Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Salt Regulation by FDA

Government intrusion is growing at an accelerated rate and why wouldn’t it? There are no brakes on the locomotive which once responded to the people; all the safeties have been removed. The FDA actually believes it has the authority to regulate the consumption of salt and, for the first time, will put “legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in processed foods” , according to a Reuters story in the Washington Post.

“The government plans to work with the food industry and health experts to reduce sodium gradually over a period of years to ratchet down sodium consumption, the newspaper said, citing U.S. Food and Drug Administration sources.”


If you understand how Democrats, with a lop sided balance of power in both Congress and Senate, ‘work with’ the Republicans, knowing there is a rubber stamp waiting in the White House, it shouldn’t be hard to figure out how the FDA will ‘work with’ the food industry, “Shut up and do what you’re told”. You can bet this will eventually be tied to health care reform and the need to cut back once medical care services have to be rationed.

This is no different than the EPA declaration that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant in order to gain control over industry, production and consumption. Cap & Trade legislation or not, the EPA will have its way now that the stars have aligned favorably.


Maybe Obama has fallen for his own press coverage. I heard rumors Obama planned to visit the next Tea Party at the Mall there in Washington with a basket containing five loaves of bread and only two fish.  Once everyone had eaten he’d collect the fragments which remained. Of course you’d better not want salt on your fish…


This article has been cross posted to The Moral Liberal , a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government, & The American Constitution”.

7 comments:

The probligo said...

Sounds vaguely familiar... like the addition of Folic Acid to bread in order to reduce the number of "neural tube defect" births, and putting a tax on fast foods based on the amount of fat...

Quietly pointing out just how ridiculous and counter-productive this kind of idiocy is, and the likely impact on the electorate can work wonders.

Our problem is that many of the controls in NZ are imposed from Australia due to our CER agreement...

The probligo said...

I meant to add -

I am probably one of the few who asks "hold the salt" at a fish and chip shop - and who has rejected a meal ("recook it and HOLD THE SALT") because they had put on far too much salt.

T. F. Stern said...

Probligo, I already have a mother and a wife; what do I need the FDA for? lol

David said...

I'm with Jerry Pournelle on the FDA:

"...the FDA shouldn't be in the enforcement business. Truth in advertising: if the jar says "Snake Oil" then by jiminy it should contain oil squeezed out of snakes; recommendations: The FDA believes this is worthless. But the whole prescription bureaucracy seems to me to do more harm than good. Of course the purpose is to protect citizens who aren't as smart as the FDA thinks it is, and who might not pay attention to the recommendations of the FDA so there must be federal enforcement including raids with machine guns on vitamin stores... "

I have little confidence in the FDA at all, though slightly more than in almost any other "feddle gummint" agency--especially those supposedly tasked with law enforcement (I always want to type "law enfarcement" when thinking of the "feddle gummint" organs of anarcho-tyrrany).

MathewK said...

They've already started pushing for such regulation here TF, nanny wants to control more and more and more, she wants to be in charge of everything.

T. F. Stern said...

David, We are in agreement, there is danger in having the FDA act as if they were law enforcement.

On a similar process; several years ago the speed limits on major freeways were lowered, not because the speed was unsafe; but because they wanted to have less fuel consumption as part of the ecological movement. If you apply the same mindset as the FDA and the salt reduction issue; officers who issued tickets for going over the speed limit were enforcing a law that had nothing to do with speeding and instead covered an EPA mandate on fuel consumption.

This is the tyranny you mentioned.

T. F. Stern said...

MK, I read about that from the Probligo, nanny state tyranny is a world wide issue. There are so many folks who believe they are smarter than the average "joe" and willing to usurp individual agency in order to prove it.