Starting tomorrow, fast food restaurants in New York City will be required to put a saltshaker warning icon on menu items that have more than 2,300 milligrams of salt, or about a teaspoon, which is the recommended daily limit.
It's a rule that was approved by the Board of Health in September, and it's aimed at restaurants with 15 or more locations.
As many health experts will tell you, while salt is tasty and something our bodies do need, too much of it raises the risks of high blood pressure and heart problems.
So you may well wonder, will this menu change spread to the rest of the country? And will we be seeing even more changes coming with restaurant menus? Hard telling, of course, but I reached out to a number of nutritionists and people entrenched in the restaurant industry to get their take on what all of this means.
More menu changes are probably inevitable. Of course, I realize that's like predicting it will rain someday, but still, no less an authority than Bob Luz, CEO and president of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, says that laws dictating nutritional information on menus aren't ending any time soon.
“Many cities and states continue to look at regulating nutritional information for consumers at restaurants, and in Massachusetts we have seen the same trend," Lutz says. He adds that there's "nothing imminent" in menu labeling, his association is frequently talking to Boards of Health across the state.
The saltshaker icons probably won't have much of an impact. Even if it was nationwide. Frances Largeman-Roth, a Brooklyn-based RDN (registered dietitian nutritionist) and author of Eating in Color, says that she's all for the salt icon being on menus. But she doesn't envision the salt shaker icons hurting a lot of restaurants or helping all that many of its diners.
Her reasoning? "Studies show that posting the amount of calories on menus doesn’t deter folks from ordering high calorie menu options," Largeman-Roth says. "It’s great to know which menu items contain more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium, as much as you should get in a day, but I think it may only help people who are already interested in making better choices."
John Davie agrees. Davie is the president and CEO of Dining Alliance, a Boston-based food service purchasing group that has more than 20,000 restaurants as clients.
"When they did the calorie-posting requirement, it might have caused initial knee-jerk reactions, but people are going to go back to what they like," Davie says. "It’s good to inform them, but customers are creatures of habit."
Davie says he has no problem with the saltshaker icons and that it's important to provide consumers nutritional information on their food choices, but "ultimately, people are going to eat whatever the hell they want."
The salt icon doesn't go far enough. That's how Cheryl Forberg feels and is probably speaking for many nutritionists. Forberg is based out of Napa, California, and has a ton of credentials, including being a long-time nutritionist for the TV series, The Biggest Loser.
“This decision provides a teaching moment and thus a service to the customers," she says, adding that she wishes New York City would include the actual number of milligrams of sodium on the menu, along with the daily recommended level of sodium. Forberg also likes the idea of a website being listed "to share further background and metric explanations to customers who desire more info."
Of course, that would be one heck of a crowded menu. Still, Forberg has a point. An icon only alerts the customer that they're getting more than 2,300 milligrams of salt and doesn't say how much. If a bacon burger has 2,301 or 10,000 milligrams, you wouldn't know that.
Sugar icons may be
"Having sugar and salt icons together makes perfect sense because heart disease and diabetes go hand in hand," Wind says. "The
If you want to start checking out nutritional labels, Wind says that four grams of sugar is equal to one teaspoon of sugar.
Look for new flavorings. If the salt icon spreads to other cities' menus, Anne VanBeber, a professor of nutritional sciences at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, thinks it may help improve the taste of meals.
"I think it might be the push some chefs and restaurants need, to find alternate ways to build flavor," VanBeber says, adding: "I do believe that many chefs are in favor of reducing sodium intake in foods, and they are already working to alter recipes to accommodate this need."
Forget the icons. Restaurants should offer healthier portions and foods. That's what Largeman-Roth would like to see.
"I think to really make an impact, restaurants need to start offering up healthier items across the board and make them delicious and attractive—only then will there be a positive impact on consumers’ health," she says.
Nyree Dardarian agrees. Dardarian is a nutritionist and the director of the Center for Integrated Nutrition & Performance at Drexel University in Philadelphia. If she had her way, menus would go far beyond New York City mandating icons on the menu. She would like to see restaurants revamping their menus so that they would offer:
- More vegetables. "This will help people reach the recommended goal per day," Dardarian says. "Plus, more vegetables means fewer calories.
- More swap-options. That is, Dardarian would like to see more customers being able to do things like have fat-free milk with their latte, rather than regular milk. Substituting vegetables for french fries wouldn't be a bad idea either.
- Less food. "Half portions, for half-price," Dardarian says. And offering half the food at half price is important, she stresses. "When faced with a decision to purchase a colossal portion of food for only cents more than an appropriate portion, too many people choose the bigger portion," Dardarian says.
Will any of these changes wind up on a future menu? Some of them, like sugar icons and a push for slightly healthier foods, seem likely. But the idea of restaurants offering less food for less money, you'll probably want to take with – what else? – a grain of salt.
