The new symbol is there on menus in the Times Square Applebee’s – a black shaded triangle around a white salt shaker – next to images of possibly tasty salsa verde nachos and spinach and artichoke dip.
The little icon is there to warn diners of high sodium levels, marking a new phase that begins Tuesday in New York’s effort to gets its residents to think healthier when ordering.
“When we eat too much sodium, our blood pressure can go up,” Sonia Angell, a deputy commissioner with the New York City health department, said during a press conference at Applebee’s on Monday. “This is something that we can control and we really feel like these icons are something that can help consumers that choose to make decisions about the amount of salt in their diet make those decisions easier.”
In September, the city voted to require chain restaurants to add the warning icon by 1 December for dishes that top the recommended daily limit of 2,300mg of sodium – about a teaspoon. New York is the first US city with such a requirement, its latest move to get residents to make healthier food choices when eating out. Previously, the city had banned trans fats from restaurant meals and required chain eateries to post calorie counts on menus.
According to health experts, the average American consumes more than 3,400mg of salt each day; the hope is that a warning symbol might make diners aware of how much sodium is in the foods on the menu. For example, a TGI Friday’s New York cheddar and bacon burger has 4,280mg of sodium, and a Chili’s boneless Buffalo chicken salad has 3,460, according to published nutritional information.
Applebee’s added the salt shaker icons to its menu in early November.
“We’re not the food police. We’re not telling them what to do,” said Zane Tankel, the chief executive of Apple Metro, an Applebee’s consortium in the New York City area. “But I think it’s important that we give them the opportunity to make the right decisions or the wrong decisions if that’s what they so choose.”
The warning symbol applies to about 10% of menu items at New York City outlets of chains with at least 15 outlets nationwide, according to the health department. Officials said the chains account for about one-third of the city’s restaurant business.
For Step Schultz, who was on his lunch break in the Financial District on Tuesday, the salt shaker warnings might actually save his health. Schultz said that he was “super sensitive” to salt and that too much of it makes his hands swollen and red.
“Plus,” he said, “I love a good icon.”
At a McDonald’s in lower Manhattan, Hollie Waterfield said the warning probably wouldn’t do much to change her eating habits.
“I don’t know if it makes a difference,” she said. “Especially when it’s fast food or food from chain restaurants, I expect it to have a lot of salt.”
But Danah Hill, who was visiting New York from Dublin, said seeing the salt shaker icons would affect her ordering decisions.
“You know it’s bad for you. You know it’s more than your daily amount,” she said, while waiting with her family outside the McDonald’s.
Other Hills chimed in, with Danah’s sister, Bronagh, saying, “I wouldn’t want extra salt,” and her dad, Anthony, saying the indications on the menu would better help him choose what he wanted to eat.
“I use very little salt anyway,” he said.
McDonald’s had not yet added the icons to its menu, although each item came with a separate calorie count. As of Tuesday, restaurants are expected to comply with the new requirement, but the city will not start imposing the $200 fines until 1 March.
David Katz, director of Yale University’s Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, said the warning symbols might help directly, “by nudging people to lower sodium options when those are available”, or indirectly, by “raising awareness, and then concern, and little by little, generating some pressure for lower-sodium offerings”.
The move is contested by salt producers, who say the city is acting on misconceptions about the risks of salt in diets. An international study involving 100,000 people suggested last year that most people’s salt intake was fine for heart health, though other scientists faulted the study.
Restaurateurs say healthy eating initiatives shouldn’t single out any one ingredient and that the city shouldn’t create its own plan when federal regulators are working on new, national sodium guidelines.
“Every one of these cumbersome new laws makes it tougher and tougher for restaurants to find success,” Melissa Fleischut, president of the New York state restaurant association, said when the city health board approved the salt requirement.
Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University, said that 80% of the salt in our restaurant food is added by processors and restaurant cooks without our consent or control.
“I hope the new rule will encourage restaurants to start cutting down on some of that,” she said.
“Anything that educates the public about the astonishing amounts of salt in food,” Nestle said, “is a step in the right direction.”
Without data, Katz said, the impact of the move would be difficult to analyze. Even so, he said: “I favor awareness over ignorance – since ignorance is not the solution to any problem. Where science is limited, sense deserves some consideration. On the basis of sense, this is worth a try.”
