The medical community is changing the story, once again.  You know the routine: canned tuna is bad…wait, scratch that; canned tuna has many healthy nutrients.  Carbs are bad…wait, scratch that; carbs are important in a balanced diet.  Eggs are bad…wait, scratch that, eggs are good for you.  Red meat is bad…wait, scratch that; high-protein diets help you lose weight. Wine is bad… 


You get the idea. 


The latest bad boy is salt.  Poor salt; blamed for so many terrible things.  Doctors have been lecturing us for years that we should all reduce our salt intake.  Food manufactures are being pressured to lower the salt content in their products.  New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg even spent taxpayer dollars on a super fancy ad campaign designed to encourage people to put down the salt shaker.


And of course, there’s the First Lady who regularly lectures restaurants for their “too big” portion sizes and for serving food with too much salt.  Her most recent victory in the war on salt was to strong-arm Wal-Mart into reducing the cost of low-salt grocery items.    


But…what’s this?  Salt isn’t the bad boy it’s supposed to be?


Shocker!


That’s right.  Now the medical field is suggesting salt may not be as bad for the heart as commonly believed. Researchers in the U.K. reviewed data from seven studies with nearly 6,500 participants who reduced their salt intake and found that while eating less salt did lower blood pressure, it did not reduce the risk of dying or of having heart disease.


What this proves is that government shouldn’t be in the business of regulating food when it relies on fluid research. One need only look at the trends in dieting (remember Snackwells and the low-fat dieting craze of the 90s only to be replaced with the strict no-carb, high-fat, bacon-heavy diet craze a decade later?) to know that the human body is still a mystery to the medical field and that theories on how to stay healthy and lose weight change regularly. 


Basing regulations on fast moving and ever-changing science will only accomplish one thing: it will increase the price of food.


That’s enough to make us all want to order a margarita, on the rocks…with SALT!