It has been said by many commentators that the potential regulation that limits the amount of salt in foods does not limit freedom because, after all, you can add salt to anything. So really, it increases net freedom since people who like salt can still add it, and people who don’t now have the option to have less of it. There are several problems with this.
First off, I’m no chef, but it strikes me as obvious that for many foods there is a difference between cooking, baking, and generally preparing food with salt as an ingredient and sprinkling it onto food after the fact. Since I know little to nothing about cooking, I’ll go no further with this except to say that it strikes me as obvious, and ask does anyone seriously disagree with that? If you do, buy some low sodium pepperoni, and then sprinkle salt on top. Same thing as regular pepperoni? I seriously doubt it.
The second problem is that food products, like many products, are actually a commodity bundled with a service. When you buy a loaf of bread you are not just buying a random collection raw ingredients put together, you are buying the service of the bread-makers best guess at the mix of ingredients that you will enjoy most. When I buy a loaf of bread at the grocery store, I’m buying the service of the baker taking his best guess at what level of salt the customer likes. This way I don’t want to have to deal with the iterative process of sampling every loaf of bread I buy, adding salt, and thinking about whether the salt level is just right. I’d prefer to pay to have that service performed for me by the baker. In a similar vein, at a nice restaurant part of the service I’m purchasing is the expertise of the chef in adding, among other things, the best tasting amount of salt. This regulation prevents me from purchasing that service.
You may prefer to have things the other way, and be able to select the amount of salt in all your food, and this law would increase your ability to do so. But the value to consumers of being able to select their salt amount is far less than the value to consumers of having their salt amount selected for them. How do I know this? If consumers valued it, then they would be willing to pay for it, and businesses would offer it. Since businesses offer a lot of one and little of the other, it’s a good indicator that consumers value one much more than the other.
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Friday ~ May 21st, 2010 at 9:30 am
Rebecca Burlingame
You hit the nail on the head. Our bodies assimilate salt far better when it is actually cooked into food, than when it is added to food afterwards. Because of this fact, the need to add salt afterwards actually works against better health. Also, in some instances where salt is used as a preservative, what preservatives will be used instead? Chances are, salt would have been healthier than what would ultimately be substituted.
Friday ~ May 21st, 2010 at 9:56 am
Lord
It does vary with food but people are willing to pay for the option to add salt, witness low sodium soups. And salt that is tasted is largely on the surface. But it would be hard to salt potato chips after the fact and bread next to impossible. While the bias should be towards less salt, it is probably too difficult and varied for simple rules.
Friday ~ May 21st, 2010 at 11:52 am
dWj
Lord alludes to the point that there are frequently low-sodium options on the supermarket shelf right next to high-sodium options. We already have the choice. (Yesterday I saw a sale on soup, and, after looking around a bit, found a couple options with comparatively low sodium that looked worth trying. I brought them to the counter and found that they were excluded from the sale, and left them at the store. I hope there are a lot of me sending a market signal, but I very much do not want the government enforcing my preferences.)
I have a spaghetti recipe, and when I was tinkering with it to get it right one of the most important variables was at what point I added which spices. When I tried to produce a vegetarian version, I had to work this out again. As you note, “throw in everything at the end” does not work, even if you wanted me to cook the sauce but leave the task of choosing the right spices in the right quantities up to you.
Friday ~ May 21st, 2010 at 11:55 am
jazzbumpa
The before and after salt addition propositions are not equivalent. Post prep salt addition has one purpose – to make food taste saltier.
Salt added in processing can serve a variety of purposes, and they are different for different categories of foods. Salt in baked goods is a flavor enhancer, not a flavoring agent. That’s why there’s a quarter tsp in several cups of flour. It might also play a part in the chemistry of baking. Salt in pickles is a totally different situation, as brine is fundamental to the pickling process. Salt has also been used as a preservative for meats. But now there are better ways to achieve that result. In each of these cases, early salt addition is critical.
