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Salt, another adversary of healthy living is currently being taken on by the city of New York, which has prohibited smoking and the use of trans fats in restaurants under the leadership of Mayor of Michael Bloomberg.
New York City’s Department of Health issued an announcement Jan. 11 that it is organizing a nationwide drive to cut salt in restaurants and packaged foods by 25 percent over half a decade.
An alliance of cities and health organizations, the National Salt Reduction Initiative, is hoping that the food industry will support its campaign to fight high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes by taking voluntary efforts to cut sodium in the U.S. food supply.
The announcement brought on mixed reaction. A lot of food manufacturers have already started to reduce the amount of salt in their products and said the reduction targets were acceptable. However, some critics called it another stab at regulating something that should be a matter of free choice.
Just starting his third term as New York City Mayor, Bloomberg has been campaigning for healthy living. In addition to bans on smoking and trans fats, the city required chain restaurants to declare 0calorie counts of the items in their menu and launched ad advertising campaign against sugar-rich beverages.
Tom Forte, an analyst at Telsey Advisory Group, an equity research firm, said that companies are knowledgeable about the drive to cut salt and that the New York Initiative epitomizes a challenge.
He further said that the restaurant industry will implement changes in its offerings if demand is there, however according to him, "not a lot of proof" exists measures implemented in New York in the past resulted in key modifications in the behavior of consumers.
The reason why the drive is directed at restaurants and packaged foods is that only a mere 11 percent of the sodium in the diets of Americans comes from their own saltshakers. The Department of Health said that almost 80 percent is added to foods prior to their release into the market.
The Health Department went on to say that 23,000 New Yorkers and 800,000 Americans die from high blood pressure, heart attacks and stroke every year, incurring unspeakable billions in healthcare expenditures. Consumption of salt has been on a steady rise since the 1970s, with Americans taking in approximately two times the recommended limit of daily salt intake.
Thomas Farley, New York City Health Commissioner, said that consumers are always capable of adding salt to food, but they can do nothing to remove it.
However, J. Justin Wilson of the Center for Consumer Freedom, an industry-sponsored group that petitions against restrictions imposed on smoking, alcohol and the restaurant and food businesses, called the initiative "paternalistic" and issued a warning that if the city does not get its way, it may try to make the proposals mandatory.
Initially, it was trans fats, then it became compulsory labeling. "The City's Board of Health of the city knows best."
The proposals are rational and have formed a part of their policy for some time, according to food manufacturing companies.
Susan Davidson of Kraft Foods Inc. said that the company is behind the overall goal of the sodium reduction campaign of New York City.
Reductions in sodium do not mean putting a ban on "any single product" but ensuring that the combination of products with high and low sodium content is balanced so that it jams "a lower wallop of sodium for all of us," said Dr. Sonia Angell of the New York City Health Department.
The city gave its word that it will ask for more comments from the food industry as well as consumer organizations until February 1. The proposed salt reduction targets can be found at http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/cardio/cardio-salt-initiative.shtml.
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