Salt is so basic to our existence we often forget its life-saving role as an essential nutrient; consider oral rehydration therapy which has saved millions of lives, particularly in Africa. But salt is not only essential to life, it plays a key role combatting mental retardation; consider the enormous achievement of iodized salt.
New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof does just that. In today's paper, he reviews the enormous paybacks of salt iodization, "Raising the World's I.Q ."
Salt does have a real downside, Kristof admits -- "it's so numbingly boring, few people pay attention to it or invest in it. (Or dare write about it!)." I guess we here at the Salt Institute are so insensate we didn't realize that salt was boring or unworthy of attention so count us among the few.
Thankfully, Kristof is one of the few as well. With his proselytizing, perhaps the few will become many.
