Among those commenting are:

Mark Kurlansky, author of the popular book Salt: A World History, writes "we eat what we like," adding: "Why is the city involved in an individual choice? There’s no such thing as secondhand salt."

Anyone who has ever visited a Communist country with a good cuisine — Cuba and Hungary (at least back in the old days) come to mind — would have seen that there are some things government is good at, like health care, and some things that it is terrible at, like restaurants.

There are a lot of things the city could be doing, like grappling with the real estate interests that are driving New Yorkers from their homes. Or limiting carbon emissions that are destroying the planet — actually Mayor Michael Bloomberg was going to do that one until the real estate interests complained that it would cost them money. But instead the mayor is saving us from salt.

Chris Kimball, publisher of Cook's Illustrated, adds:

I would criticize home cooks for not using enough salt. That, and using insufficient heat when sautéing, are probably the two major reasons why home-cooked foods are so often bland. Salt is even crucial in desserts, when a pinch in a chocolate cake, for example, heightens the underlying flavors of the chocolate. Salt is crucial to flavor development and is an important tool in any cooks repertoire.

Mimi Sheraton, former NYT food and restaurant critic, asks "What next? Bacon?" and opines:

Don’t limit salt in foods prepared in restaurants.

As someone who generally decries what I feel is increasingly inadequately salted foods in many restaurants, I am certainly against that kind of regulation. I already resent the absence of salt on upscale restaurant tables, a device by which chefs maintain control. Palates vary widely as to their perception of saltiness, season-to-taste being no idle admonition.

There is no hard and fast evidence of salt’s harmfulness to all alike; some bodies require more than others and all require some. Nevertheless, there is a big difference in salt content between prepared foods and freshly cooked restaurant foods. Limiting percentages of sodium in canned and packaged foods is a very good idea, but not in foods prepared in restaurants.

Alexandra Kazaks, nutrition professor, reviews the science explaining "Salt isn't always the culprit":

Healthy eating doesn’t mean fixating on any single ingredient.

Why is there such an interest in restricting dietary sodium? Dr. Thomas Farley, the New York City health commissioner, is quoted as saying, “We all consume way too much salt.” The idea that everyone should reduce sodium intake is based upon studies of individuals with sodium-related hypertension. Is it necessary to expand therapeutic guidelines to include healthy people also?

In a recent paper on which I was a co-author, “Can Dietary Sodium Intake Be Modified by Public Policy?” , in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, we presented data that suggest that physiological controls are responsible for sodium intake. We examined 24-hour urinary sodium excretion (the standard measure of daily sodium intake) data from more than 19,000 individuals from 33 countries.

The data revealed that this diverse group of people has a habitual sodium intake in the range of 2,800 to 4,600 mg/day with an average of 3600 mg/day. Currently, people in the U.S. consume about 3,500 mg/day.

The analysis provided an opportunity to help determine whether a normal range of sodium intake can be defined in humans, consistent with neuroscience research suggesting that salt consumption is a homeostatically-regulated process with a relatively narrow range.

As the lead author of the study, David McCarron, has said, “It is unrealistic to attempt to regulate America’s sodium consumption through public policy when it appears that our bodies naturally dictate how much sodium we consume to maintain a physiologically set normal range.”

Besides, even when concentrating on blood pressure management, a dietary sodium-potassium balance is more important than the effect of either single mineral. Fruits and vegetable are good sources of potassium. The fact is, a healthful overall diet that includes plenty of fruits and vegetables, not a fixation on any single ingredient, is the best way to achieve good health.