In the salt business, there is seldom any question as to what a Dome is. High pressure on embedded salt deposits in the earth's crust causes the salt to flow up plastiically, often with a bulging top. The characteristic, rounded water-tower-shape formation, resulted in the name salt domes, particularly in the Golf Coast area. So it was with a bit of surprise that I read of the massive salt dome in UK's Ribble Valley, rural Lancashire's country escape. Of course, Lancashire is Northwest England's home of Liverpool and Manchester, so having access to a country retreat is a great benefit to all those working in that heavy industrial environment - but the headline read, Massive salt dome to keep roads safe. Was this a new source of deicing salt?
No, not, nyet!
The article described a marvelous new structure designed to house the salt required to keep the winter roads of Ribble Valley and the surrounding area open throughout the winter season. County councillor Tony Martin, cabinet member for sustainable development correctly characterized the benefits of winter salting by stating,
Nobody realises until it's not done one day.
The council made the investment in this huge structure to ensure an adequate supply of salt for the season. They wanted to make sure that the good people of industrial Lancashire continue to have access to that marvelous country retreat of Ribble Valley.
The word Dome originally meant house in is the English language. It came from the Latin domus, which itself was traced back to the Greek domos and Sanskrit dama. In Italian, the word duomo came to mean house of God, and since all Italian cathedrals had cupolas, the word dome attached itself to that bit on top.
Tunnel vision is described as the loss of peripheral vision resulting in a constricted circular tunnel-like field of vision. This week has seen a rash of newspaper articles on salt and hypertension in children that precisely reflects that idea. Stemming from the work of MacGregor and He of St. George's University of London and published in the November issue of Hypertension, a number of journalists have parroted the view that reducing salt intake is the single most important path to the future health of all people. Their research, found that a significant reduction of salt intake in children will bring down their systolic and diastolic blood pressures by as much as 1 millimeter of mercury each.
Dr. MacGregor has long espoused salt reduction as the silver bullet for hypertension and has published a number of books: The salt-free diet book; The Low-salt Diet Book; and Salt, Diet and Health: Neptune's Poisoned Chalice, on this issue. Like other researchers focused on reduction of salt consumption as the one answer to hypertension, he believes that research results contrary to his own are tainted by industry or the international salt conspiracy. Since the drop in blood pressure in this study was found to be small, the authors rationalized it by speculating that if it was extended into adulthood, it would have major public health implications in preventing cardiovascular disease in the future. Speculation comes easy to those with committed views, however, as Samuel Johnson once said, "When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four."
No one doubts the lifelong health benefits of eating more fruits and vegetables as recommended in the government's 5 a Day program or following the principles of the DASH diet for those concerned with hypertension. Rather than extolling the virtues of consuming more fruits and vegetables as the most effective and enduring path to improved health and reduced hypertension for people of all ages - MacGregor and company cannot get away from their singular focus on salt - a constricted, tunnel-like point of view. Could it be because a small amount of salt makes bitter vegetables so much more palatable for everyone, particularly youngsters and would result in far greater benefits (see, And Now For Something Completely Different.. .)? That might contradict everything they stand for.
And herein lies the problem. Scientists who are committed to a single idea can be very damaging. Francis Bacon, the father of modern science insisted that knowledge had to derive from dispassionate scientific experimentation, rather than the musings and speculations of philosophers. Zealots committed to a single idea are, almost by definition, incapable of objective science - neither in the design of proper experiments nor in the interpretation of results. The danger is that they parade around under the mantle of science and will never recognize their own bias. We see this everywhere - advocacy groups proclaiming to pursue science in the public's interests, yet subjectively pick and choose selective bits and pieces of data to serve the objects of their advocacy. Believing in science means practicing science and that means being objective. It leaves no room for individuals committed to a single idea and any information or advice that they develop must be treated with the intellectual reserve and caution it deserves - particularly when it come to the health of our children. Journalists should understand this before they serve as a vehicle for the dissemination of myth-information.
