Your timing couldn't be more perfect. This very week, two news reports (told from different sides of the fence) have made their way to the media.

We'll explain their positions, but first, understand the role and importance of salt, and that it, like dietary fat, has been vilified unjustly.

Men have fought for gold, oil, and land, but few of us realize just how much our world has been shaken up by the simple commodity of salt. Until a mere century ago, salt was one of the most sought-after substances in human history.

An adult human body contains about 250 grams of salt, which would fill three or four salt shakers. Most people desire far more salt than they need, and perhaps this is a natural defense. Salt is a necessary component in the functioning of cells. Without both water and salt, cells could not get nourishment and would die of dehydration. Carnivores, like humans, can meet their salt needs by eating meat. On every continent, once human beings began cultivating crops they began looking for salt to add to their diet.

This week, the American Public Health Association made their public recommendation that salt must be slashed from the food products of America, as they blame salt (sodium) for the hypertension ills of society. All this, of course, is based on a faulty "study" in the 1970's that seemed to link salt to high blood pressure. They extrapolate this to infer that "a reduction of salt could save 150,000 lives a year from strokes, heart attacks and other illnesses linked to high blood pressure.."

Fox News' Steven Milloy today reported the truth about this unfounded junk science. Here's an excerpt from that report:

"Last September, in the British Medical Journal, researchers from the United Kingdom published a systematic review and analysis of 11 randomized control trials about dietary salt’s effect on blood pressure and health. The trials involved 3,500 subjects followed for up to seven years.

"Intensive" reductions in dietary salt produced only slight reductions in blood pressure and urinary sodium excretion. The blood pressure reduction worked out to 1.1 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) for the systolic, and 0.6 mm Hg for the diastolic measurements — essentially meaningless changes. ("Optimal" blood pressure is 120 mm Hg systolic and 80 mm Hg diastolic.)

More importantly, no decrease in deaths and cardiovascular disease was reported among study subjects on reduced salt intake."

Read the entire article here and you'll see that the misinformation driven by money and politics continues to lead the American public down an unhealthy path.