For years, lobbyists and nutrition pundits have insisted–hopefully or despairingly–that government public health campaigns to cut sodium in processed and restaurant foods wouldn’t really do much good, that the public wouldn’t pay attention, that they wouldn’t care enough or that they’d resent the guidelines advice so much that they’d never change their habits.
But the past year has brought the brining of America into the headlines and people are starting to pay attention. Especially with state-led nutrition labeling laws for restaurant chains, large diet/health studies, and citizen/government coalitions to pressure the food industry to reformulate down to sane salt levels.
Gourmet-leaning media have been especially slow to come around from the enthusiasm of exotically named and sourced salts and imitation of the aggressive restaurant-style use (and overuse) of salt as a texturizing chemical rather than for flavor. As late as January, I was still seeing frequent “famous chef” defense commentaries, on food shows and in publications from Salon.com to the New York Times, on the absolute necessity of salting food at every turn.
I hope it’s not just a one-issue fluke, but a quick scan of the July issues of Bon Appétit and Saveur shows that both have cut out the insidious, automatic “1 teaspoon of salt” they used to list in most of their recipes. Sunset magazine doesn’t seem to have caught on yet, but Good Housekeeping appears to be ditching the extra salt, so maybe we’re on the cusp of a better trend. And maybe next year I’ll have nothing to kvetch about.
It could happen.
Filed under: cooking, DASH Diet, Food Politics, nutrition | Tagged: Bon Appetit, food magazines, Good Housekeeping, high blood pressure, low sodium, NSRI, nutrition labeling laws, processed food industry, salt, Saveur, Sunset Magazine |
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