Bill To Ban All Salt In Restaurant Cooking 794
lord_rotorooter writes "Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, introduced a bill that would ruin restaurant food and baked goods as we know them. The measure (if passed) would ban the use of all forms of salt in the preparation and cooking of food for all restaurants or bakeries. While the use of too much salt can contribute to health problems, the complete banning of salt would have negative impacts on food chemistry. Not only does salt enhance flavor, it controls bacteria, slows yeast activity and strengthens dough by tightening gluten. Salt also inhibits the growth of microbes that spoil cheese."
This just in! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What's going on. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Question (Score:4, Informative)
Because what was bad for his father is obviously bad for everyone. Though I'm sure some people won't mind this bill, particularly the ones who require extremely low sodium diets to cope with various medical conditions.
Re:Fail (Score:3, Informative)
Yah, it would take him 2 minutes to find that reducing salt only affects blood pressure in 1/3 of people.
I was recently diagnosed with hypertension and the first thing we did was to reduce sodium in my diet, then a drug to remove it. Didn't change my BP at all, although the stress of having high blood pressure might've countered whatever effect it had:)
Re:Bad ideas last forever (Score:5, Informative)
Trans fats have been removed from your favorite foods for a few years now. Can you honestly say you can tell?
Re:Bad ideas last forever (Score:2, Informative)
They've already assaulted baked goods by banning trans-fats (certain baked goods need shortening for texture).
Given that describing trans-fats as poison would not be too far from the truth, I'm not sure improving baked good texture is a very good justification for using them.
Re:This just in! (Score:2, Informative)
What are you, the fucking speech police or something? I think its pretty goddamned cute when making a point regarding political corruption and power run amok that you deem it vital to your point to correct someones fucking speech with that inane "Fixed That For Ya" drivel. Here's a hint, kiddo; It does not make you appear to be any more intelligent nor does it make you look witty or erudite, no, you come off like a fucking douchebag tool when you do shit like that, and I know for a fact you would not do the same thing in the context of a public debate, for almost certainly you would be either ridiculed or pummeled to the fucking ground.
There ought to be an Internet License.
Anger management therapy. Seriously. Look into it.
Re:Too much salt? (Score:5, Informative)
Really... so sodium chloride plus 2% random crap out of the ocean is inherently better for you than sodium chloride + 2% safe non-clumping agent and iodine? Because that's pretty much what you're comparing. They're 98% the exact same chemical.
Don't take my word for it, ask the May clinic:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sea-salt/AN01142 [mayoclinic.com]
But hell, enjoy your goiters.
Re:Bring on the goiters (Score:2, Informative)
Re:eh? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, no, this propsal included forcing horrible bread. When questioned, the idiaot admitted he had done no research into the importance of salt in food chemistry. His reasoning was precisely as follows:
My father ate a lot of salt.
My father died of a heart atttack.
Therefore, no one should ever eat salt.
Yes, folks, this is what passes for reason in a politician.
Gandhi (Score:4, Informative)
Everyone should dress up like Gandhi and march down to the bay to make salt.
Re:Fail (Score:5, Informative)
Which, if you actually read the bill is an outright lie by Ortiz:
http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=+A10129%09%09&Summary=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y [state.ny.us]
3 S 399-BBB. PROHIBITION ON SALT; RESTAURANTS. 1. NO OWNER OR OPERATOR
4 OF A RESTAURANT IN THIS STATE SHALL USE SALT IN ANY FORM IN THE PREPARA-
5 TION OF ANY FOOD FOR CONSUMPTION BY CUSTOMERS OF SUCH RESTAURANT,
6 INCLUDING FOOD PREPARED TO BE CONSUMED ON THE PREMISES OF SUCH RESTAU-
7 RANT OR OFF OF SUCH PREMISES.
Fail troll is fail.
Re:Too much salt? (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.health-benefit-of-water.com/sea-salt.html [health-ben...-water.com]
Sea salt obtained from solar evaporation of sea water is entirely different from modern refined salt, and it contains a variety of minerals that play a role in keeping the body's electrolytes in a healthy balance. The Salt ConspiracyUnfortunately, the common table salt, we use today is primarily kiln-dried sodium chloride with anti-caking agents added. Trace minerals, as well as calcium, magnesium and potassium salts are removed in processing. Kiln-drying involves scorching salt at high heat to remove moisture. This refining process creates a product that is unnatural and hard on the body. It is the true culprit that contributes to high blood pressure, heart trouble, kidney disease and eczema, among other problems.
Re:What would Gandhi do? (Score:2, Informative)
Well, seeing as how you asked, I'll tell you what I'd do.
1) Gather all salt shakers from various restaurants near my home.
2) Fly to Mr. Ortiz's estate.
3) Pour salt down Mr. Ortiz's throat.
4) Go home.
5) Read more Slashdot.
Re:Too much salt? (Score:3, Informative)
I actually did hit up about ten links, I just hit the mayo clinic one because it was from an reputable medical source.
You could argue that those trace minerals have some benefits, but the only real difference in the actual salt is the size of the crystals, which has jack all effect as the salt immediately dissolves when you eat it.
Re:Go go Nanny State... (Score:4, Informative)
You're obviously not a chef, or a Pastry Chef.
You should buy fresh chicken, and not Swanson chicken. Very little chicken is injected with brine. Frozen chicken you get in the big packs is inject with brine, but you can look on the label and you'll see that the ingredients list includes salt and water. They do have to label that stuff.