Never we're John Donne's words more appropriate than in today's global village. Operating in an international environment can only benefit from broad-based relationships and a knowledge of what is going on around the world. Louis Pasteur, whose public health achievements I've described in two textbooks once said, "Chance favors the prepared mind." In keeping with that precept, the Salt Institute has maintained a close relationship with The Salt Science Research Foundation (SSRF) in Japan, exchanging technical information and new developments, whenever possible. On October 16, Mr. Hitoshi Kusume, President of the Salt Science Research Foundation, and Mr. Kiyoshi Kawabata, Associate General Manager, visited the Salt Institute and had an excellent meeting with Dick Hanneman who assisted them with visits to other venues in North America.
While on a private visit to Japan, I took the opportunity to return the visit and dropped by the SSRF offices in Tokyo where I was kindly received by Mr. Kawabata and the Managing Director, Dr. Tsutomu Ikeda.
The SSRF has significant funding from the Japanese government and is able to sponsor a significant amout of truly cutting edge research in a variety of salt-related areas. Among the projects we had an opportunity to discuss were genetic analysis being carried out on a range of hypertension and salt-sensitivity areas, as well as salt tolerance/acclimatization and taste response research using the latest DNA microarray analysis methods. Whenever possible, we will continue to share and exchange knowlege with colleagues in the salt sector on both sides of the Atalantic and Pacific to everyone's mutual benefit.
The accession of Congressional Democrats, Daniel Ortega's Sandinistas and Margaret Chan are big news this week.
Speaker Pelosi, and likely-Majority Leader Reid promise to push the U.S. government in an undefined "new direction" and the patience of incoming Democratic committee chairs will test civility in Washington. Only a dramatic gesture from President Bush such as replacing Sec. of Defense Don Rumsfeld (with former US Sen. Sam Nunn) and/or accepting V-P Dick Cheney's resignation (to be replaced by Colin Powell) can preserve the President's ability to set the agenda effectively for the last two years of his term. As the phone company Verizon advertises: "Can you hear me now?" The election underscores the importance of listening in our democratic government.
In Nicaragua, it's probably "head for the exits" time as Daniel Ortega returns as president with a plurality in a multi-candidate field. When the Sandinistas ran the country from 1979-1990, according to the International Monetary Fund, per capita income in the country fell by two-thirds.
Dr. Margaret Chan won nomination as the new Director General of the World Health Organization, the first woman and first Chinese national to hold the post. She had been in charge of public health in Hong Kong. Passed over, appropriately, was Finland's Pekka Pushka, who spearheaded WHO's unfortunate foray into publlic health nutrition with its Global Strategy embodied in Report 916.
I love this story in Burt Prelutsky's Townhall column today of the above title. We can all agree that our public health authorities, as well as our personal doctors, should avoid harming us with their interventions "on our behalf." But that really is setting the bar too low, isn't it?
I'm reminded of the furor a decade ago when the first studies began appearing examining whether reduced-salt diets actually delivered the improved health outcomes long forecast based on blood pressure models. They didn't. The first study, in fact, in 1995, found in a New York City medical practice, that diagnosed hypertensive patients who consumed low-salt diets actually had a 430% greater incidence of a heart attack than those on regular levels of salt intake. Of course the study had flaws, but it was what it was; and what it was was a wake-up call for The Establishment to re-examine its advocacy of reducing dietary sodium/salt. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute leaped into action, commissioning both internal and external research on the subject and produced consistent results: their research, they proclaimed, demonstrated that there was no elevated risk of reducing dietary sodium. Unstated, their research also clearly showed that there was no benefit of the reduced-salt diets. No matter. Their advocacy persisted, despite subsequent studies showing risk in the U.S. and Scottish populations. Still, today, one hears low-salt advocates claiming that while not everyone could conceivably benefit by reducing dietary salt, "at least no one could be harmed." We are unpersuaded and have called for a controlled trial of the health outcomes of low-salt diets, but, in the meantime, shouldn't we be a bit more concerned about the lack of efficacy? As Prelutsky says:
The first principle of the Hippocratic Oath, which all physicians are sworn to abide by, is: Do no harm. I don't want to be regarded as a nitpicker, but, as standards go, I'd say that's a pretty measly one.
