“I think salt should be banned in restaurants. I ask if a dish has salt in it, and if I does, I get something else that doesn’t have salt,” Ortiz tells me, before going on to say that he has eaten, and expects he will continue to eat, among other things, ham, cheese and bread in restaurants, all of which contain salt.
It is inarguable that too much salt in the diet can contribute to a host of health problems. It is further inarguable that many processed foods contain levels of sodium so high that consuming them regularly is inadvisable. V8 Juice, for instance, contains one-third of the government’s recommended daily sodium intake in just one 12-ounce serving, for instance, and one serving of Campbell’s regular condensed chicken-noodle soup, in the familiar red-and-white can, delivers even more salt. Number like those should be reduced.
However, that’s not what Ortiz’s bill is going after. He’s intent on banning all salt used in all restaurant food.
The language of the bill reads:
No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises.
The justification for the proposed law, given in the bill’s introduction, reads:
This legislation will give customers the option to add salt after the meal has been prepared for them. In this way, consumers have more control over the amount of sodium they intake, and are given the option to exercise healthier diets and healthier lifestyles.
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I don't know if you're joking or not, but it is vital for survival. Just not in the amounts most people in America eat.
Well salt does make things taste good.
Like everything else we eat, most of which is indeed vital for our bodies to function properly, it needs to be eaten in moderation. Simple, yet hardly followed in the age of fast food.
Salt is also good as a religious metaphor as well as a method to melt ice and kill germs.
Don't blame fast food for this. Fine dining is full of salt and butter as well, it's all foods. It tastes good and that's why we eat it. If they take it out the food tastes like crap and we buy something else.
This is a problem with the people, not the companies pushing the product.
EDIT- It also does not melt ice. It raises the freezing point to help prevent it from refreezing.
Still, this bill is all kinds of stupid and is clearly just a PR stunt.
But this is among the stupidest proposals I have heard.
(Also, I have known people who refuse to use salt in their cooking, and their food fucking sucks. Cooking without salt is like cooking without... I dunno... something vital. Especially baking. Baked goods without salt are shit.)
Yes, I am indeed joking. Not that I'm suggesting people would start dying if restaurants weren't allowed to use salt though, just being silly.
Although a rash of goiters would be funny/tragic.
Do not drag gun control in here or I will blast you with a shotgun loaded with rock salt.
Especially everything, trying making a steak without salt. It's not good.
i support this legislation
i hope he bans fire next, fucking flames always burning the shit out of things
Well, some foods without salt are bland. And some just taste wrong. I would rather have a steak sans salt than a cookie.
Hey, hey.
Let us step outside, friend.
--
Do we know what this dullard's position is on that fat ban they did awhile ago?
As will Pedialyte.
Also, I was nearly very distressed as I thought this guy was my assemblyman. He's actually in the district just south of mine, thank God.
Yeah, but it's already in there, I presume he means adding salt to things.
Can't make a fresh rub with salt in it so you buy some from the grocery store that's full of preservatives and use it in your five star establishment?
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Guns at dawn Good sir!
I'm not totally against adding salt, but I mainly use different peppers, herbs and some cream for meats.
On baking salt is useful, although I'm known to add some other spices in addition of salt to them.
No, not like that. Some items, ie caviar, are just full of salt naturally. And there is a certain amount of sodium in things.
On the other hand, all places that serve food, regardless of quality, put tons of salt in everything to make it taste better. Because nobody would eat at a place that didn't, it would taste fucking foul.
So the proposal is that you can't add salt into anything, or use things that are made with salt (like say pickled food stuffs, or salted butter) and then the customer would have to add it at the end.
It's still retarded, but I doubt anybody is daft enough to just ban salt in all it's forms, you'd have to ban everything.
:^:
I rarely add salt (except to stews and soups, and baked goods of course), and I hear nothing but compliments on my cooking.
That's not to say salt is bad, I just don't want to add it to our foods. We get enough salt in our diets without adding more.
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There are plenty of things where you don't need to add salt, certainly. But for most foods - at least most of the foods I cook - adding a little bit of salt brings out the other flavors in a way that's very difficult without salt, if not impossible.
A lot of things, I think, taste best if the only seasoning is a little salt and maybe some black pepper. I cook most of my side dishes fairly simply, because I like tasting whatever it is I'm cooking. If I'm making asparagus, I like to taste the asparagus. If I'm grilling a steak, I wanna taste the steak. Chicken and pork are different, because their natural flavors are so damned boring that you need to get creative. Then I tend to get wild with herbs and such.
( I really love cilantro, because it's cheap as shit so if I buy a bunch and half of it goes bad I don't get too upset. Like, oh no, I just lost a quarter's worth of herbs.)
And again, won't happen, there is a natural limit in this. Using an unhealthy amount of salt makes things taste better, this is known. But turning your prime rib into jerky will cause your business to fail.
The reality is that people prefer salty food. Trying to put limits into place, for "their own damn good", isn't a good idea.
It's not practicable, anyways.
I prefer the notion of them being made to inform customers about basic nutrition facts, more than anything, but again, not practicable.
The thing is that most people just plain don't care. Places (in my area, at least) are required to provide nutritional information, and a lot of places around here have that information right on the table and obviously labeled. But nobody gives a shit, because they don't want to give up their Bloomin' Onions and Triple Chocolate Death Cakes and Cheesy Pasta In Cheese Sauce Sprinkled With Cheese And Oh Hell Just Go Swim In The Mozzerella Vat Already.