Wisconsin DOT has warned that state budget woes may require curtailing winter maintenance service to the state's seven populous southeastern counties. Facing a $6.5 billion deficit, CBS-TV affiliate Channel 58 in Milwaukee reported that WisDOT Secretary Frank Busalacchi forecasts one-third of Milwaukee County snowfighters will be laid off and essentially what this means is up to one-third of county highway workers will be laid off which means that everytime a plow or icing agent is needed on the highways, it will take twice as long to remove it." Local officials wrote Busalacchi calling the threat "not only irresponsible but also dangerous."
The Salt Institute weighed in, commenting:
How short-sighted would be budget cuts for snowfighting. World-class research at Marquette University documents an 88.3% reduction in injury crashes in the four hours after salt is applied -- so if it's delayed, people, predictably, will be injured and die. Research shows that inadequate snowfighting would cost Wisconsin workers $85 million every day, depress retail sales by $39 million a day and this slackened economic activity would shrink tax revenues by $11 million a day. That's not a "budget cut," that's classic "penny wise, pound foolish" mismanagement. Rapid and professional winter maintenance has earned Wisconsin valued economic development -- and jobs -- and kept Badger State citizens safe on winter roads. "Irresponsible" and "dangerous" indeed would be any reduction in snowfighting services.
WisDOT has already cut summer maintenance, the station reported. I was in Vancouver, BC last weekend for the annual meeting of the Transportation Association of Canada and there learned that budget-induced summer maintenance (don't mow the grass or maintain the right-of-way) has led to other dangers for drivers. One maintenance engineer pointed out that failure to do routine summer maintenance has led to trees invading the right of way, themselves a threat to run-off-the-road accidents that already represent about half of all highway crash fatalities. In addition, trees and shrubs close to the road provide cover for animals who dart out onto the roadway imperiling their own lives and in the case of deer -- or moose in Canada -- the lives of travelers.
Surely we can find more effective budget cuts somewhere. Applying salt pays for itself in the first half-hour after it's applied -- considering only the safety benefits. For more see our website .
A study released on-line this week in The Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology indicates that physiology, not public policy, will determine a human’s daily sodium intake. This research likely represents a important step forward in light of past and current efforts by government agencies and government funded organizations to set progressively restrictive guidelines for salt intake among U.S. citizens.
The study, Can Dietary Sodium Intake be Modified by Public Policy? (David A. McCarron, Joel C. Geerling, Alexandra G. Kazaks, Judith S. Stern), analyzed existing research to determine whether sodium or salt intake follows a pattern consistent with a range set by the brain to protect normal function of organs such the heart and kidney. The analysis is based upon 19,151 subjects studied in 62 previously published surveys and reflects the differing ‘food environments’ of 33 countries. The data reported documents that humans have a habitual sodium intake in the range of 2800 to 4600 mg/day with an average of 3600 mg/day. Currently, the U.S. consumes an average of about 3,500 mg/day.
The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee of the U.S. Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture considers 2,300 mg/day sodium to be a healthy maximum almost 20% lower than the minimum intake observed in the 19,000-plus subjects reported in this first-time analysis. In spite of that reality, the Committee is in the midst of a review to determine whether that recommendation should be lowered even further. An Institute of Medicine Committee is also considering a strategy to reduce dietary sodium.
The Committees should heed this study as they consider wasting more time and energy on policies which are unlikely to make American citizens any healthier. Time spent on draconian recommendations on a single ingredient would be better spent encouraging a healthful overall diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains. The Mediterranean diet is high in salt, yet the Mediterranean people are known for excellent cardiovascular health. A healthful overall diet, not a fixation on any single ingredient, is one of the secrets to maintaining good health.
See the Salt Institute's news release (pdf 29.80 kB) .
Hundreds of snowfighters gathered at the Ontario Good Roads Association’s Snow & Ice Colloquium earlier this week and celebrated the steady progress of their efforts to upgrade their salt management operations.
