The War on Salt… Crystallized.

This administration is kind of anti-choice, isn’t it?

This article (H/T: The New Ledger) says absolutely everything that you need to know about the messianic zealots assailing the Food and Drug Administration right now. Quick context: somebody in North Carolina (quick, North Carolinian voters: how does your legislator feel about wrecking the taste of your bacon?) noticed that the FDA is gearing up a set of rules on sodium levels that might have an adverse effect on North Carolinian foodstuffs, like country hams.  And by ‘adverse’ I mean ‘endangers consumers’:

Candace Cansler, director of the National Country Ham Association, said U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations require country hams to have at least 4 percent salt content. Any less and the meat is subject to microbial contamination.

DeWitt said the FDA probably wouldn’t write a rule contradicting the USDA’s 4 percent minimum rule
, but it might set a salt content maximum at 6 or 7 percent.

Bolding mine.  Here is a hint for Christina Dewitt of the Institute of Medicine and [Oklahoma State University; my apologies for the error]: when somebody informs you that there needs to be a minimum level of a particular food additive present to prevent people from becoming infected, saying that the rule ‘probably’ won’t be changed is not very… smart, really.  It suggests a certain sort of close-minded, theocratic fanaticism that is no less worrisome for not being violent.  After all, the problem here is not that Christina Dewitt wants to eat ham that is less sodium-enriched; she wants me to eat ham like that, too – whether I want to, or not.  And her definition of acceptable risk is broader than mine.  And her sect has some say in setting FDA standards, apparently.

Put another way: I don’t particularly care one way or another about the Institute of Medicine’s religious beliefs.  But I do care if they’re trying to turn said religious beliefs into public policy, particularly when doing so raises a health risk.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

7 thoughts on “The War on Salt… Crystallized.”

  1. Oklahoma STATE University, not the University of Oklahoma. Don’t go blaming us for Ms. Dewitt.

  2. No harm done. I’m sure we’ve got people just as stupid out there. Just not her in particular.

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