I doubt that the same is true of salt in cooking soups, gravies, mashed potatoes, steaks or most restaurant entrees. While the flavor enhancer, flavoring agent duality is hard to parse, I’ll suggest that the enhancing function is fulfilled at low levels – possibly at or below the flavor threshold – frex, in cookies. After that, it’s a matter of taste, and you can add as you please. I’ll salt my steak, but I’ll be surprised if anyone ever salts an Oreo
Back to salt in processing – these are procedures that have been around for centuries or millennia. Back in the day, a quantity was used that was known to work. Now, there is technology that can determine the optimum level of addition. It’s true that adding salt to a slice of bread does not achieve the desired effect. I’ll also say that it’s irrelevant. No one is suggesting that any commercial baker be prohibited from using salt in their finished goods.
Since excess salt can cause or exacerbate medical problems, it makes sense to limit salt in prepared products at the necessary functional level, and no more. Having a legal limit is not the same as legal elimination, and does not logically lead to a drive for elimination, as the slippery slope argument suggests. Nor does it harm the producer.
Clearly, I’m not impressed by any part of your argument. In the last paragraph, the wheels totally come off your wagon. Lord pointed out some examples of people paying for low salt options. But your premise is based on the assumption that if there is value, someone will do it, and people will pay. Aint necessarily so. This ignores barriers to entry, and even more fundamentally that most people don’t think seriously about salt content in any food, so they’re oblivious to the possibility of having a preference.
Maybe more people would perceive value one way or the other, if they thought about it But the salt issue is important at a conscious level only to a certain sub-set of the population. To most of the rest of us, it is trivial. Life is complicated, and we have other, more important things to worry about.
Bottom line — Limiting the salt content of prepared foods cannot possibly do any harm to any person, nor to any entity. I think this application of the slippery slope concept is rooted in a bias against government activity of any kind, and an implicit assumption that it is in some way unavoidably counter productive. As I pointed out before, the slippery slope idea is inherently logically weak. And some movement along a trajectory to a bad end is necessary for it to have any meaning at all.
Seriously, outside of abstract hypotheticals, what is the down-side of regulating the salt content of processed foods? And aren’t there far more important things we could be discussing?
Cheers!
JzB
Friday ~ May 21st, 2010 at 12:03 pm
Lord
Nor does one get an objective measure of the right amount by this service. The body acclimatizes to a given level which then has to be increased to seem salty. At best one gets a measure that tastes best to the chef or to their average client, but this can lead to escalation of levels over time. Biasing towards lower levels will increase sensitivity to salt which can be in the public interest. Still a flexible and perhaps individual approach is best such as labeling products with higher than average salt as salty or high sodium so consumers could more easily avoid them. While implicit in nutritional labeling, this could enable ready intracategory comparisons.
Friday ~ May 21st, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Jim
“Biasing towards lower levels will increase sensitivity to salt which can be in the public interest.”
I am not a rabid libertarian, but I assure you there is no possible public interest in increased sensitivity to salt. How are we even having this conversation?
As Justice Brandeis said of the founders, “They conferred against the government, the right to be let alone – the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.”
Friday ~ May 21st, 2010 at 2:23 pm
jazzbumpa
And I will assure you that no public or private interest is being violated by limiting the salt content of processed and prepared foods. We are having this conversation because of the fundamentally flawed slippery slope concept expressed in the original post.
But let’s understand what an increased sensitivity to salt means. As you become desensitized and your palette becomes jaded, you require more salt to achieve some minimal flavor effect. With a purer palette, you can get the flavor you desire while using less salt. I’ll posit that there is potential public interest in achieving that, even if it’s only at the level of reducing resource depletion.
