New York City, home of the attempted soda ban and the thirteen-dollar cigarette pack, has introduced a new public health measure requiring chain restaurants to label menu items with high sodium content.
The Dangers of Super Salty Food
Effective in December, the new rule requires that chain restaurants place a saltshaker warning emblem next to menu items that contain more than the recommended daily sodium intake. That intake limit is 2,300 milligrams of sodium, equivalent to about a teaspoon of salt.
The NYC Board of Health voted unanimously to adopt the measure, and public health advocates like the American Heart Association are enthusiastically lauding the move. Salt producers and restaurant industry professionals, however, are not so pleased. Extra salty food does have a nasty habit of tasting extra delicious, and calling attention to the amount of sodium present in popular menu items could hurt businesses when people realize how unhealthy some of their favorite foods can be. Which is, of course, precisely why health officials think the warning labels are a good idea.
For context, your favorite chicken strips from TGI Friday’s can contain around 2,700 mg of sodium, and a foot-long Italian sub from Subway can run up to 2,980 mg. The average American consumes about 3,400 mg of salt each day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overconsumption of salt contributes to increased risk of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, and other health problems, most of which are the leading causes of death in the U.S.
Dishes that meet or surpass the sodium limit make up about ten percent of menu items at chain eateries that comprise about a third of NYC’s restaurant traffic. That’s a lot of super salty food being consumed.
Leading the Public Health Charge
This new regulation has real potential to increase public education about the relative healthfulness of foodstuffs and to significantly decrease the amount of super salty food consumed by Americans. Some people will definitely go on eating their favorite high-sodium menu items in all their dangerous deliciousness, but for a lot of folks, it’s presumably just a matter of knowing what you’re getting before you place an order.
The salty food warning labels mark another in a series of public health measures the Big Apple has taken in recent years in attempts to pioneer national improvements in healthful living. New York was among the first states to ban smoking in bars and restaurants, a regulation that caught on nationwide. But NYC’s attempted big soda ban in 2012 was overruled by courts as too far-reaching after a challenge from the beverage industry. Extra regulations do represent hoops to jump through that make it harder for restaurants to find success in the city. Hopefully if this one is challenged in court, restauranteurs and patrons alike will still try to take care of the healthfulness of their food options–regulation or no.
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New York City Slaps Warning Labels On Salty Food
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