As the lead-off speaker, I pointed out that “Sustainable Salting” in current parlance is a direct evolutionary outgrowth of the Salt Institute’s Sensible Salting program begun in the 1960s. The real progress, however, in Canada, has taken place in the past decade with adoption and implementation of a Road Salts Code of Practice.
Oftentimes, satisfaction is achieved by adopting best management practices and basking in the glow that all that can be done is being done. Canada, however, has gone a step further: it has put in place an independent investigation of whether the recommended best practices are actually delivering environmental improvements. A half day of the two day conference heard from the scientists conducting those studies.
Dr. Michael Stone of the University of Waterloo reported a survey showing that more than 70% of Canadian snowfighting agencies have adopted written salt management plans (SMPs) governing their storage and application of salt (which represents 97% of the deicing materials used in the country). Unfortunately, surveys show that many SMPs may not be tied directly to operations; 43% haven’t been modified in the past five years. In another successful area, 63% of the agencies conduct annual operator training (though only 21% train snowfighting contractors). And more than half (51%) have identified “salt vulnerable areas” in their SMPs, areas where special salt management practices are utilized.
Overall, snowfighting technology and techniques are advancing sharply. Reports filed with Environment Canada show 1) salt usage is up sharply the past two winters, 2) 95% of the salt storage facilities are under cover and on impermeable pads, 3) 85% of snowfighting trucks use computerized ground-speed spreader controls, 4) 43% of the vehicles can do pre-wetting and 30% of the agencies employ anti-icing strategies.
Measurement not only leads to better accountability tomorrow, but helps today for us to see the need for more action in closing out antiquated, salt-wasting spreader technologies, giving better guidance for identification of vulnerable local ecosystems and training private sector snowfighters.
One of the joys of my commute is the opportunity to listen to stimulating recorded lectures as part of The Teaching Company's Great Courses series. I'm in the middle of part 2 of a course by Steven L. Goldman, Ph.D. on "Great Scientific Ideas That Changed the World."
Lecture 13 on "The birth of Modern Science" discusses the contribution of Francis Bacon, an Elizabethan Renaissance man who developed the modern experimental method. Bacon developed his new method to overcome what he considered the intellectual fallacies of his time which he called "idols" of which there were four: idols of the tribe, idols of the cave, idols of the marketplace and idols of the theater. An idol, in Bacon's terms, was a fascination or fixation without basis in fact and which interferes from acceptance of an accurate understanding of some phenomenon.
Consider how relevant these fallacies are to the current debate on salt and health.
Idols of the tribe are deceptive beliefs inherent in society; they are based on error because they interpret observed relationships through the eyes of (current) orthodox opinion.
Idols of the cave are errors rooted in personal experience and limited by that experience.
Idols of the marketplace are errors rooted in semantics; words conjure up conclusions so the use of improper descriptors induces misunderstanding.
Idols of the theater grow from sophistry, a body of opinion sustained and perpetuated by group acceptance and popularity, but based on false assumptions.
How do Bacon's "idols" relate to the ongoing controversy over salt?
Tribe -- the overwhelming popular majority accept fallacious reasoning that because salt and blood pressure are related and blood pressure and health outcomes are related, that lowering salt will improve health. The evidence shows the contrary.
Cave -- Blood pressure researchers can manipulate subjects' BP by varying salt intake; therefore, they reason that changing BP alone, by any means (and an easy "means" is changing salt intake) will produce better health. There is no evidence to support this conceit.
Marketplace -- It's too bad recently-deceased William Safire didn't address this point. Assertions of "excess dietary sodium" and conclusions that "we eat more salt than we need" are among the several sleights-of-hand employed by salt reduction activists. How do they know better than an individual's neural-hormonal system what is "too much" salt?
Theater -- There are several illustrations, but the easiest to see is the continued preoccupation with endorsement by "expert groups" of the policy recommendation to reduce dietary salt, all the while ignoring the lack of evidence of a health benefit.
We salute Francis Bacon for pioneering a modern scientific method. He would be right at home with his passionate advocacy in today's kerfuffel over dietary salt.
