I completely agree with #1 and #2.

#3 is up tot he producer, IMO. If the product doesn't meet consumer standards, they can simply choose to not eat it. Forcing the producers to change is like creating a "right" for cars to be made in my daughter's favorite color (pink), even if it negatively impacts cost or sales.

I'm at a loss as to how anyone could be in favor of forcing a business to make some specific product that they have a CHOICE to buy or not. Boggles the mind. Just don't eat the crap—I don't, and I manage to survive.

:)

What regulates a product in a free market economy? Is it the industry itself? No - it is the consumer. The fact is August - every time you swing by Mickey D's and get whatever combo - your telling them with your dollars that your ok with the product they provide. So because you CHOOSE to tell them your ok with it - they are going to continue to do it. Instead of swinging by Burger King, hit Subway. Give your business to those that provide the product the way you want it - otherwise your settling for a product that you want government to change - when the majority of consumers are saying they are ok with it. Maybe alot of them are like you - doing it more for ease and convienence vs the flavor. But if that is the case - who is responsible for it? The salt is there because the consumer accepts it. This is exactly the same reasoning that Ubi doesn't have my money - and I don't have SH5.

What your saying is you want a controlled free market - one that is controlled where you want it to be - and free everywhere else. It doesn't work that way my friend.

But we aren't really agreeing to disagree...are we? You still want to force me to agree with your opinion by co-opting the state. You agree with my right to voice a stance, but not to express it. You want to take salt out of foods I choose to purchase, and you would favor the use of state force to make sure I can't do anything about it. That is what you're saying.

It sure would be nice if everyone had access to only clean and healthy foods in the market, wouldn't it? People who buy organic food seem to think so, but they are also idiots. They don't even know what the hell they are buying. Most of the time, they're buying either (a) chemically-grown and/or genetically-modified food with an organic label or (b) buying truly organic food that grew up in animal feces amidst parasites and viruses.

If somebody really wanted healthy and wholesome food, they'd buy genetically-modified, chemically-treated crops and meats that had been bombarded with cobalt irradiation, but that sounds a lot less healthy than "organic", doesn't it? A whole industry has grown up around that idea, and you've bought it, my friend.

Your heart condition has not escaped my notice, either. If you read the link I posted earlier, you would see that some studies indicate that too little salt can also lead to heart attacks. The truth is that nobody knows what causes most heart failures. All most medical professionals know is that increased strain on the heart increases the likelyhood of failure. Your fear of salty foods stems from a study conducted by Dr. Jeffrey Cutler, who now heads the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, with a budget of nearly $3 billion. However, two seperate studies by the American Medical Association found that reducing salt in your diet has little effect on blood pressure. Nine out of ten researchers surveyed at Johns Hopkins and Stanford said that reducing salt in an average diet is meaningless. Everything you're afraid of comes from one study that congress bought that says 2,400 milligrams of salt is the proper amount for everyone, every day, despite the fact that it has since been debunked.

You're basing your decisons upon government-accepted data, and as if that weren't enough, you're trying to base my decisions upon it. Step back and look at the system you are entrusting these decisions to. How did you arrive at the conclusion that this system would decide what is best for your health? Are they so intelligent and magnanimous?

I will no more readily allow you to ban salt from my foods than I would allow you to ban apples or bacon or candy-corn. It is not your choice, and it never should be, nor should I choose for you. If it were up to me, I'd ban you from eating anything even remotely interesting or spiced. I would do that because I see the production of non-staple foods as being an inefficient and a waste of arable land. We'd all be eating the most boring food on the planet because it is efficient and I don't give a s*** about food other than the fact that it is fuel. Ever encountered that attitude before? Perhaps when you dined on an MRE?

Fortunately, I have no right to demand that of people, and neither do you, nor does anyone else. If you give that right to to the state, you'll be dining on whatever a-holes like me and anyone else with a vested interest in the production of a particular food good in very short order. In fact, you're already doing that. Anybody ever eat something with saccharine in it? You have because the price of sugar is kept artificially high by sugar-lobbyists and you don't care as long as the food tastes good. Then you pay for the sugar you don't use in the form of a subsidy because someone with enough money to lobby made the case to Washington. You pay for sugar you don't even use.

