"Uproar" greets EU salt regulatory effort
German bakers are up in arms, reports Judy Dempsey in the Feb. 26 NY Times .
European Union officials have offered to sit down with German bakers in an endeavor to defuse the latest uproar over proposed regulations from Brussels.
Echoing a recent furor over legislation dictating the size, shape and texture of fruits and vegetables, German bakers have criticized a proposal that would force a change in the salt content of their products.
The anger of the bakers — who condemned the bureaucrats in Brussels as “taste police” — seems to reflect a rising resentment of the European Union by a country that has long been among its biggest supporters.
The bakers' association declared:
“What the E.U. is doing amounts to stupid interference. ... “The E.U. is trying to change the way we bake our bread, change the way we market it — and of all things, change the taste of our bread. And all this is taking place just months before we go to the polls to elect a new European Parliament. This is exactly the kind of interference and overregulation by Brussels that annoys citizens and even makes the E.U. unpopular.”
This is noteworthy on two counts:
- Until now, food companies in Europe and North America acted like lapdogs of the food police, failing to challenge the fundamentally-flawed science behind "healthy" food definitions and taking the stance that food manufacturers can avoid being tarred for destroying their customers' health by rolling out new "healthy" foods; and
- The bakers' lobbying group, the Central Association of German Bakeries, has developed a new line of defense: preparing low-salt breads as the EU wants is energy inefficient, "undermining its goal of improving energy efficiency." The article quotes a Bavarian bakery spokesperson declaring: "We are being asked to change our recipes by reducing the level of salt. But that means we will have to bake the bread for longer and use more energy."
We don't know the validity of the energy efficiency argument, but it's heartening that food companies are awakening to the insatiable bureaucratic appetite for regulating personal dietary choices.
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