[MyFoxNY reports:] Some New York City chefs and restaurant owners are taking aim at a bill introduced in the New York Legislature that, if passed, would ban the use of salt in restaurant cooking.
“No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises,” the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.
The legislation, which Assemblyman Felix Ortiz , D-Brooklyn, introduced on March 5, would fine restaurants $1,000 for each violation.
“The consumer needs to make their own health choices. Just as doctors and the occasional visit to a hospital can’t truly control how a person chooses to maintain their health, neither can chefs nor the occasional visit to a restaurant,” said Jeff Nathan, the executive chef and co-owner of Abigael’s on Broadway. “Modifying trans fats and sodium intake needs to be home based for optimal health. Regulating restaurants will not solve this health issue.”
Nathan is part of the group My Food My Choice , which calls itself a coalition of chefs, restaurant owners, and consumers, called the proposed law “absurd” in a press release issued on its Facebook page.
Ortiz has said the salt ban would allow restaurant patrons to decide how salty they want their meals to be.
“In this way, consumers have more control over the amount of sodium they intake, and are given the option to exercise healthier diets and healthier lifestyles,” Ortiz said, according to a Nation’s Restaurant News report.
But many chefs and restaurant owners said they are tired of politicians dictating what they can serve and what people can eat. They have opposed the city’s anti-sodium and anti-transfat campaigns.
“Chefs would be handcuffed in their food preparation, and many are already in open rebellion over this legislation,” said Orit Sklar, of My Food My Choice. “Ortiz and fellow anti-salt zealot Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City seek to undermine the food and restaurant business in the entire state.”
The American Heart Association encourages Americans to reduce their sodium intake and has advocated the reduction of sodium used by food manufacturers and restaurants by 50 percent over a 10-year period.
(Source: http://www.myfoxny.com/)
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12 Responses
I believe that would ban all kosher meat, and might require the state to prove (under the law of evidence)in Federal court that salt really is a health problem, rather than the scientfic fad du jour.
This is insane. They could just cut to the chase and shut down all restaurants instead. This is beyond absurd.
akuperma, there may be truth to your statement.
This is another way for the nanny state of his royal highness, the mayor, to reach into all of our lives where he doesn’t have any business just to make a few extra bucks in revenue.
#3
This is a proposed state law – the city has nothing to do with it. Also, it will substantially reduce revenues since the government collects sales tax on restaurant meals. From a fiscal perspective, it is idiotic.
#4 Do you really think that the Mayor has not been pushing for this (and many other restrictions on our lives and freedom and rights)
at the state and federal level for a long tims?
And of course it will lower revenues just like all the other anti business laws have been doing.
The liberal goal, is to totally destroy this country and replace it with Stalinist Russia instead.
I think that without salt food is bland and tasteless, and if someone eats in a restaurant, he wants good tasting food. Food should only be prepared saltfree by request, not imposed on people by a dictatorship that this country is becoming.
What’s the next step banning sugar? The slippery slope of government control.
The concern here should be how this mishugas will affect kosher meat.
Close all restuarants so people will have more money in their pockets. It is a great idea
However now since you have this money the government has a use for it by taxation
McDonalds is going to close
#5:
First they came for the trans fat, but I didn’t speak because I didn’t like the taste of trans fat.
Then they posted the calorie count, but I didn’t speak because I kinda liked it.
Then they came for the salt, and I didn’t speak because salt makes me thirsty.
Then they banned all political parties save a single one formed around a cult of personality, nationalized all industry, and began the wholesale mass slaughter of dissidents, and by that time there was no one left to speak up.
This is not justified based on science. Hopefully this proposal will die a quick death.
This is utterly ridiculous. They should just make the restaurants specify on the menu the level of sodium content in each food. They could show mg per serving, or even just create ratings of 1-5 to make it more easily understood by consumers.