Do no harm?! For crying out loud, Boy Scouts at least have to be prepared. Soldiers are expected to be all they can be, and while I think we'd all agree that's pretty vague as to specifics, the basic tone suggests that courage and self-sacrifice could well be part of the job description.
And although I don't know it for a fact, logic would dictate that being a member of the 4-H Club would at the very least require feeding the chickens, slopping the pigs, and washing one's hands before sitting down at the breakfast table.
I mean, what if something that inconsequential was the first principle of other occupations? What if accountants had to be admonished not to round off numbers to the nearest zero, and bus drivers were told to really knuckle down and not run into any lampposts? How would you like it if chefs graduating from culinary academies were handed their diplomas, their puffy white caps, and a friendly piece of advice from the dean along the lines of "Remember, arsenic is not a condiment"?
How about barbers? Would it put your mind to rest if you discovered that the first principle in their handbook was a reminder that they're not matadors, and it's not recommended that they take home a bagful of ears at the end of the day?
This is not to say that we should all stand around and ridicule physicians simply because the Mafia apparently has slightly higher expectations of its members than the AMA has. While we can all agree that the doctors' motto leaves something to be desired, things could be a lot worse. Take criminal defense attorneys. Please, as Henny Youngman used to say.
The Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) held its annual meeting last weekend in Boston and, according to the Chicago Tribune ,, agreed to "increase threats of litigation (against) food companies to improve the fare they offer. The group did not name the companies targeted with "tobacco-style litigation" seeking "huge fines" against (the) corporations."
Less adulatory is the description of the group by the consumer watchdog group ActivistCash.com . Says the group's website, PHAI
is a lawsuit lounge where food cops and trial lawyers swap strategies to litigate away consumers' food choices. Located in Boston with a board composed of faculty members from the Northeastern University School of Law and Tufts University School of Medicine, PHAI's goal is to attack food makers through lawsuits. Along the way, it is creating the next huge payday for trial lawyers, who are trying to demonize popular foods by using their template for attacking tobacco.
Self-interested or not, the threat is the latest in a barrage of charges that the food industry is trying to undermine the health of its customers. A nummber of reporters are in obvious sympathy. We'll see how the general public responds.
Is the "silly season" of US elections spilling over into anti-salt advocacy? Latest news release: longstanding anti-salt zealots in Finland assert that salt is responsible for the burst in global obesity.
In an article in Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases , Drs. Heikki Karppanen and Eero Mervaala assert that their study "refutes the frequently repeated claims that a comprehensive salt reduction would not produce any overall health benefits, or would even increase diseases and shorten the life span."
The Salt Institute has made the argument frequently (and, apparently, someone is listening!) that observational studies of health outcomes fail to identify population health benefits at levels common in the North American diet -- and advocating a controlled trial of reduced salt diets to determine whether they decrease heart attacks and cardiovascular mortality.
We still think that's the right question, but this claim that low-salt diets "would be a powerful means against obesity" is just over the top. Of course, if we made foods so unpalatable as to stop people from eating as much (as has been done with less-than-happy results in geriatric institutions) we might be able to link salt and body mass, but to assert that
The increased intake of salt, through induction of thirst with increased intake of high-energy beverages has obviously remarkably contributed to the increase of obesity in the United States.
with no evidence adduced to support the allegation is irresponsible.
The authors specifically cited Salt Institute statistics of U.S. salt sales saying that salt intake had increased "more than 50%" over a recent 15 year period. In response, I wrote Dr. Karppanen:
Your concern with increased salt intakes is obviously misplaced. While salt intakes in the U.S. have increased in the past 15 years, they track population increases. The U.S. population is 300 million today. We've added 50 million in population in those years. I know population growth is something a bit foreign to your part of the world, but we've experienced a lot of immigration and natural population growth. Even so, our latest figures show food salt sales growth up 41%, not "over 50%" and while greater than the population growth, this does not account for US food salt which is exported in US processed foods, salt used in food processing and wastage. The better metric, as I'm sure you agree, is 24-hour urines and those in study after study show that baseline salt intakes per capita are unchanging generation after generation.
