It’s been a
bad week for two of man’s staple requirements for a happy life: beer and
cheese. No need to elaborate on the beer front: Dave’s smarmy face has been all
over the news; first as he begins his jihad on booze one day and the next as he
sidesteps Leveson and sticks his tongue up Murdoch’s arsehole.
No, what
struck me was the latest attack on cheese. Poor Mr Mozzarella and other
perfectly innocent members of the cheese family were once more put in the
firing line. Last time it was over the amount of saturated fat that it can
have. Now the so-called health "experts" are whipping themselves into a frenzy over the salt level of some cheeses.
“More salt
in cheese than seawater," ran one alarmist headline this week as some
parts of the media played up the shock and awe angle. The source of this latest
outbreak of health hysteria was a report by Consensus Action on Salt and Health
(Cash) which surveyed 772 supermarket cheeses and found that Cheddar had an
average of 0.52 grams of salt per 30g serving.
Now some
cheeses had even more salt than that and some had less, but the 0.52g made for
a lazy comparison that Cash couldn’t resist feeding to the media. Katherine
Jenner, Cash campaign director, said:”This survey shows that just one portion
of cheese can contain more salt than a packet of crisps.” Well, yes it can-by
0.02 of a gram, but surely that’s not the point?
Crisps are a
clear no-no health wise and have little, if any, nutritional benefit. Comparing
them to cheese is disingenuous at best. Cheese is packed full of positive
benefits: proteins, vitamins, it can aid sleep, fights tooth decay and boots
production of the enzyme that makes us feel happy.
Salt in
cheese is vital to mature and flavour hard cheeses such as Parmesan and
soft-rind ones such as Camembert. It also is crucial in preventing bacteria
from growing inside cheese and gives the food its savoury finish. With the high
price of so-called “superfoods”, for many of the 98% of the cheese buying
populace, it’s probably their healthiest buy.
Cash says
that cheese ranks only behind bread and bacon (take that, you carnivore
bastards) in terms of contributing salt to the British diet. I’ve no problem
with banning bacon (see point above), so let the campaign to ban bread start
here. But hold on, can’t you still legally buy crisps? Of course, as we know, the government doesn't like to ban products; merely lecture with one hand and collect our taxes with the other.
No, it’s as
a director of the Dairy Council told the BBC: "The survey is mixing up the
effect of cheese on health with the effect of salt on health. Salt is not added
for taste or flavour but for safety and technical reasons." And, as levels
are clearly stated on packs, customers are free to choose, anyway.
There is
actually one more very interesting point to be made here. Graham MacGregor,
chairman of Cash wants the government to step in and set lower salt levels for
cheese makers: “For every one-gram reduction in population salt intake, we can
prevent 12,000 heart attacks, stroke and heart failure, half of which would
have been fatal.”
Of course
we’ve heard magical figures like this before, haven’t we? And usually they are
based on suspect propositions and little hard evidence. This is even more so in
this case as they are based solely on the much repeated salt-is-bad mantra.
However, as with alcohol, the truth may not always be as the government would
have it. Read here for a summary of the contrary view.
So the message is clear...Leave our cheese be.