European "food companies guilty of misleading people with health claims" trumpets a headline in the October 2 issue of Medical News Today . The story reports the views of the UK-based activist group Which? quoting the group's chief policy advisor saying of an ongoing review of health claims by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA):
A huge number of food products claim to have health benefits, but finally we are separating the wheat from the chaff. Incredibly, only a third of health claims looked at by EFSA could be backed up.
Clearly many food companies are exploiting people's interest in improving their health, often over-charging them for alleged health benefits which can't be proved.
On a more positive note, there are foods using proven health claims, so it's vital that industry acts responsibly when making claims, and that the Food Standards Agency ensures the removal of misleading products. Only then can people be confident that the health claims on items they buy are genuine.
Medical News Today reports that EFSA has assessed over 500 claims.
Among the claims supported by Which? and found acceptable by EFSA are claims that reduced sodium foods are healthy. Food companies offering these products are pleased to cooperate to say these foods are healthier for consumers.
Talk about misleading people! EFSA (and Which?) ignore two yawning data gaps that fatally undermine the argument for salt reduction:
- There is no evidence that there is a net health benefit of reducing dietary salt (pdf 434.26 kB) (in fact, the single controlled trial of the health outcomes (pdf 802.65 kB) of salt reduction found a greater risk among those on low salt diets), and
- There is no evidence that those who choose low-salt foods (with "healthy" labels) consume lower sodium diets -- the evidence suggests salt appetite is an autonomic physiological response (pdf 517.27 kB) to the body's need for salt.
So, Which?, if food manufacturers are misleading consumers for unsubstantiated claims that their low-salt foods are healthier, you're no better for criticizing them while endorsing the very basis on which their misleading claims are based. As Wikipedia explains, the original idiom about "the pot calling the kettle black
" has an alternative, subtler interpretation from a century old poem that extends the critique beyond simple hypocrisy. The poem points out that the actual idiom is "The Pot Bottom Calling The Kettle Bottom Black" drawn from the fact that "the pot is sooty (being placed on a fire), while the kettle is clean and shiny (being placed on coals only), and hence when the pot accuses the kettle of being black, it is the pot’s own sooty reflection that it sees: the pot accuses the kettle of a fault that only the pot has, rather than one that they share." The observation that the root of the problem is that food companies are reflecting back the junk science of groups like EFSA and Which? properly assigns responsibility.
The poem found in "Maxwell's Elementary Grammar" school book, reads:
"Oho!' said the pot to the kettle;
"You are dirty and ugly and black!
Sure no one would think you were metal,
Except when you're given a crack."
"Not so! not so! kettle said to the pot;
"'Tis your own dirty image you see;
For I am so clean -without blemish or blot-
That your blackness is mirrored in me"
One nice thing about science is that observations on cause and effect can often be linked to one another. A case in point is the market study out this week which reported that the sales of potato chips have increased dramatically since our economy began to tank. According to the international market firm, Mintel , potato chip sales jumped a whopping 22% from 2007 to 2009. Analysts went on to forecast that as the economy improves potato chip sales will begin to taper off.
No surprise here. The near collapse of our economy has induced levels of consumer stress that have not been seen for decades . Psychological stress is characterized in the human body by high levels of circulating hormone, cortisol - also referred to as the "stress hormone ". Science has shown, both in animal models and in humans, that high levels of salt consumption are very effective in reducing levels of circulating cortisol .
Call them comfort foods or mood stabilizers, potato chips and other salty snacks are incredibly effective at reducing stress, a common condition in today's ever-changing world. The Mintel market report dramatically demonstrates the nutritional value of salt in coping with stress. Consumers know what to eat, they're just not sure why.
Snowfighting professionals agree: salt is the most cost-effective material to preserve safe winter roads and reliable mobility in the face of winter storms.