Of course, correlation is not causation, but to correlate salt intake with the rise in obesity ignores evidence that those on higher salt diets are actually leaner than other Americans. Just as obviously, the longest-lived national population in the world, the Japanese, have much higher salt intakes than Americans. Your "obvious" correlation of salt intake and thirst and obesity makes interesting headlines, but sorry science.
The Finns claim salt reduction is responsible for increasing the life span of their compatriots by 7-8 years over the past one-third century. Let's keep in mind, Romans lived to an average age of 28. The Yanomamo people of the Brazilian jungles who are touted as low-salt-consuming models for our diet live only into their 30s. A century ago, Americans lived only 48 years on average while a century later we live 77 years on average. If Finland's medical and nutrition improvements parallel Americans, 7-8 years additional longevity over the past 30 years is just average, nothing to crow about -- nor to try to assign causation when none can be adduced from ecologic data.
Unfortunately, while preposterous charges amongst American politicians will likely abate after November 7th, there is no apparent reprieve from the anti-salt crowd.
Today's Washington Post reports a survey of medical researchers at the National Institutes of Health showing that two in five are looking for other jobs as a direct result of the Administration tightening-up conflict-of-interest regulations to prevent them from outside consulting.
Of the NIH personnel who supervise outside contract research, many fewer are exploring an exit. The Post notes they have fewer outside consulting opportunities.
We'd observe that the conflict-of-interest regulations don't go far enough in preventing in-house scientists from commisioning studies to deliver "evidence" for agency policy choices. Now that we've destroyed the myth that government-paid scientists are without blemish or bias, let's take the next step and get some independent review of the contract science by such means as reinvigorating the Data Quality Act.
One need not allege scientific fraud to be concerned over documented -- even confessed -- evidence that NIH-funded researchers have cooked the books on major research that supports the policy direction favored by the government. An investigative report in today's New York Times Magazine , "An Unwelcome Discovery" by Jeneen Interlandi, reports the scientific fraud perpetrated by Dr. Eric Poehlman of the University of Vermont in his studies on hormone replacement therapy after menopause, supported by the National Institutes of Health with results confirming that agency's policy choices. Dr. Poehlman is now in jail.
Given that the media regularly give government-funded researchers a free pass on conflict of interest and virtually indict researchers for receipt of drug company or food company funding, the case is instructive. I'd note that the Salt Institute has no horse in this race; we report on peer-reviewed science, but we do not fund the research.
Interlandi explains why the Poehlman story matters:
The scientific process is meant to be self-correcting. Peer review of scientific journals and the ability of scientists to replicate one another's results are supposed to weed out erroneous conclusions and preserve the integrity of the scientific record over time. But the Poehlman case shows how a committed cheater can elude detection for years by playing on the trust - and the self-interest - of his or her junior colleagues.
. . . .
The length of time that Poehlman perpetrated his fraud - 10 years - and its scope make his case unique, even among the most egregious examples of scientific misconduct. Some scientists believe that his ability to beat the system for so long had as much to do with the research topics he chose as with his aggressive tactics. His work was prominent, but none of his studies broke new scientific ground. (This may also be why no other scientists working in the field have retracted papers as a result of Poehlman's fraud.) By testing undisputed assumptions on popular topics, Poehlman attracted enough attention to maintain his status but not enough to invite suspicion. Moreover, replicating his longitudinal data would be expensive and difficult to do.
"Eric excelled at telling us what we wanted to hear," Matthews, Poehlman's former colleague, told me. "He published results that confirmed our predisposed hypotheses." Steven Heymsfield, an obesity researcher at Merck Pharmaceuticals in New Jersey, echoed Matthews's sentiments and added that Poehlman's success owed more to his business sense and charisma than to his aptitude as a scientist.