If we're going to agree to disagree, then let the free market be our agent. You can buy salt-free junk if you think that's going to help you. I'll buy whatever the hell I want for whatever reasons I deem worthy. It isn't as if we have to choose between one standard or the other. Buy your organic or salt-free food. Enforce the market for it by your purchases and opinions. Make your own decisions, and let me make mine. If I'm the idiot that that the anti-salt lobby makes me out to be, I'll die prematurely and save insurers a bundle in healthcare costs which can be better used to pay for treatable diseases.

You have been duped, my friend, by agencies that seek to take advantage of your condition. What they really want is your money, and your vote, no matter how compelling their arguments may be. They do not give a s*** about your health, and their conduct makes that apparent. If they really cared about you, they'd be falling head over heels to offer you and everyone else with medical problems with immediate aid from their own pockets, but they never do that. What they care about are votes and power and you're giving them both with your misinformed opinion.

The story of humanity is one of incentive. Even you, as an educator, must realize that. How often have you argued for the preservation of the status quo, despite the fact that US schools are falling behind? The teachers' unions argue for more funding, but will that really help? It certainly hasn't so far, depsite the fact that the US spends more per pupil than any other nation.

Neither you, nor I, are immune to the seductive pull of establishment. We want our liveleyhoods to be secure. We want security, and we look to the state to provide it; but that is not right. We're sacrificing the opportunities of others to provide for our own interests. What we should be doing is bettering ourselves by improving the lives of others through mutually beneficial transactions. That's the only system that ever work, and the only system that will ever work so long as we live in a world with finite resources.

Get back to me when you have a convincing argument for why your interests are superior to those of others. Better yet, give me a state system that's fair. I'll hold my breath.

Really? you're not going to allow me? Well what are you going to do to stop me?

Don't work like that. I don't have to convince you of crap, nor you me.

And he is saying the same thing - who are you to not allow him - or anyone else to have salt in their processed food. You get upset and challenging when someone dares to act like they limit you - yet you are ok with government limiting everyone - simply because you like this particular idea....

On a second note: both of ya play nice - this isn't a personal arguement. No reason it should escalate into one.

Also - no response to my post regarding your own complicity in the market thinking the additive of salt was ok?

Hap you are completely misreading me and I believe Lcpl as well. I'm not being challenging, nor was I at all upset, and yeah I am quite ok with the government limiting the amount of salt that can be added to processed food as I am ok with you guys opposition to it.

As for my "complicity" ok sure, I was complicit as anyone else in a service industry who has 30 minutes to wolf down some fast food on the way to the next job. So what? Does it somehow mean i'm not entitled to have a pro-regulation opinion?

The bottom line here is I see health and safety regulations on fast food industry as a good thing in general and I support the governments effort to reduce their products sodium content. Period.

That of course should not indicate either my support or opposition to anything else that the government does, should do or should stop doing.

Its all good August - we all I think respect each other still.

Ultimately though - Salt is one of those things that there are lots of doubts about health wise. So far - the reason you have given for supporting it is simply you think fast food is too salty. Thus - your saying you support government regulating a major segment of the service industry and food industry based purely on your taste buds - which you have to admit is highly subjective to every individual. That just seems so counter to your normal views, that its honestly confusing. Its so not consistent with most of your views that I , and I suspect Lcpl - is struggling to figure out your reasoning.

If its IS based purely on your taste buds, well - surely you can agree that your taste buds shouldn't be the basis of such a multi-billion dollar decision for every person in the country. :hmmm: :)

Maybe there are other reasons - if so then perhaps you would share them so that we could evaluate them honestly.

Oh, I don't think there's much danger of August or I going out of bounds on this one, but thanks for the reminder. I'm not really upset with August, although it can be difficult to tell from my rhetoric at times. When I get going.... I just keep going.

August may be a dirty yank:O:, but he's also a fellow American I have a great deal of respect for.

Besides bitch and moan on subsim? I'll probably write to my representatives (though that never seems to do much good) and make my argument to others in the hopes that they will write to their representatives (they rarely do). Other than that, there isn't a whole lot I can do until I get my law degree, and even then the odds of me changing anything significant are very low.

But I can stand up to you here. People read our discussions and contribute to them and occassionally form their own opinions and share them. Even if that's all I ever do, at least it's something.:DL


Then stop supporting the idea of legislating my food content. I'll make my choices and you make yours. That seems like a fine system to me.

