Posted on 03/01/2010 4:51:16 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Industry crackdown on salt could save U.S. billions 5:41pm EST
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Working with the food industry to cut salt intake by nearly 10 percent could prevent hundreds of thousands of heart attacks and strokes over several decades and save the U.S. government $32 billion in healthcare costs, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
Eating too much salt is a major cause of high blood pressure, which the Institute of Medicine, one of the National Academies of Sciences, last week declared a "neglected disease" that costs the U.S. health system $73 billion a year.
Several governments including the United States are looking for solutions to curb salt intake as a way to head off future heart attacks and strokes that help drain healthcare systems.
The study by a team at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in California used a computer model to measure the impact of two different scenarios for reducing salt intake on a population level -- a voluntary collaboration with the U.S. food industry and a national tax on salt.
They found the voluntary program, based on a similar salt-reduction campaign in Britain, to be the most effective.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Government crackdown they mean.
The market is doing the job just fine- whenever a company cuts the salt content of a product they practically shout it from the rooftops.
Well so would killing half the population of the USA reduce health care costs.
These losers at Rooooters need a new job, preferably in Saudi Arabia.
SARC/
Yeah...all I need is ANOTHER frakin government intervention into my and my family’s life....wonderfrakinful! =.=
I prefer my food to taste good rather than be healthy.
Should read:
Voter crackdown on politicians would save U.S. trillions.
And I have to go out and buy an extra box of salt.
They took Frosted Flakes and eliminated about half the sugar, now I have to add sugar. My reason for buying them to begin with was the fact that they were "frosted" and I understand perfectly well what they are frosted with.
Government, the business that keeps on taking.
Government DOESN'T save for government doesn't PRODUCE!
Government takes and uses (.)PERIOD!!!
Bump.
Thanks for the laugh! You are so right!
WRONG. I’m all for people living longer, but let’s be honest. The WORST THING that ever happened to Social Security and Medicare was when people stopped smoking and started living longer...and dieing more slowly. A quick death from lung cancer at age 60 did wonders for Social Security and Medicare...but not years in the hospital during age 90+.
I use sea salt. Is that healthier than the nasty stuff mined from caves and canyons?
Here’s how it’ll work. Gov’t decrees each American can injest no more than 5 (pick any number, the gov’t will)table spoons of salt per year. To enforce the law a new Salt Czar will be appointed with the power to monitor every American’s salt intake. If you exceed the gov’t madated limit the gov’t will refuse to pay for your health care—whether or not you ever contract a salt caused illness.
And then, and here’s the really cool part, the gov’t can then fine you for not having gov’t mandated medical insurance.
"Farmers would save $47.3 billion per year if they increased their cows' consumption of nitrogen by 10%," said Dewey Breedum, DVM. In other news, removing sorghum from feedstocks has been shown to increase the percentage of hogs that get to market by over 5%. |
More junk mathematics. They never figure in the cost of providing medical care for the wasting diseases they’ll ultimately get if the stuff that kills quickly doesn’t get ‘em.
Figure that in and it’s cheaper to let ‘em kill themselves with excess.
Next will come the MSM’s attacks on “Big Salt”.
People die younger and less soc & med outlays. Maybe during tax season the IRS could send french fry coupons to employers who would stuff them in the W-2 envelopes.
Male employees could get Hooter's coupons for Hooters beer and breast supper!
Hubba Hubba!
My reason for buying them to begin with was the fact that they were “frosted”
###########
LOL! Same reason I buy them. The way I see it, is you need to “opsonize” your food with such things as salt, sugar, etc. to make the food more easily “phagocytosed”...so to speak:)
This is long, but good. Sugar: The Bitter Truth
You are one of those "personal freedom" fruitcakes that thinks that government works for you instead of you working for the government aren't you! /s
Hey, Reuters, I’ve got a little secret for you. If you don’t die from one thing, you’ll die from another. If you quit smoking and don’t die from lung cancer, you’ll probably die of some even more expensive kind of cancer. If you eat less salt, you’ll probably die of salt deficiency.
NO WAY to even estimate how much money would be saved on health care.
Hell, if you REALLY want to save on health care, bring a ton of illegal aliens into the country and let them drive drunk without licenses. Then when they run over somebody, you’ll save ALL of the hospital costs! (Doing the job Americans won’t do.)
It is not the job of the government to crack down on salt.
Anything BIG can't be good!
That's why we have a big government to prevent it!....
Only in people whose hypertension is sensitive to salt. So instead of encouraging those people to take care of themselves and eat responsibly, the government wants to basically force the rest of us to eat less flavorful food. Bah!
Hey, it works with other conditions, too!
Next thing you know, the government will limit
the number of holes allowed in salt shaker lids.
I could not begin to estimate our salt intake, but my blood pressure never exceeded 110/70 until well into my forties. Sure glad the health department never got their mitts on me.
I look for ways to cook without salt these days because the doctor told me to cut salt. But with canned stuff, soups, deli meats, etc., it is almost impossible to buy stuff cooked without salt. A company, Del Monte, is coming out with low salt or no salt added to their canned stuff and I am grateful. But we need to tell companies to cut the salt or we won’t buy their products!
Just like when McDonalds eliminated the salt from their FFs, I just asked for salt packets and added my own. In the long run, I probably used more salt then was in the original recipe. ;-)
There goes the french fry and hard boiled egg industry...and my margaritas?! Never!
NaCl is NaCl.
The link doesn’t work.
A lot of food that is processed with a lot of sodium doesn't even taste salty.
Yeah, I find that to be true! I ate some french fries, complemented the waiter on the chef not using so much salt. Later, I got home, boy, did I ever have a salty taste in my mouth!
Salt that people put on food themselves isn't the problem. It's the sodium that's put into food by processing.
Um places that were once seas?
Government will do this by using the Ethanol Doctrine (my term).
The Ethanol Doctrine takes things that people could otherwise eat or drink, and instead uses them in our transportation system. They may or may not be heavily taxpayer subsidized.
So now, government will buy up 10% of the salt normally used in foods as flavor enhancers, and spread it out on our roads during the winter. At least in this case it won’t help destroy our engines and decrease our gas mileage.
Sea salt has a smaller proportion of sodium than table salt which is 100% sodium chloride. Plus sea salt has other minerals that are good for you.
I’m with you on that, but they just want to maximize the market. It’s easy enough to salt or sweeten to one’s own taste, not so easy to take the stuff out.
That’s excellent. Like the .gov toilets.
How about a one hole shaker. You will be getting excercise shaking while getting less salt in the process. Brilliant!
Sorry. Try this: Sugar: The Bitter Truth
Depends, do you wipe the fish poop off of it before using it?
Thanks for pointing that out. Sea salt has to be processed in order for it to contain significantly less sodium that table salt ( Google low sodium sea salt). There is also Morton’s lite salt that contains a significant amount of potassium chloride.
If the “government” would just leave salt content alone and let us all die of hypertension then they could save much more than $32 Billion in Social Security payments. /sarc
If they continue to mess with our food, they WILL instigate a full fledged rebellion!
Grab your pitchforks, tar & feathers, boys! We’re heading to Washington!
Didn`t that stuff come frome long since dried up seas that were covered up by geological deposits?What I`m wondering is; If salt is to be licensed, will State Hiway Departments in the snow belt have to comply? Thats going to be a b*tch for those of us who live up North,especially since the much hyped “Global Warming” of Al “The tree hugger`s Pal” Gore, seems to be turning into an ice age.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
Are your cows getting enough nitrogen? Lack of nitrogen is the number 1 cause of under-production in dairy cows, according to a study done by the Stanford University School of Veterinary Medicine.