To dWj’s point, order of addition is important if there is a chemical process taking place. This is true of pickling, baking, and manufacturing automotive coolant and engine oil additives. With meat preservation, I think the salt provides an inhospitable environment for spoilage microbes, and chemistry is thus prevented. It’s true of sauce making because the flavor elements have to be released from plant particles. That’s an extraction process (chemistry) that takes time. Sprinkling basil on your plate of pasta will not achieve the same effect. Not so with salt as a flavoring. It’s simply there.
That’s why salting to taste is purely an option, and can take place at any time. In general, here is no salt chemistry occurring in the preparation and presentation of entrees.
Now, I’ll throw the slippery slope challenge back. How many instances can you name of some regulation leading down-slope to other regulations that have resulted in a reduction in personal freedoms? Prohibition didn’t. The misbegotten war on drugs hasn’t. I’m stumped.
A central point that’s been finessed in this salt discussion is that the regulation is aimed at corporations, but the debate is being mis-cast as an impingement of personal freedom.
Cheers!
JzB
Friday ~ May 21st, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Jim
“And I will assure you that no public or private interest is being violated by limiting the salt content of processed and prepared foods.”
But I am interested in buying processed food with limitless quantities of salt. So you are acting against my interest. How can you possibly know, moreover how can you possibly even claim to know and indeed why do you care about what flavor I desire.
My statement about the public having no interest in reducing the levels of sensitivity to salt was a statement about the legitimate extent of the so-called public interest.
Your canard about the public’s interest in limiting ‘resource depletion’ could equally be applied to the overuse of black crayon in preschoolers drawing. Certainly there is a public interest limiting the use of black crayon and in developing a more mature chromatic aesthetic in our youth, even if it’s only at the level of reducing resource depletion.
As to personal vs. corporate freedom, would you have the restrictions apply only to public corporations and exempt sole propietorships? Where would limited partnerships and co-ops fit in?
Friday ~ May 21st, 2010 at 4:25 pm
jazzbumpa
But I am interested in buying processed food with limitless quantities of salt.
No, you’re not. That is a canard.
the legitimate extent of the so-called public interest.
That’s a discussion worth having. But if you’re serious about it, you wouldn’t stick “so called” in front of public interest.
Resource depletion was a light-hearted aside. I must learn not to do that here. The real issue of public-interest concern is public health. And the point is that regulating the salt content of processed foods does not in any way impinge on anyone’s individual freedom.
The bias I think I am detecting is pro-business, and anti both government and the individual. I am talking about applying restrictions to institutional entities, regardless of structure or nomenclature.
If there were a sodium limit of x ppm in commercial canned soup, frex., the business structure of the supplier would be irrelevant.
I’ve made two long comments, and issued a challenge. But rather than address anything substantive, you nibble at the
(more-or-less salt-free) minutia.
Cheers!
JzB
Friday ~ May 21st, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Adam Ozimek
“Now, I’ll throw the slippery slope challenge back. How many instances can you name of some regulation leading down-slope to other regulations that have resulted in a reduction in personal freedoms? Prohibition didn’t. The misbegotten war on drugs hasn’t. I’m stumped.”
The problem is that if you are willing to unwilling accept that the government regulating the level of salt in foods is a restriction on personal freedom than you have an unreasonable definition of personal freedom, and so you obviously won’t see slippery slopes anywhere. The attempt to regulate salt, and the fact that the increasing regulation of sugar and trans fats has led us here is a perfect example of a slippery slope.
In the comments to the previous post you said this:
“I’ll say a paternalistic society could possibly be on a slippery slope when it mandates against private behavior in closed quarters that does not harm another person – and then demonstrates encroachment into more areas of private life. ”
If salt restrictions aren’t exactly that than I’m not sure that short of 1984 or North Korea any government action qualifies to you as paternalism.
I want a chef to be able to put as much salt into the food he cooks for me as he thinks I will enjoy. This law prevents that. This is by definition a restriction of private exchange that makes us both worse off.
Friday ~ May 21st, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Funky J
Just one little thing you’re missing here Adam – a chef will never, ever put salt into a cooked meal in the quantities that you’ll find in processed recipes.