It comes with a pricetag, however, beyond the cost of the salt. Corrosion from all sources creates an estimated $8.29 billion in damages every year to U.S. bridges. The problem is most severe along the Gulf coast and in snowbelt states where chloride deicers enhance the corrosivity of roadway runoff. TRB estimates that 14% of U.S. bridges are structurally deficient, mostly because of corrosion.
These conclusions led the Transportation Research Board to review best practices for bridge construction and maintenance. On September 24, TRB published NCHRP Synthesis 398: Cathodic Protection for Life Extension of Existing Reinforced Concrete Bridge Elements.
The TRB report concludes that cathodic protection is "a viable corrosion control technology" and reiterates an FHWA policy statement that "cathodic protection is the only technology that can directly stop corrosion in reinforced concrete structures."
Pioneered 50 years ago in California and widely-used in Florida, Oregon and Missouri (and in Canada), cathodic protection provides "a significantly larger extension in service life compared with other corrosion mitigation systems," TRB concludes. But it is not being widely used because of its higher initial costs and unfamiliarity of highway agencies with its benefits, particularly because "corrosion is a moderate problem for the majority of the departments."
The report endorses use of cathodic protection on all bridges with marine exposure in coastal areas and for bridges on roadways on which five tons of deicing salt is applied each year per lane-mile.
Making the roadway environment compatible with use of the most cost-effective winter maintenance tool sounds like a good investment to us.
You've all heard about one-armed economists (on the one hand.....on the other hand....). So it's hardly news that economists do not agree with a basic premise of Obamacare, namely, that "prevention" will save money. We did a blog post back in June when Time magazine featured the issue. Proponents responded last week when the New York Academy of Medicine released its Compendium of Proven Community-based Prevention Programs .
New York City has, of course, been waging war on salt in the city for a couple years now, so it's ironic that salt reduction is a glaring omission in the prevention policy recommendations.
Everyone does it. But with this book you can do it right, enjoy yourself and respect yourself in the morning. In short, this isn't just another how-to-do-it manual with "more than 50 recipes." Enjoy Valerie Aikman-Smith'sSalt: Cooking With the World's Favorite Seasoning .
The Scottish-born author is a trained chef, but works in Los Angeles as a "food stylist" for TV and movies (like "Titanic" and "Ocean's Eleven"). Amazon.com's blurb offers:
Salt in all its forms is a hot culinary trend. It enhances any savory dish and makes the taste buds sing. In this beautiful book, top cook and food stylist Valerie Aikman-Smith introduces you to all kinds of salts, from Hawaiian Red Alaea Salt to Jurassic Salt. Her Appetizers include tasty Olive Suppli, Gazpacho with Smoked Salted Croutons, and fun Popcorn with Chili Salt. In Entrees, you'll find the classic salt-crust method with new twists, such as indian-spiced Lamb in a Salt Crust, or how about Spicy Pork Satay with Roast Salted Peanut Sauce, or a refreshing Peach Caprese with Curry Salt? In Sides and Breads you'll discover tempting flatbreads and pretzel bites, and you'll be captivated by Valerie's Drinks and Sweets. How about a Black Olive Martini or Bloody Mary with Celery Salt, or a Chocolate Chip Cookie with Sea Salt? Be amazed as the flavors mingle in your mouth. Finally, a chapter of Rubs, Butters, and Brines offers you dozens of versatile ways to jazz up grilled meat or fish, vegetable crudites or potato chips, or use them with your own recipes. Once you've tried Valerie's stunning recipes you will never look at salt in the same way again.
A new book is out celebrating bacon. Bacon: A Salty Survey of Everybody's Favorite Meat was written by Heather Lauer, whose blog "Bacon Unwrapped " is very popular. In case you didn't know, there are bacon festivals all around the country and celebrations of every form of bacon under the sun. Bacon lollipops. Bacon ties. Chocolate-covered bacon. It seems that there isn't anything that isn't better with bacon. The key to bacon is salt, of course. And that is precisely why it tastes so good!
It is difficult to imagine how many lives have been saved over thousands of years by the process of preserving meat with salt. Heather covers the history of bacon in the book along with many interesting facts.
