THE SUPER BOWL AND THE SALT CONSPIRACY

It is the marketing guys of this world who always reveal the true story behind everything, ranging from how the Pillsbury Dough Boy was created to how Joe Camel was a Trojan Horse. In fact, as I think about it, I've never met a consumer marketing guy who did not claim to have invented someone like Charlie Tuna or the Marlboro Man. So too was this true for Salt Strategy. It was a marketing team that introduced me to the Beer & Pretzel Pump or, B&PP, as they called it. They revealed it was a strategy for increasing beer sales. Said it was brilliant and had become kind of a standard industry practice. Of course, one claimed to have invented it. I thought it should have been called a tactic but then what do I know? They're the ones who are experts at selling to our hidden needs and desires .

The Pump works like this. The promoters, advisers, marketeers, beer pimps (call them what you will) who make a living selling beer as distributors advise those serving beer over the counter to keep customers well supplied with pretzels at the bar or tables at which they are consuming beverages. The idea is to create this never-ending loop of events: 1. customers eat free pretzels, which are loaded with salt, 2. the salt makes the customer extremely thirsty so he will drink more beer! The "genius" (revered in the marketing locker rooms) of this is that the customers can never satisfy their thirst. They will just keep ordering more and more to drink because salt begets salt; not beverage. Cha-Ching!! As they say in Montana, you betcha!

I have always known about this kind of marketing lore. Mostly, I have attributed it to a kind of "urban legend" thinking and felt that the idea of becoming salt toxic applied only to beer, pretzels, potato chips and the like in social circles. Until, that is, one day my blood pressure told me otherwise.

It seems that the food industry is mum about their unspoken Salt Strategy, which is far more pervasive that just beer & pretzels. It includes the majority of processed foods, perhaps 70% of the all edible items sold in grocery stores, and, estimates of greater than 80% in foods consumed "on the road". But it is not just the marketing guys which support it. Anyone who is not openly complaining about what is going on, including the U.S. Government, is complicit in this salt conspiracy.

The conspiracy works like this. The Government says officially that the recommended sodium intake for a person per day is about 2400 mg. That is about one teaspoon of regular table salt. Health professionals typically modify that prescription for those predisposed to high blood pressure to 1500 mg – which can be viewed as a preventative step, to avoid consistently high blood pressures which mandate prescription drugs for control. In actuality, individuals repeatedly, and with the encouragement of their doctors, can get by on less than 800 mg per day. Except for the minimum we require, which we typically get naturally through foods, salt is but an acquired taste. Always has been. Yet, it is the cheapest acquired taste in all the land! There is no greater flavor enhancer at such a low price in all of "food-dom"—which is probably why most Americans get something equal or greater to 8000 mg a day (Yes! That’s not a typo or a misprint!) and probably greater than 10,000 mg a day when eating on the road.

This discussion has now brought us to the greatest junk feeding frenzy of all time: the Super Bowl! You think it has something to do with football, don’t you? Well, it does, but it is also the day of tribute to (maybe even a Day of Worship of) all forms of salt-laden munchies. It probably should be renamed "PUMP Day", if it has not already been retitled by the marketing guys buying the million dollar ads.

What is the problem? you say. People have been using salt since the beginning of time, and excessive consumption of salt does not really sound any alarms for the medical profession, which is unfortunately true. Well, it can give rise to false cravings that get translated by the body as hunger but which are really strong cravings for more salt. The "salt soaked" individual without a beer "handy" is unlikely to ever associate his or her cravings with the need for a good refresher teaspoon of salt; rather, the salt addict is more likely to misjudge these cravings for hunger. Yes, sports fans! Salt can trick you into eating when you are not even hungry! And therein lies the genius of The Beer & Pretzel Pump! It works for any kind of food – not just beer! Go Marketing! Push the Pump! (Imagine thousands of food fans in a wave here, all cheering and applauding and screaming for more!)

Records now consistently show that 77% of daily salt intake can be avoided by consulting food labels and fast food packaging showing sodium content and then adjusting accordingly. That alone is enough to make major differences in perceived hungers, cravings, diets and health. Too, the silence of the medical profession on the dangers of salt has ended. There is no end to the web pages put up by very prestigious medical institutions advocating the reduction of salt intake for all. It takes only a search of the words "low salt" to find them along with a ton of recipes. And, in one way or another, they all say – learn to taste things without salt – substitution is just a lesser form of addiction.

You remember me talking about my friend Charley from Atlanta? I expect to hear from him about this episode, because I learned much of it from him. Charley has been through the blood pressure thing and is now in an actual experimental clinic-supervised diet program that minimizes salt & sugar intake by limiting the consumption of pre-processed foods. Which means he may watch Super Bowl, but without pretzels or buffalo wings. Let's hope those marketing guys stay tuned for the next episode of THE JUICED AVENGER – I just may tell a few more of their secrets which help tout the low salt benefits of juicing!