We’re talking the difference between a couple of spoons and a couple of cups.
And the proof of this is easy to find – take any recipe for spaghetti bolognaise you can find, and compare the salt content there to the salt content in a can of Heinz spaghetti.
The worse insult you can give to a chef is to put salt on your food, because every good chef knows how much salt to add to meals. They taste it during the process.
And salt in a recipe is not a personal thing – you don’t look at a painting and say “that needs more blue paint”. making food should be seen the same way – as an artform where the chef has complete control.
Processed foods on the other hand see ingredients are poured into vats with quantities of litres and kilolitres. These amounts are then divided mathematically into consumer units.
It’s so divorced from the concept of cooking that taste is irrelevant when it is being made. Someone may have tasted the end result from the initial process before putting it to mass market, but no chef sits there and tastes every batch.
Furthermore, when you see “new recipe!” on a processed good, it usually has nothing to do with taste, but to do with reducing the overall cost of manufacturing the goods. They’ll change one chemical for another. They’ll put more water and flour in to thicken the sauce. They’ll use other bits of the animal they didn’t use before.
If chefs are punished for putting salt into recipes then that’s a problem with the American people and the complete lack of understanding and education about food and the processes that go into making it, not with the regulation that’s designed to keep people safe from harm because of too much salt.
Friday ~ May 21st, 2010 at 9:27 pm
jazzbumpa
The problem is that if you are willing to unwilling accept that the government regulating the level of salt in foods is a restriction on personal freedom than you have an unreasonable definition of personal freedom,
I have not demonstrated an unwillingness to accept anything. I have presented reasons why I disagree. I haven’t seen a substantive argument against any of them. What I’ve said repeatedly is that in this particular instance, regulating what a producer can provide in no way impinges on your freedom to consume. You have not demonstrated any flaw in this position.
How can you conclude that I have an unreasonable definition of personal freedom, when you have not demonstrated that the issue of personal freedom is even relevant to the salt discussion?
I’m not aware of any sugar regulation, but I do not claim to see all and know all. A quick Google search turned up nothing. The trans-fat issue relates to an artificial substance which is effectively a low level toxin, has no benefit of any kind, and is pretty easily replaced by other fats. Once again, this does not relate to your freedom to consume. It limits the ability of a commercial enterprise to distribute a harmful substance. Businesses have adapted, and nobody has been harmed.
I guess the beginning of this particular area od action – taking known toxins out of the food supply – is the regulation of mercury emissions and taconite tailings.
Do you see that as a legitimate function of government?
Please explain how the chef in your last paragraph is worse off if there is a maximum in the salt he allowed to employ in your entree. I have already demonstrated that it makes no difference which of you adds it. He isn’t hurt, your freedom to consume salt is not abrogated.
What I see is an assertion that salt regulation harms both businesses and people. No data. Only opinion.
Cheers!
JzB
Friday ~ May 21st, 2010 at 9:47 pm
jazzbumpa
News flash — What I see here
http://food.change.org/blog/view/does_salt_regulation_equal_nanny_state
is an expectation to voluntarily reduce salt in packaged food by 25% in 5 years, and 50% in 10 years. Even with an implication that actual regulation might follow some day, this is far from draconian.
In the absence of actual regulation, and a strong suspicion of a likely pathway to something undesirable, we’re looking a flat topography. The top of the slope doesn’t even exist.
Notable Quote from the link above (emphisis addded):
I love nanny-state accusations. Whenever I hear them, I know either that food industry self-interest is involved or that the accuser really doesn’t understand that our food system already is government-regulated as can be. These kinds of actions are just tweaking of existing policy, in this case to promote better health.
Cheers!