I must admit, that about a year a half ago I met with Heather for lunch (we have known each other through our public affairs/public policy work) and I was surprised to hear that she had a bacon blog and was in the process of writing a book about bacon. Not being a foodie, I couldn't imagine reading an entire book about food, but I'm a convert. In my opinion, bacon is right up there with chocolate in the perfect food category.
The Mediterranean diet (pdf 592.83 kB) is unlike any other because it's a way to eat for maintaining weight loss. The basics are fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes, pasta products. The anchor of the diet is olive oil and the often ignored nutrient is salt which is olive oil's alter ego. Salt is a main ingredient in making the staples of the Mediteranean Diet such as olives, prosciutto, and boiling pasta. Without salt the diet would not be palatable. So take this article to heart and then take someone out to lunch or dinner. As they say in Italy: "Buon appetito!"
Irving Kristol died yesterday, one of the great political thinkers of the last half of the 20th century. Among his sage observations was this from 1972:
"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling," wrote Oscar Wilde, and I would like to suggest that the same can be said for bad politics. . . .
It seems to me that the politics of liberal reform, in recent years, shows many of the same characteristics as amateur poetry. It has been more concerned with the kind of symbolic action that gratifies the passions of the reformer rather than with the efficacy of the reforms themselves. Indeed, the outstanding characteristic of what we call "the New Politics" is precisely its insistence on the overwhelming importance of revealing, in the public realm, one's intense feelings—we must "care," we must "be concerned," we must be "committed." Unsurprisingly, this goes along with an immense indifference to consequences, to positive results or the lack thereof.
The insight about American politics has endured through the intervening years. It might usefully be extended beyond politics to policy.
Consider public health nutrition. The "I feel your pain" approach is to pretend that each and every nutrition-related ailment can be "cured" or its onset prevented by modifying one's diet.
Hubris. Overreach. We CAN improve our diets. Certainly. We can improve health outcomes with dietary interventions. Certainly. But the simplistic single-nutrient focus and, worse, the notion of "good" and "bad" foods trumping the science clearly showing it's diets and not individual foods that are important, have taken us down the wrong road.
We need to get back to the science and retreat from amateur poetry, symbolic politics and posturing on nutrition advocacy -- like the simple-minded calls for salt reduction in the absence of evidence of any health benefit and, even, any proven sustainable change in population sodium intakes within the normal range (what renowned Swedish researcher Bjorn Folkow termed the "hygienic safety range" for sodium, 2,300 - 4,600 or even 5,750 mg/day sodium -- the US consumes a world-average 3,500 mg/day).
Genuine feelings of wanting to help solve problems in public health nutrition cannot remain symbolic gestures, they must recognize human physiology and be rooted in science, not compassionate nannyism.
It is unfortunate that the recent USGS study – a straightforward assessment of chlorides in groundwater areas in 19 states - was spun in a sensational manner in the USGS press release . The press release stated that
Chloride levels above the recommended federal criteria set to protect aquatic life were found in more than 40 percent of urban streams tested. Elevated chloride can inhibit plant growth, impair reproduction, and reduce the diversity of organisms in streams.
The actual report itself is far more sober, as seen in the report summary:
Groundwater-quality data from a sampling of 1,329 wells in 19 states were analyzed. Chloride concentrations were greater than the secondary maximum contaminant level established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of 250 milligrams per liter in 2.5 percent of samples from 797 shallow monitoring wells and in 1.7 percent of samples from 532 drinking-water supply wells.
Of course, a number of newspapers didn't bother to read the report and simply quoted the press release. A careful reading of the report indicates that the 40% of urban areas that showed exceedance of the EPA limit did so only as exceptional events, not as routine discharges from these areas. For instance, the data in the report shows about 1/5th of the Minneapolis samples exceeding the EPA limit. Although regrettable, it can be understood that after particularly intense snow and ice events, the amounts of deicers added to roadways and consequently found in runoff will be greater than usual. We made this case clear to the newspapers that merely referred to the press release.
