Once the health freaks are offered an inch of appeasement, they see it as an invitation to come back and steal a parsec. The beast never stops, never takes a final offer, it always, always comes back for more. And, having discovered a winning formula it will repackage it for the next assault on liberty. The methods used against smokers are re branded and rolled out when attacking drinkers. Now, the same methods are being used against those of us who like a bit of salt on our chips.
Stockport businesses are removing salt shakers from counters and table tops in their eateries to help improve public health.
They are saying no to extra salt by encouraging their customers to taste their food before adding more salt.
The businesses concerned rather than robustly telling the health fascists to mind their own business, have cravenly kowtowed in the face of overwhelming junk science.
The term used for these attacks on the liberty of the individual to intake whatever substances he chooses is “public health”. This is not, never has been, and never will be, a public health issue. When John Snow disputed the miasma theory and discovered contamination at the Broad Street pump as the source of the cholera epidemic that was afflicting London in the 1850s, he was dealing with a public health matter. This was something that directly affected the health of the public and a central approach was the right one for dealing with it.
What we eat, smoke or drink has nothing to do with public health. This is because it does not affect the public – merely the individual indulging. To claim that these things are a public health issue is to twist language in a manner unimagined even by Orwell. If I choose to smoke, drink alcohol, eat fatty foods or smother my food in salt, any adverse effects will affect me, and me alone, not the public. I am an informed adult, therefore I am aware of the risks involved. I am, for example, capable of recognising junk science when it is thrust upon me, so realise that if I stand next to a smoker, I will remain unaffected by the wisp of smoke that may blow in my direction – and if I don’t like it, I can always move away. I am fully aware that alcohol in moderation is not only not dangerous, it may even be beneficial – and the so-called maximum recommended limits are nothing more than fantasy plucked from the air. I am also aware that so-called junk foods are not only not harmful in moderate quantities, but contain essential proteins. And, finally, the object under discussion; salt. This is an essential ingredient for our health. We cannot get by without it. If you have too little salt, your cells will be unable to retain fluids and will collapse. If this happens, you die. If you have too much salt, you excrete it. The only time that too much salt is a health issue is if you already suffer hypertension. For everyone else, there is nothing wrong with having salt in cooking and sprinkled on food to taste. There is no such thing as a safe limit – it all depends on your individual health. If you are healthy, you can have as much as you choose. Yes, sure, enough of it can be a poison, but so can too much water – it’s the dose that makes the poison and it takes an awful lot of salt or water to cause death. If you suffer from hypertension, seek medical advice.
We need salt in our diet, that is why we like it. It is not up to councils to treat us like infants and hide it away, and individuals and private businesses should start showing some backbone and stand up to these control freaks when they do. If they receive a resounding “no” every time they try these tricks, then eventually they might start to get the message. If we cave in each time they do this, they simply come back for more. Today, salt, tomorrow, meat, butter, milk and eggs.
I travel to the north west on a regular basis and as of now, will make a point of not eating in the five businesses that have signed up to this deal:
The five who’ve signed up so far are Chilli Massalla and Last Monsoon, both in Edgeley; Gatley Tandoori Restaurant; and Startpoint and Taylor’s Fish and Chips, both in Woodley Precinct.
To be fair, the only one where I would want to put salt on the meal is the fish and chips – fish and chips just beg for bags of salt and vinegar. That, however, is not the issue. It is up to me to make the choice and having the salt hidden away so that I have to make a point of asking is treating me like a child and I resent that. I will not do business with organisations that insist upon treating me like an infant. And I will not have prodnose councils deciding my dietary choices for me. It’s my body, so I decide, not them.
It’s a rhetorical question, but just how much of this control freakery must happen before the British people wake up and smell the coffee? While we are still allowed coffee that is.
Dick Puddlecote and Big Brother Watch also comment.
“To be fair, the only one where I would want to put salt on the meal is the fish and chips – fish and chips just beg for bags of salt and vinegar.”
I thought that was odd too. I’ve never so much as reached for salt or pepper with a curry or a Chinese.
The thing that annoyed me, more so than the council nannying, was the willing co-operation (not to say, collaboration) of the chippy owner…
Indeed so – the willingness of these businesses to collaborate with their oppressors is frightening.
“…rather than robustly telling the health fascists to mind their own business…”
I don’t think you can blame them, really. They know – who better? – how much power these people have.
You probably can’t imagine how difficult the bureaucrats can make life for a small business, particularly one connected with food and catering.
I can imagine it all too well. However, that’s where resistance to this kind of nonsense has to start. No one is saying that it is easy. Resistance to totalitarian behaviour never is.
“I will not do business with organisations that insist upon treating me like an infant.”
With any luck, so will others to make these businesses think again about such a daft decision.
Ta for the link. 🙂
When business drops off because their customers are going elsewhere, I think this ‘initiative’ will quietly die.
Same as last time I visited the UK, all those coffee shops that didn’t ‘allow’ the serving of cream had me going to one that did.
Their loss.
Every time I have a Chinese takeway I always want to drink lots of water afterwards because of the high level of salt as an ingredient – compared to my normal intake.
Will the council be telling the restaurants to cut out the salt in the food they make too?
I think we should let the council know that they missed this point. Because if they impose the restriction of salt from the ingredients as well, then the restuarants will not like being told how to cook.
And customers will either stop going to the restuarant because the food is tasteless or learn to always ask for the salt.
Don’t give ’em ideas…
Much the same as you with the salt and vinegar LR. Sadly kidney stones has put the brakes on my crisp habit, although not while in the tropics – that’s when I really do need that extra salt.
I notice that some cafes have also stopped putting ketchup and brown sauce on the tables. Maybe a sign of austere times and these 5 establishments are just trying to put a gloss on a bit of penny pinching.
I could live with the penny pinching. Although they can always pass the cost onto the customer.
That said, this is part of the ASK campaign that is supposed to make us think twice about our salt intake. Although confined to the North West – Manchester/Cheshire area, expect to see it in a venue near you soon.
There’s a bsuiness opportunity here. Stand out side the chippy at busy times with a large container of salt. You won’t make much but enough to buy some chips. Then pour the salt on them inside the shop.
Heh! 👿
What’s the betting that if you did stand outside the chippy with a salt container some prat would call the police who would nick you for causing an obstruction or having the wrong attitude in a public place or something.
Or selling a controlled substance. It may not be yet…
Very interestingly, someone who ADVOCATED a dicatorial regime (a theocracy) was one of the first to spot this anomaly….
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
C.S.Lewis
Yes, the C S Lewis quote crops up a lot in these discussions.
Equally chilling is an account of the first true “Police State” (as opposed to a simple tyrrany)
The RC church invented the earlier, after Classical models, but the first real police state was Calvin’s Geneva, where:
“It was as if the walls of all the houses were turned to glass”.