JzB
Saturday ~ May 22nd, 2010 at 10:12 am
Adam Ozimek
Funky J, have you never seen “The Best Thing I Ever Ate?”
http://www.foodnetwork.com/the-best-thing-i-ever-ate/totally-fried/index.html
JzB, 33 states have taxes on soft drinks:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMhpr0905723
The regulation I have always been referring to is the Institute of Medicine recommendations under consideration by the FDA.
“Please explain how the chef in your last paragraph is worse off if there is a maximum in the salt he allowed to employ in your entree.”
I’ve already laid this out… part of what people value in eating and buying food products is to have the mix of ingredients selected for them. They value this. Whether or not you think they do, the market demonstrates that they do. This prevents this service from being offered.
Saturday ~ May 22nd, 2010 at 10:41 am
jazzbumpa
I’ve never argued that people don’t value having the chef select his recipes. I really wish you would stop making mental leaps, and attributing to me things that I neither said nor implied. Please argue against my actual statements.
I am arguing that the NOT EVEN PROPOSED regulations will effect packaged food and probably fast foods. I’ll also argue that with fast food, convenience and relative cheapness dominate the buyers decision, not any consideration of culinary worth.
Further, you accuse me of having “an unreasonable definition of personal freedom” when you know absolutely nothing about my views on personal freedom. Resorting to ad hominem does nothing to validate your argument.
I have demonstrated repeatedly that this NOT EVEN PROPOSED regulation is irrelevant to your freedom to use salt. The value of having a chef chose the ingredients is orthogonal to the discussion.
You are taking conversation about some potentially possible smoking regulation, combining it with a suggestion that a potentially possible salt regulation, which is neither onerous, not in any way impinges on your freedom to use salt, and weaving a slippery slope story out of something that is pretty close to whole cloth.
This is both a fantasy of your imagination, and a tempest in a salt shaker.
At the get go, I gave you credit for a least talking about things that are real, not drawing wild conclusions from potential possibilities of some uncertain outcomes. This has been a disappointing waste of everyone’s time.
Sadly,
JzB
Saturday ~ May 22nd, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Adam Ozimek
You’ve deployed a lot of words in these comments and it’s hard to find your central disagreement. If you could really narrow in on it then maybe we would have more productive disagreement.
This is compounded by statements that appear, to me, to be contradictory:
“I’ve never argued that people don’t value having the chef select his recipes.”
“Please explain how the chef in your last paragraph is worse off if there is a maximum in the salt he allowed to employ in your entree. I have already demonstrated that it makes no difference which of you adds it.”
So it makes no difference to the consumer if the chef (or company) sets the salt amount, and yet you agree that consumers value the chef (or company) setting the salt amount? If consumers value it, then surely preventing chefs (or companies) from doing it makes a difference to consumers, no?
Saturday ~ May 22nd, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Adam Ozimek
Also, perhaps you should read this to understand more what the FDA and institute for medicine have in mind:
http://modeledbehavior.com/2010/04/22/they-came-first-for-the-sugar-then-they-came-for-the-salt/
For instance,
“It must be done very thoughtfully,” said panel chair Henney, a former FDA commissioner and now a medical professor at the University of Cincinnati. Pickles, for instance, “are very high in salt content but are not eaten that often,” she said, “so what you get with pickles might be quite different than something that is eaten more frequently, like bread, or cereal.”
Saturday ~ May 22nd, 2010 at 9:08 pm
jazzbumpa
My central disagreements:
- There is no current legislation regulating salt content. What makes it worth talking about?
- If there were, it would be targeted at the producer, not the consumer. In the absence of someone taking away your salt shaker, your freedom is not being impinged. I guess this point is the most central.
- The slippery slope argument is, at best, logically weak. It needs lots of help and support to be taken seriously. I have only seen assertions.
- Tying the salt situation to the smoking situation is, in my opinion, an invalid construct. The smoking situation involves conflicting personal rights. The salt situation is a potential regulation of an industry, that ultimately, and I mean this very sincerely, won’t mean anything real to you as a food consumer. (In terms of your freedom of choice, or taste options.)
