Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants New Yorkers and local businesses to hold the salt.
On Jan. 11, Bloomberg announced the National Salt Reduction Initiative, a plan aimed at reducing the amount of salt that restaurants and food manufacturing companies put in their food by 25 percent over five years.
Citing the negative health impacts of consuming large amounts of sodium, especially high blood pressure, the initiative sets goals for sodium reduction for certain categories of foods.
So far, these benchmarks are voluntary, and New York City restaurants and food processing companies will not be penalized for failing to meet the goals.
“Americans consume roughly twice the recommended limit of salt each day—causing widespread high blood pressure and placing millions at risk of heart attack and stroke,” according to a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene press release on the initiative. The release says that 80 percent of the sodium in Americans’ diets is added to foods before they are sold.
Some local restaurant owners said they supported the initiative, under certain conditions. Chandir Malik, owner of the Indian Café on Broadway at 108th Street, had mixed feelings. “I think that encouraging restaurants to reduce salt is a good idea, because this way people will get used to eating less salt, which is better for them.”
But Malik added that he is only in favor of the concept if it remains voluntary, which is the city’s plan at this time. “I think a law would add a socialist element to it. We all know that lack of sleep is not good for you—should we then regulate the hours of sleep we get each night? I think it is good that Bloomberg is encouraging us to reduce salt in our diets, but a law would be ridiculous,” he said.
Malik added that he keeps salt in his restaurant’s food low to allow customers to add it as they see fit. “Regardless of Mayor Bloomberg’s suggestion, we are already conscious of salt in our food,” he said.
For others, the intitiative goes too far. “I heard Mayor Bloomberg is also planning on regulating the number of breath intakes we can take per day,” joked Mike Zoulis, owner and manager of Tom’s Restaurant. “They’re eliminating fat, now salt … it just seems a bit dictatorial to me.”
Under the guidelines, a hamburger, which—according to the city Department of Health—has an average of 403 milligrams of sodium per 100 grams of burger, would be reduced to 330 milligrams of sodium.
Zoulis said that while he can understand a ban on smoking in public places, since it affects other people without their consent, he sees salt consumption as a personal choice. “If our food is too salty, our customers provide us with that feedback and we’ll fix it,” he said.
Joe Rice, general manager of Le Monde on Broadway at 112th Street, said he sees little cause for concern. Even if parts of the initiative became mandatory, reducing salt in his restaurant would be no real obstacle to his success, he said. “I think that really only the fast food places and the high end restaurants will be complaining. If this becomes a really big deal then we’ll talk about it. Right now, it’s not,” he said.
Dr. Richard Deckelbaum, director of Columbia’s Institute of Human Nutrition, sees the new guidelines as potentially effective and beneficial. “It is really healthy for kids, college students, and post-college. The guidelines point toward a good diet and healthy lifestyle.”
The city calls it a national initiative because the benchmarks would apply to packaged food, not only restaurant food. Manufacturers would have a strong financial incentive not to make different products for New York City, leading to reduced sodium in packaged food across the country.
According to Deckelbaum, salt is used excessively to preserve shelf life of prepackaged goods, and the key is preparing fresh food and making small steps toward healthier choices. “They are not saying to make the drastic change today or tomorrow, so it really makes a lot of sense,” he said.
He added that the initiative “shows leadership in New York City by going ahead with this program. I am a big fan.”
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