Salty Business

The food industry has again come under fire for the amount of salt used in products, as this survey found that sodium levels had remained ‘essentially the same’ over the past three years.

That the salt levels mined from processed food products are the same as they have been in the past is unsurprising. If you are a food company, you must produce products that have the shelf life of steel belted radials. Otherwise, there is no profit to be made if your food products are going bad all the time.

Given that, if a company is not using salt (to preserve the time before even bacteria can eat their products), they will certainly use something else (hydrogenated oils, BHT, BHA, Nitrates, etc).

The Center for Science in the Public Interest is fussing at food companies, sounding a bit shrill actually, saying that companies “could easily lower sodium levels and still have perfectly marketable products”.

Sure, and cigarette makers could easily make their carcinogens without the addictive nicotene — a drug that makes you want to smell like an ash tray. However, they wouldn’t sell any product then, so don’t expect that any time soon.

If you purchase cigarettes, you know what you’re getting. If you purchase processed food products, you also know what you’re getting. It may not be a bad idea to have food companies label their foods for the amount of salt (in square meters) they are packing into their Ramen Noodles, but no one should guess that complaints about what they should or should not do with their own products is going to have much of an effect.

A good solution is to just eat normal food, made at home. Just a suggestion.