"In effect, he was a successful entrepreneur and not a brilliant thinker with revolutionary ideas," Heymsfield wrote me via e-mail. "But deans love people who bring in money and recognition to universities, so there is Eric."
At his sentencing hearing, Poehlman took responsibility for his actions, but between the lines, he seemed to be placing some blame on the system that requires principal investigators to raise money for their research through government grants.
"I had placed myself, in all honesty, in a situation, in an academic position which the amount of grants that you held basically determined one's self-worth," he told the court in June. "Everything flowed from that." With a lab full of people dependent on him for salaries, Poehlman said he convinced himself that altering some data was acceptable, even laudable. "With that grant I could pay people's salaries, which I was always very, very concerned about."
He continued: "I take full responsibility for the type of position that I had that was so grant-dependent. But it created a maladaptive behavior pattern. I was on a treadmill, and I couldn't get off."
Interlandi quotes NIH spokesperson Sally Jean Rockey on the lessons to be learned. Rockey
said that lost grant money was not the only, or even the most significant, cost incurred. "Science is incremental," she said, explaining that most scientific advances build on what came before. "When there's a break in the chain, all the links that follow that break can be compromised." Moreover, she said, fraud as extensive as Poehlman's would inevitably lead to further erosion of the public's trust in science. Poehlman's sentence, she said, should send a clear message to the scientific community and the public at large that fraud would not be tolerated.
The story is a tragedy at several levels, of course. Besides landing him in prison and utterly wasting $2.9 million in NIH taxpayer investment, the Poehlman fraud misdirected medical advice given to thousands of post-menopausal women. Further research has shown dramatic health risks for Hormone Replacement Therapy -- another expensive case where a plausible theory was undone by controlled health outcomes studies.
Again, recounting this tragic story is not an underhanded way of alleging scientific fraud on the part of the NIH and its cadre of university researchers. It does illustrate quite clearly, however, that effective safeguards to ensure research integrity are lacking. It should cause all of us to be concerned about the potential for analytic bias by researchers whose funding (and career health) are determined by a government agency with an unswerving policy proclivity.
In the case of the health impacts of dietary salt, NIH-funded researchers have generally lined up behind their funding agency's policy conclusions. NIH has protected the researchers it's funded against having to make their data available for independent professional review required under the federal Data Quality Act. Again, without alleging fraud, could it be that the policy bias of the federal funders has allowed another intervention, like Hormone Replacement Therapy, to be promoted to the public without the scientific rigor of a controlled trial?
Indeed, there has been no controlled trial of the health outcomes of dietary salt despite the vocal advocacy of salt reduction based on extrapolations of blood pressure data as if that was the only metabolic impact of cutting dietary salt. Could this story be parallel to the Poehlman one? Interlandi points that Poehlman "had derived predicted values for measurements using a complicated statistical model. His intention, he said, was to look at hypothetical outcomes that he would later compare to the actual results."
Let's be charitable: if public health policy is to be based on "predicted values" of health benefit derived from a "complicated statistical model" as has been the case built for reducing dietary salt, perhaps it's time for HHS to heed our call for a controlled clinical trial of the cardiovascular outcomes (mortality and the incidence of heart attacks and strokes) of the pet NIH theory that cutting salt will save lives. Let's see the evidence.
The Salt Institute has been singled out as an example of nefarious behind-the-scenes policy manipulation in a story in yesterday's Chicago Tribune .
The subject is Emergency Evacuation Report Card 2006 , a new study funded by the American Bus Association and produced and publicized by the American Highway Users Alliance (AHUA). The study shows that many large U.S. cities have deficient emergency plans to evacuate their populations. Our involvement? I sit on the AHUA Board.
It turns out that the Salt Institute has a major interest in Chicago's plans to move traffic smoothly and safely in emergencies -- if a dozen or more snowstorms every winter are emergencies. Fortunately, the City (unlike the Trib) takes these "emergencies" in stride with one of the most effective winter maintenance programs in North America.
