And a Pinch of Salt
Salt. Have you noticed what’s been happening with salt?
As a society we’ve adopted various social conventions and various mechanisms, both overt and oblique, to try and be all that we can be. We use a combination of laws, taboos, and social stratifications to try and coerce each other into doing what’s right and what’s best.
Of course we don’t always agree on what’s right and we don’t always know what’s best.
And God likes to point out, that sometimes what’s right for one person isn’t what’s right for another. We end up having to strike compromises, and having to agree to disagree, and having to live in a world where some people think that a blow job counts against your virginity and some people think that it doesn’t.
But I digress.
And while I like digressing, I realize it’s not for everybody.
So one of the things that God and I noticed is the changing place of salt in our society. Good old sodium chloride. We need a certain amount of it in our diet, and so we’ve evolved to rather like the taste of it. But we’ve discovered that it’s a major contributor to high blood pressure, and now that we’ve eradicated a lot of diseases, solidified our place at the top of the food chain, and generally learned how we can live our lives free from death by more and more unnatural causes, we’re getting around to being very concerned about things like high blood pressure. So we’ve put a lot of social pressure into suggesting we should maybe go a little easy on the salt.
Even foods that aren’t actually labeled as “low in sodium” have gotten on to the bandwagon and reduced, at least somewhat, the amount of salt they contain. We’ve learned to experiment with spices and also found other ways to enhance our cooking, without resorting to piling on the salt. All in all, we’ve made headway.
But we still have an industry that’s devoted to the production and distribution of food grade salt. So what are they to do? Well, they’ve actually figured that out. If salt isn’t wanted on our healthy foods, well, why not put it in dessert? And now we have “salted caramel” as one of the hot new candies, finding it’s way into our snack bowls and our ice cream flavors. And I don’t mind because it’s actually pretty good.
Just, please don’t tell the tobacco people. I really don’t want to see “salted caramel, now with nicotine” on my store shelves.
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