Of course not! Regulate your own actions and decisions as much as you want. Argue for better labeling practices or express your desire for salt-free foods to the companies that make your dinner. There is a whole industry built around selling people junk they think is good for them. Just don't make me have a pro-regulation opinion by going to my government and thereby forcing me to agree with you.

So we're back to agree to disagree. :salute:

Not to worry though, our self serving politicians will probably sniff the political winds to get an opinion of the general public mood on the issue, calculate which course of action would best serve the country, then in the end do whatever the fast food industry lobbyists want them to do.

As long as we can disagree seperately, yes.

If they do anything, it wil be a mix of all those interests and it will cost us money and/or dictate our conduct. That much is certain.

I was going to launch into a rant about socialism, but I figure we've all heard enough from me on that topic for the time being. I've also got other things to worry about. Come help us fix the Cavalla. Dive Klaxon!:woot:

You do realize this means no more Ramen Noodles :hmmm:

Should the government ban kids football? Kids are injured badly every year. Some even die. Has anyone done a cost-benefit analysis to see if playing football as a kid increases total life-span enough to offset permanent injury or death in other players?

Where does it end?

Well as a swedish medicine student I might come to you americans as just another socialist:

Humans are born to love sugar, fat and salt. Its very nutritious and was key to survival for mankind early on. But to much of ut leads to a number of health concerns and diseases. Remember that obesity and diabetes type 2 is a welfare-problem...we are eating ourselves to death. The extreme analogy would be that incest is forbidden, its not allowed to do that to another human - to hurt others. Likewise, there should be regulations so that families are less prone to hurting each other, from a nutritious standpoint (if you ask me, lowering taxes on healty food is the way forward).

If the people are ignorant and eat whats tasty and dont care about the rest, then I belive there should be directions from non-biased goverment institutions. I compare it to directions to a child, a child will eat and do whatever feels right for the moment, every parent recognizes this and enforces limitations. And yes, Im not removing the freedom of eating until you puke etc...merely wanting someone with authority to state the obvious.

Yes, salt is linked to hypertension. The patogenesis is that NaCl, which is normal salt, manly goes into the extracellular volume (among other things;blood) and therefore increases bloodpressure. One might argu that the kindeys then merely showel out more salt from the body but the system could be stressed and overburdened. Like lungs finally giving in to a chain smoker or the liver finally succumbing to alcoholism.

Goverment should contribute what we cant do for ourselves. When something is too good for you in the long run, which potently will make us very sick, there should be limitations.

Hmm, I wonder how I could express my conserns more without the americans claiming that Im a communist :timeout:

A fair question tater, but you proponents of the slippery slope argument never ever talk about the opposite "slope".

I mean if you're completely against the regulation of additives then I guess you're also opposed to preventing a manufacturer from adding an addicting substance to hook consumers onto their product right? How about something that tastes great but has been shown to cause cancer?

If you're not completely against additive regulation then please explain how it's ok to ban one thing but not another?

This is a response to both noren and august, with no particular organization (only having my 1st espresso right now, not thinking straight :) ).

I'm not against any regulation of food, but in the case of prepared food, I think once it is properly labeled, the government has done enough. It is then up to the consumer to avoid things they decide are dangerous to them in the quantities they chose to eat.

Soy sauce, for example, is clearly loaded with sodium. Should they be forced to only sell inauthentic, low sodium soy? If a given dish is traditionally VERY high in sodium, should it be banned or altered even though "normal" people only eat it very rarely?

Take the "fast food" talked about in this thread. I myself, almost never eat this. It can be 5X as salty as what I normally eat, but eating one Burger King meal every 6 months is not going to hurt me, regardless of the sodium level assuming that a single meal doesn't contain amounts that are dangerous alone.

How do you limit sodium then in prepared foods? Do the limits only apply to companies that serve more than X thousand meals per year, or are proper restaurants also forced to abide by these draconian restrictions? Why single out sodium and not also fat? I had a $50 steak last night, there was butter on top of it, and a demi glace, too. Guess what, if I ate that 3 meals a day I'd likely need a stent placed by my next birthday, lol. But I DON'T eat that 3 meals a day, or even 3 meals a MONTH.

So much is a function of what those that love government interference in personal liberty really hate—personal responsibility (and the consequences that come with that).

Bottom line is that if the amounts are posted on the box, why can't we assume people can make educated choices? It's not like any of this food is worth eating on a regular basis in the first place.