High Salt Warning

I'm on the fence with this one.  As someone who has high blood pressure that needs to watch my sodium intake, I agree there is way too much salt in restaurant foods.  But as someone who once worked in the restaurant industry, I can see why this can cause potential financial stress in a saturated food service market.

What really causes me issues is that the law is only aimed at chains.  That tells me that NYC is really just trying to protect local businesses.  That's not right and should be changed.  It's not something that would cost then thousands to have menus reprinted.  They could put a little sticker on the menu and be done with it.

I knew that eating out was a salty experience, but who would have guessed that there are meals containing nearly 4000mg of sodium?!  In the report I saw on TV this morning, they spoke of a sandwich at Panera that contain 3800mg of sodium (that's just the sandwich, no sides included).  Because of this law, Panera is going to change the sandwich in NYC which will lower the sodium content to 3100mg.  That's still very high but better.  But if they can do that and still have a sandwich that tastes the same, why is there so much in it originally?  And why not change it corporate wide?

Here's my opinion on food in the US.  With the rise of cooking shows and the celebrity chef, fat and salt have been made the focus.  Every one of these celebrity chefs constantly say that ”fat is flavor” and ”salt makes things taste more like themselves.”  have you ever tasted fat by itself?  It's tasteless.  Fat is texture, not flavor.  It melts away making the meat more tender.  How about the salt theory, taste a tomato then taste ketchup along with no salt added ketchup.  Which tastes more like that tomato?  My opinion is the no salt added one but your opinion may not agree.

I'm not saying that everything should be without salt or fat.  I'm saying that it needs to be controlled voluntarily by these restaurants, not forced by laws.  It's honestly one reason I'm not so much into chains.  The amount of salt in their foods is necessary so it'll last a long time to make it from the factory to the restaurant.  The solution would be to hire actual chefs for each location, send them recipes, and have actual cooking done rather than the reheating that is currently done.

Overall, this law won't change anything.  People go to a restaurant with no real care about how healthy it is.  They want something that's made for them and tastes good.