds) whole branzino, gutted, scaled and cleaned at the fish market, with gills removed (may substitute black bass or red snapper)*
* 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil or more if necessary, plus additional to serve at the table
* 6 egg whites
* 2 1/2 cups kosher salt
* 3 lemons, quartered
* Coarse sea salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a large, rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

Rub the entire fish liberally with the oil.

With a hand-held or stand mixer, whip the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Fold in the kosher salt, being careful not to overmix and collapse the egg whites. Spoon one-third of the mixture lengthwise in the center of the prepared baking sheet. Place the fish on top. Spoon the remainder of the salt mixture over the fish to cover it completely. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer the baking sheet to a warm place and let it rest for 15 minutes. Crack and remove the salt crust.

Fillet the fish by peeling off and discarding the skin and removing the cooked fish from above the bones with a spatula or large serving fork, then gently pulling the bones up and away from the fish, exposing the bottom fillet. Serve with plenty of olive oil, quartered lemons and coarse sea salt.

[Robert]

See, you wind up removing the salt crust, and aside from the salt the above fish is served with, it probably winds up with considerably less sodium than an equivalent amount of canned fish.

[Astrid]

According to The Salt Institute:
Salt used in processed foods is not iodized. Given that people are cooking less at home and buying either restaurant or processed foods, iodine intakes in the U.S. have declined from about 250 ?g/day to 157 micrograms/day.

So, taking there word for it, no.

[wylie]

Ok, good to know its already becoming a problem. Ty for doing the 5mins of googling that i was too lazy to perform myself.

But, can we also blame the sea-salt fetishists?

[Cunctator]

It's pretty much all sea-salt, as the mined salt is mostly just left over from evaporated seas.

[wylie]

Well, I can't argue there. I was trying to make a point about "Our All Natural Sea-Salt is superior to that mineral-stuff they dig out of the dirty ground and add some icky chemical-y iodine to."

[Astrid]

I don't see why not as sea-salt only has an insignificant amounts of iodine in it. Though doing a quick google search it seems that you can get iodized sea-salt, so you can have snobbery and avoid iodine deficiency.

[wylie]

Stop spoiling my fun with information on products i already own.

[salinophile]

Ah, but the really exotic and expensive salts don't have iodine added.

[The Libertarian Guy]

And this kosher salt thing... obviously a sop to the Zionist Occupation Government. Damn Joos.

[Warty]

Why the fuck do people take the disingenuous cunts at the CSPI seriously?

[SugarFree]

"Well, they said so on the news."

[Hobie Hanson]

The same reason people buy pancakes at IHOP and chicken at KFC. Because they practice science in the public interest, hence the name?

That was too easy.

[Warty]

You're not even trying anymore, Dan T.

[SugarFree]

That's what his wife said.

[JW]

Because they practice science in the public interest

[citation needed]

[tarran]

They practice science in the public interest the way George Bush protects freedom at home.

[Warty]

For that matter, does anyone under 60 watch the TV news?

[Chris]

Only people too lazy to change the channel after the Simpsons or Seinfeld.

[Tim]

If you're not sitting down, you'd better before you read this-

I did a little checking and it turns out that not only is the Gulf full of oil but the water is salty!
Oh Fortuna!

[wylie]

Won't somebody think of the fishes who suffer from hypertension?!?!

[Obama]

I'm looking into it.

[Tim]

mecum omnes plangite!

[brotherben]

Dang sperm whales.

[P Brooks]

Local TV news, just like its big brother at the national level, is complicit in bringing about the nanny state. Every local TV news set is identical with every other.

"Communications" majors are just like "Education" majors; only prettier.

[Warty]

It's not "Communications", it's "Communication Sciences", you disrespectful philistine. It's a science because it's all sciencey.

[Thomas Dolby]

Science!

[P Brooks]

"Here at the Center for Communications Science in the Public Interest, we're always working on ways to re-educate the civilian population.

"What we're going to do is give you a shot of these "vitamins" and then we're going to show you some movies. You like movies, don't you?"

[wylie]

Just relax and let the smilehooks do their job.

[SugarFree]

NOT MY LOVELY, LOVELY LUDWIG VAN!

[ykw]

"Joey, do you like gladiator movies?"

[Mark]

I take all government recommendations with... wait for it...

a grain of salt.

Sir, I had Commander Heatherly in my sights. He saw me move in for the kill. He proceeded below the hard-deck. We were below for just a few seconds. I had the shot. There was no danger, so I took it.

[Tulpa]

Also, it's ironic that the government which heavily subsidizes meat, wheat, and corn production is urging us to eat more real vegetables and less grains.

[Nash]

TV news loves to clip interviews to support their narrative.

[Hobie Hanson]

Yeah, let's take advice about sodium intake from a guy who admits he doesn't even think about sodium levels. That's like panning for gold in a stopped up toilet.

[The Libertarian Guy]

Hobie, please explain why sodium levels should be any of the business of government.

[Ernie the Bear]

The nanny cuntsores just can't seem to get it through their pointy little heads that we eat salt, sugar, and fat because they fucking taste good.

[Byron]

To them, that's a bug, not a feature.

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