The Trib advises "take the (AHUA) study with a large grain of salt." Fortunately, Chicagoans know better: they take every winter storm emergency with lots of grains of salt.
Despite massive public education efforts and ubiquitous nutrition labeling, consumers don't appreciate the caloric impact of their portion choices and, if they exercise, self-righteously overcompensate by increasing their food intake. So concludes Cornell University professor Brian Wansink, as reported in today's New York Times . (free registration required)
He found that while most people think they make only 15 food decisions a day, they are really making more than 200. And his research with college students show a wide variety and many unexpected bases for these decisions. He takes shots at those "at 30,000 feet" who call for changes in the food system, school lunches and farm policy and he pans "nutritionists and diet fanatics" who beat-up on individuals for "bad" food choices. His approach is a series of practical habits to chip away at calorie intake.
Dr. Wansink's research took no cognizance of salt intake, but his conclusions invite a salt-related question. Among the unrecognized, even unconscious, food choices may be an inherent salt appetite. Perhaps a future study.
The federal Office of Management and Budget has reported the final annual budget deficit was cut from an earlier-estimated $423 billion to "only" $248 billion. Where did the extra $175 billion come from. Not from spending cuts; from increased tax revenues.
What gives? Congress just extended many of the Bush tax cuts. The answer is of more than passing interest for U.S. manufacturers, many of whom have been able to cut their effective tax rates, especially when a voter decision on November 8 could well install Rep Charles Rangel (D-NY) in the key power role of chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. Rangel has pledged to repeal the Bush tax cuts, stating that he "can't think of one" that should be extended. Pres. Bush has indicated his continued intent to have his tax cuts made permanent . So the election will make a difference.
With lower rates, Congressional budgeteers calculate, tax revenues will be reduced reflecting the lower marginal rates. "Static scoring" is the technical term. Contrast that to the alternative economic model, "dynamic scoring" whereby the model is tweaked to accept the possibility that reduced RATES will stimulate additional economic activity and generate new, additional amounts of revenue.
Well, if today's deficit news proves anything besides the fact that economics is still an inexact science, it is that dynamic scoring needs to become the operating procedure of the Congressional Budget Office.
John Fund keeps a "Political Diary" at the Wall Street Journal . Yesterday's entry touched, tangentially, on mining; the message, however, is global.
Fund tells of Gheorge Lucian, "a 23-year-old unemployed Romanian miner" who is starring in the film "Mine Your Own Business" by filmmaking Irishman Phelim McAleer. A self-described environmentalist, McAleer went to Lucian's "poor village in Romania where environmentalists are fighting plans for a new gold mine." In a tale reminiscent of the successful environmentalist mugging of a new saltworks in Mexico's Baja California Sur a few years ago, the locals thought the new gold mine would be a community asset where they now face unemployment of 70% and were hoping for the 600 new jobs the facility would bring. McAleer was "mugged by reality," so to speak, reporting to London's Daily Mail:
"I found that almost everything the environmentalists were saying about the project was misleading, exaggerated or quite simply false. The village was already heavily polluted because of the 2,000 years of mining in the area. The mining company actually planned to clean up the existing mess. And the locals, rather than being forcibly resettled as the environmentalists claimed, were queuing up to sell their decrepit houses to the company which was paying well over the market rate."
This led McAleer to question the basis for his environmental activism and, ultimately, to producing "Mine Your Own Business," starring Lucian in a global quest to protect others from the fate of his Romanian village. Fund offers a couple examples: first, "Belgian environmentalist Francoise Heidebroek pompously tells Mr. Lucian that he and his fellow Romanian villagers prefer to use horses rather than cars, and to rely on 'traditional cattle raising, small agriculture, wood processing' to live" and, second, "an official of the World Wide Fund for Nature (in Madagascar) who argues that the poor are just as happy as the rich and then insists on showing Mr. Lucian his new $50,000 catamaran."
