Food Thuggery from Our Overlords

 

Big Food does as it wants; that is hardly news.  We are somewhat used to corporations of all kinds doing as they please.  In the food world, they have had the help of Congress and the FDA to extend those abilities.  And, they are doing something again.

In an effort to remove sodium chloride from our food choices, they propose to change the name of potassium chloride to potassium salt.  It is, in fact, a salt, but that can be misleading if you don’t know what a salt is.  What makes a compound a salt is ionic bonding and being pH neutral.  Sodium chloride is table salt and is safe to eat: potassium cyanide and is not safe.  Being a salt is a chemical term and does not, in itself, denote safe to eat.

Potassium is vital to life and that’s not really the issue.  More interference in our food, more changing the terms seems more of a problem.  As an individual example, it seems relatively harmless.  But how many relatively harmless interferences, obfuscations and deceptions does it take to be a concern?  I suggest that line is behind us.  Selling California Champagne, an anomaly, is cute.  Selling sushi which is not the fish you think it is can be very dangerous.

Here is the email which started this.

For more reading about how the names of foods are changed, or the foods are changed, or a mix of both, and some very disturbing information about sushi, read Real Food/Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating here.