Here is Korby Kummer writing about the New York Times recent piece on salt regulation:

“After Moss’s thorough study of industry tactics with sodium, it will be hard to take seriously whatever new arguments against taxes soda makes bring up—and hard not to champion regulations that will bind food processors to produce sounder foods long after the political climate has moved away from anti-obesity initiatives and earnest promises of voluntary compliance.”

I’m not really sure what the industry’s tactics have to do with the desirability of the regulations, but Kummer for some reason finds it dispositive. Also interesting is Kummer’s admission that he is “incapable of eating, or at least enjoying, most processed food precisely because of the salt levels”, which he finds “intolerable”.  I don’t want to malign the motives of those pushing for salt regulation, but their writings suggest to me that their personal desire for more low salt food choices is an important motivation for their position. Case in point is Marion Nestle:

To someone like me who has been trying to reduce my salt intake for years, those soups taste like salt water. That’s because the taste of salt depends on how much you are eating. If you eat a lot, you need more to taste salty. If you are like me, practically all processed and restaurant foods taste unpleasantly salty.

So what to do? I say this is indeed a matter of personal choice and right now I don’t have one. If I want to eat out at all, I know I’m going to feel oversalted by the time I get home.

I find the idea of supporting a policy because it would force producers to offer a range of products that you like more to be a selfish and unprincipled stance. I actually get a lot of utility out of restaurant smoking bans, but I oppose them because I don’t think the government’s job is to increase my personal utility. I want to believe that selfishness is not an important motivation for salt regulation proponents, but I am not sure.

A much more useful take come from from Michael Kinsley at the Atlantic Wire:

Then comes the dubious statistic that “Government health experts” say “deep cuts” in salt use “could save 150,000 lives a year.” This sent me Googling and it was the work of under a minute to find a column in the New York Times in February casting doubt on this very factoid. The column was by John Tierney, whose specialty is poo-pooing studies that suggest the need for more regulation. I don’t necessarily trust him either. But still, the Sunday piece might at least have mentioned that this figure has been contested.