An enlightened McAleer concludes:
"The biggest threat to miners and their families comes from upper-class Western environmentalists. This film will shock and upset those who, like myself, unquestioningly believed environmentalists were a force for good in the world. It is sad that my fellow left-wingers and environmentalists who often come from the most developed countries are now so opposed to development."
Lest the lesson be lost, Fund headlines the Diary entry: "Who's the Real Polluter?" Surprisingly, he resisted the imagined impulse to find some way to include Al Gore in the piece.
A story in today's Washington Post introduced the concept of "Big Salt" -- ostensibly, the Salt Institute is a powerful political force in Washington (see earlier post). Later in the day, I had a chance to read another story that quotes another expert: "Salt is big."
What a difference between the stories.
Peggy Townsend's "Salt Rocks " story in the August 30 Santa Cruz Sentinel (yes, I'm a bit backed up because of travel) makes the point that gourmet salts are all the rage despite a few naysayers like Robert Wolke:
Chemistry professor and author of the book "What Einstein Told his Cook," Robert Wolke told the Associated Press that mineral concentrations in salt are so small they don't contribute any meaningful taste to food. No matter how "unprocessed" gourmet salt companies say their products are, the act of evaporation - whether by wind, sun or machine - purifies out most minerals. And while someone might be able to tell the difference between certain salts when tasted raw, the flavors fade to nothing when added to food.
A salt-using chef begs to differ:
Michael Rech, executive chef at the California Culinary Academy, says no one will taste the difference if you use fleur de sel in the water you are using to cook rice.
But use it in pate or foie gras "and you get this all-around flavor of salt which you don't get from an iodized salt," he says. And, when you want to set out salt for a dinner party, nothing is better than a small bowl of blushing pink Himalayan salt or stunning red Hawaiian salt crystals.
"All you need is a pinch of the gourmet salts," says Jennifer Jones, who owns Jones and Bones food and kitchen shop in Capitola. "It's like a good olive oil or a balsamic vinegar."
Jones, who carries 13 kinds of salts and offers free salt tastings, says customers have long sought out the fleur de sel but with the popularity of rubs and brining are now branching out even further to flavored salts like fennel salt and truffle salt to enhance their dishes.
People are dusting lavender salt on scrambled eggs and sprinkling truffle salt into mashed potatoes. They're brining fish in Hawaiian sea salt and rubbing salt seasoned with cranberry, rosemary and orange oil into turkey or chicken.
"Salt," says Jones, "is big."
That's the kind of "Big Salt" we like to talk about.
It was somewhat of a surprise to read the Washington Post's latest conspiracy theory - it must be the influence of the Da Vinci Code.
No one has ever disputed the impact of salt on blood pressure, nor for that matter has anyone ever disputed the impact of the myriad stresses we routinely encounter on blood pressure. There is, however, a great debate on whether these impacts per se lead to negative health events.
Hypertension is not a proxy for death, nor is it a surrogate for cardiac disease. Yet the anti-salt lobby ask us to believe it is, without the benefit of any scientific data. They rely exclusively on epidemiological studies using hypertension as an end point, ignoring all other variables. They rely on the famous Intersalt Study (Brit. Med J., v. 297, July, 1988) which compared per capita salt consumption to blood pressure in populations around the world. What they did not do was compare salt consumption to longevity. Using the same Intersalt data on salt consumption and the US Census Bureau data on life expectancy across the world, the resulting curve draws the inescapable conclusion that those populations which consume the most salt live the longest! No joke, no fudging figures - those populations which consume the most salt live the longest.
Of course, there are many other factors involved in longevity just as there are many other factors associated with blood pressure, but it still remains that the more salt a population consumes, the longer they live.
Indeed, one of the most outspoken and effective British anti-salt advocates, when confronted with data from Japan, whose citizens are amongst the highest per capita salt consumers in the world and also have the longest lifespan, dismissed this simply by stating that they would probably live even longer if they didn't eat so much salt. Some analysis, some science, no?
Before we all go around hoisting placards claiming Bland is Grand, let's consider the science and the data a bit more carefully.
