Selling salt

The New York Times has a long article by Michael Moss on the food industry and salt. A sample:

When health advocates first petitioned the federal government to regulate salt in 1978, food companies sponsored research aimed at casting doubt on the link between salt and hypertension. Two decades later, when federal officials tried to cut the salt in products labeled “healthy,” companies argued that foods already low in sugar and fat would not sell with less salt.

Now, the industry is blaming consumers for resisting efforts to reduce salt in all foods, pointing to, as Kellogg put it in a letter to a federal nutrition advisory committee, “the virtually intractable nature of the appetite for salt.”

See? It’s our fault. It’s as if cigarette companies were to blame smokers for the virtually intractable nature of the appetite for nicotine. But an intractable appetite needn’t be forever. Once one gets some distance from processed foods, Cheez-Its and Wheat-Thins and all the rest taste too dang salty. Homemade pita chips are much better (cheaper too).

And did you know that Alton Brown is shilling for salt? “It’s the finest compound to ever grace our palates,” says he. Yes, and more doctors smoke Camels.