For decades, the Salt Institute has encouraged and supported a Sensible Salting program to ensure that the level of salt applied to roads is kept to the absolute minimum required to provide the public with the required level of safety and mobility during winter snow and ice events. We have actively supported programs of best practices with the specific goal of minimizing the environmental impacts of deicing and have supported the full and transparent review of these programs to ensure that they are actually working. And they are.
In keeping with our decades-long advocacy of Sensible Salting to reduce the environmental impact of salt application, the Salt Institute has been aware of the potential for intense snow and ice events to demand a large deicer application which could result in an exceptional exceedance, as has been noted in the USGS report. We remain at the forefront of mitigation technology and are currently supported the latest cutting-edge research at Guelph University specifically designed to eliminate the sort of post-event chloride spikes noted in the USGS study.
In addition, the latest science reveals that level of water hardness has a significant impact on chloride toxicity. In areas where the water is harder, chlorides have far less of an impact on the biological organisms than in soft water areas. In fact, most of the northern states have fairly hard water. That is why some of the more progressive states, like Iowa, are beginning to consider the actual chemistry of their waters in order to establish toxicity standards that more closely reflect scientific reality.
Lest this entire issue be taken out of perspective, it must be understood that we have to apply deicers to our roads in winter to ensure safety and mobility. A Marquette University study, demonstrated the unparalleled benefits of deicing with road salts by saving thousands of lives and preventing untold injuries, while allowing our economy and its distribution systems to continue operating during the winter months.
Nevertheless, we must continue to do whatever we can to ensure that the products and services that are employed to allow us to live and work under difficult winter conditions do not compromise the environment for future generations.
Rob Sharp, writing online for Independent.ie, asks, "Are you a cowering, diet-obsessed wreck, meticulously measuring your carbs and counting out individual grains of salt granules on to your plate?" He then offers hope--a book by professors Stanley Feldman and Vincent Marks who attack media scare tactics and so-called scientific wisdom, including misconceptions about salt. In his article Are scare stories bad for our health? he addresses the misguided scare tactics on salt:
Eating salt is not bad for us
Many scientists, think that too much salt can cause everything from heart attacks to strokes and kidney disease. Feldman and Marks believe the risks are overblown. This is because of our reliance, they say, on antiquated medical research in which patients were treated for high blood pressure with a lowered salt intake (before drugs were available).
"This seldom worked," they write. "Nevertheless, the myth has persisted." When results of 11 of the most scientifically credible studies of the effects of salt in the diet were analysed by the internationally recognised Cochrane Collaboration, the effect of salt on blood pressure was found to be negligible.
Salt is an essential food and without it we would die. Sweating is impossible without it, and strenuous exercise by those with depleted levels of salt can lead to overheating and death.
Just look at the Japanese, say the professors. They have double the European salt intake, yet have a longer life expectancy and less problem with blood pressure. "Lots of salt is nowhere near as bad as we are led to believe by campaigning groups," says Marks.
We might add that it is not just the Japanese that have high salt diets and positive health outcomes. It is widely known and accepted that the Mediterranean diet is high in salt, yet the Mediterranean people have the world's best cardiovascular health. The diet is so healthy that the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) used it as a model in their famous DASH Study (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension). The study confirmed that the Mediterranean/DASH diet was healthier than the typical American diet and effectively reduced blood pressure (BP).
In fact, we can take this one step further. Because a diet rich in vegetables is key to good health and because vegetables are much more flavorful with added salt, a healthy diet is much more easily realized by using salt, rather than trying to reduce it. As a mom, I spent years luring my children to eat their vegetables by adding salt and butter and, if necessary, ranch dressing. Hint for getting a finicky, rambunctious three year old boy to eat broccoli: Call the broccoli "trees", the salt "rain" and the ranch dressing a "river". Desperate times call for desperate measures! No damage done. He's a healthy 21 year-old now and has never referred to broccoli as trees in public, but he does like vegetables.
Message for the day: Scare stories might be bad for your health.
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