Restaurants don't sneak in salt without telling you. Most good restaurants take away tablesalt.. because they want you to experience the right amount of salt.
If you need a low salt diet, you tell your server and they can tell the chefs to hold the salt on many things. But removing salt from bread is /stupid/ Salt builds flavor and brings out the flavor while cooking. Too much salt is disgusting, but no salt is equally bland. Learn to talk to your wait staff, if you're going to eat out so often that the salt from restaurants is going to be a major issue.
Re:This just in! (Score:3, Informative)
>salting after cooking is as good as or better than salt during cooking
This is wrong. Changing salting time can cause grossly non-linear effects depending on what is being cooked. food and salt are not independent variables.
Consider the humble legume. I soak it for x minutes with and without salt. Seriously, you think for any given x, the beans have the same amount of water absorption? Do you think it will cook the same at the same temperature? Of course not. Madness.
Re:Go go Nanny State... (Score:3, Informative)
Whoosh. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Bad ideas last forever (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, that is why the label says 0g and not transfat-free. FDA guidelines allow rounding down 0.49g to 0g for a single serving. So now it's just a matter of serving size manipulation to get it to 0.49g.
I've been trying to teach to family to correlate the food labels with the serving size and deduce what is consumed with a portion size (what you choose to eat). Who eats just one cookie?
Re:Go go Nanny State... (Score:2, Informative)
As far as I'm concerned the only pro-choice argument that makes sense is that fetus != person.
Re:Salt really isn't all that bad... (Score:3, Informative)
Oh tosh. It's not that complicated to come up with reasonably accurate nutritional information. You take the ingredients (based on the label or information from the USDA, which is freely available on the Internet.) You add up them up for the total recipe. Weigh the serving. Divide. I do it literally every day at home. This isn't science, this is accounting, and anyone who can't do it can't run a profitable restaurant anyway.
Is it as accurate as laboratory testing on my end product? Maybe not. Is it good enough? Yes.
Re:Go go Nanny State... (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously. An entire head of lettuce is only a few bucks. 5 fucking pounds of carrots will run you a couple bucks. Salad dressing is a couple bucks.
This is all enough for more than a couple salads.
You arent beating that at a fast food place. You must be stupid.
Re:Some people are idiots (Score:3, Informative)
I think people on slashdot are deliberately misunderstanding this legislation (and what looks like a majority of other things too, come to that) - because it is so much easier to just be contrary than to actually try to gain some insight. So let me try to explain things in elementary terms:
The food industry adds a number of chemicals to their products because this allows them to use low quality ingredients in something that should have been made from top of the range produce. Thus you have emulsifiers that make crap flour behave like it was worth using for bread, you have colours and flavours that make soy beans look and taste like meat, you have several kinds of glue that will allow you to stick scraps of meat waste together so it looks like a steak etc etc. The end result is that you can buy a ready-meal that is "full of flavour ..."; well, so is dog shit - that doesn't mean that it is good for you.
So why the interest in salt? Salt is the biggest known contributor to hypertension, which is one of the biggest contributors to cardio-vasculatory disease, stroke and a host of other things. People's actual health apart, this is something that costs money for society in one way or another. The more people are ill, the higher the cost for those that pay for healthcare, which at the end of the day ends up as higher expenses for you, whether it is through higher taxes or higher insurance premiums.
On top of that, those very same people are normally not able to work; ie they don't pay tax, and they don't contribute to productivity. Which means that there are fewer people, overall, to pay for things. Which means ... here it comes: those who do work have to pay more.
Salt is used by the industry to hide taste (or sometimes the lack of taste) just like all the other additives; if they used good quality ingredients and didn't produce in such a way that things had to appear "fresh" for weeks, they wouldn't need to add anything, but of course that would hurt profits. As far as I can see, what this boils down to is that the food industry's profit margins depend on cheating their customers and hurting their health, thereby in effect stealing money from the rest of us.
Finally, the arguments you hear all the time about the taste of food and people's personal choice are bogus. If you buy food with salt in, you can't take it out - if you buy food with no salt, you can easily add some; where do you have the most choice? As for the taste - try just one time to buy, say, a piece of really high quality meat, reared on a real farm (not in a factory), fed on grass outside in a healthy field - and cook it with no salt. It tastes brilliant. You only need to add salt in any substantial quantity to hide the fact that you are eating crap.
Re:Some people are idiots (Score:5, Informative)
Just to humor yourself, the next time you go to a restaurant, ask for the nutritional menu. The recommended level of salt intake is 1000 to 1500mg (1g to 1.5g), though the USDA recommended amount is around 2400 or so.
I think you're confusing salt levels and sodium levels here (i.e. quoting sodium levels but labelling the figures as salt levels). This is a pretty important disctinction. To quote from this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt#Recommended_intake [wikipedia.org]
"In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration itself does not make a recommendation,[64] but refers readers to Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005. These suggest that US citizens should consume less than 2,300 mg of sodium (= 2.3 g sodium = 5.8 g salt) per day.[65]"
(emphasis added)
Re:Some people are idiots (Score:3, Informative)
I can only assume that you are someone who has no extensive culinary experience, because some of the things you say can not be backed up by culinary experience. Salt is not just something people invented to mask flavors of bad food. It's a chemical: Sodium Chloride. Thus it has uses AS A CHEMICAL. It's an essential part of baking, cheese making, and a variety other parts of the culinary world AS A CHEMICAL. Not to mask flavor, not to make things salty, but strictly for how it effects reaction of ingredients together. You can't just add salt later in the process and get the same results.