- The entire exercise is dabbling in the minutia of cookery, which you admitted at the outset you don’t know anything about, and drawing from it broad conclusions about Government interference in personal freedom.
A big conclusion from a small data set is questionable.
The reason I used a lot of words it that I’m attempting to be serious, thoughtful, logical, complete and comprehensible.
I can’t say the same about your selective quotes from me in your 1:36 post. The reason my two statements quoted do not contradict is that in recipes, (and unlike prepared foods and fast foods) salt is a very minor constituent. Taking a couple at random out of the Joy of Cooking.
Matzo Ball Soup, Pg 126. I tsp salt in 4 eggs, a cup of matzo meal and a bunch of other minor stuff – maybe about 1%. Another 1.25 tsp in 6 cups stock – about .4%.
Corn Bread, Pg 632. 3/4 tsp salt in 2.5 cups total corn meal and flour, 1 cup milk, and other minor stuff – again, about .45%.
Many, many other recipes don’t even mention salt.
In contrast, Campbell’s tomato soup contains 480 mg (about .2 tsp) in a half cup serving – about .8%. Split Pea with Bacon and ham is about 1.5%.
It’s the other minor stuff that the chef will be doting on. Salt isn’t a major constituent in fine dining. It’s used in small to tiny quantities. My guess is as a flavor enhancer, or in some other subtle way.
Crappy cooks use lots of salt to hide the fact that they’re crappy cooks. But that is a side issue.
Sorry. I’ve used lots of words again.
JzB
Sunday ~ May 23rd, 2010 at 10:10 am
Adam Ozimek
“If there were, it would be targeted at the producer, not the consumer. In the absence of someone taking away your salt shaker, your freedom is not being impinged.”
Is this a fair summary of your central arguments for this:
Regulation of salt will not alter the price/quality bundle of goods in a way that consumers will likely notice, and if they notice, they will be indifferent to the changes. This is because the use of salt used as a “flavor enhancer” occurs at low enough levels to not be affected by regulation, and salt used as a “flavoring agent” can always be added after the fact.
Do I have it right?
Sunday ~ May 23rd, 2010 at 4:13 pm
jazzbumpa
Adam -
Yes, assuming regulation is something sensible and not a draconian blanket ban – that’s pretty close for most things where culinary art is involved. (And that is where you are paying for the services of a chef, rather than a burger flipper.) There will be exceptions. Frex, For pickles and potato chips order of addition is critical. (I’ve tried salt free chips. They are awful, and cannot be corrected after the fact.) But those things are at the margins.
Salt added as a flavoring agent can, the vast majority of the time, be added after the fact. I hesitate to use a blanket always.
Packaged food can get you into gray areas. A serving of stove top stuffing has 440 mg of salt. If I made stuffing on my own, I wouldn’t add any salt beyond what is in the bread, which is less than half of that for a single slice. So some of the salt is there for good reason, but the amounts used are overkill. I’m suggesting reductions of 25 to 50% will be transparent, or close to it. And also adjustable on the plate, if so desired.
FWIW, I tend to be heavy-handed with paprika, basil, and nutmeg. But that is mere personal preference.
Cheers!
JzB
Monday ~ May 24th, 2010 at 8:48 am
Salt regulation is no free lunch « Modeled Behavior
[...] 24th, 2010 in Economics, Health Care, Law, Modeled Behavior | by Adam Ozimek In response to my last post on salt regulations, several commenters expressed some further points that are worth addressing. Much of it amounts to [...]
Sunday ~ September 19th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
golf
why doen’t all the food channel rep .leave the amount of salt added to a meal to the individual.It makes me sick to hear them telling how much salt to add, or not enough salt.Do they get a cut from the salt company.
Tuesday ~ October 26th, 2010 at 7:43 am
Scientists against salt regulation « Modeled Behavior
[...] can find my previous coverage of salt regulation here, here, here, here, here, [...]