Judge Upholds NYC Mandatory Salt Warnings

The New York State Supreme Court has ruled that New York City can fine restaurants for not posting salt warnings for some food items on their menus.

Justice Eileen Rakower ruled from the bench Wednesday that the city is allowed to enforce the first-of-its-kind rule, which requires chain restaurants to put a salt-shaker icon on menu items that top the recommended daily limit of 2,300 milligrams of sodium – about a teaspoon.

Restaurants can be fined up to $600 for failing to post the warning, beginning on March 1st.

7 Comments

  • DeClasse' Intellectual

    George Orwell’s big brother has arrived although a few years late!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Yankel Todres

    They didn’t outlaw salty food (yet). They just force them to tell us what they did to our food (as well they should)! What’s wrong with that?

    • Milhouse

      What’s wrong is first of all that they have no business telling anyone what to print on a menu.

      Should the restaurant put the whole recipe for each dish?! What about where each ingredient was bought, and who works in the kitchen, and which ingredients are “organic” or picked by union workers, and who knows what else?

      Space on a menu is at a premium, and every extra thing you have to put there clutters it up and detracts from its purpose — letting people choose their meals.

      Also, sodium is completely harmless to most people. If you have a problem with it, ask, just as you would if you had an allergy.

      But the main reason this is a bad law is that it puts a huge burden on restaurants to run expensive tests on each dish to determine how much sodium it contains. Each time the recipe is changed the tests have to be run again. And woe betide the store if it gets the result wrong, or if one day’s batch differs from the next. They risk massive fines over something that naturally varies all the time.

  • DeClasse' Intellectual

    Step one is this. Step two do not eat; i. e. Soda has so much sugar in it which is not good for thou, now do not drink more then 16oz of soda

    Remember!!!!!!!

  • pinchos

    I’m in the food business, & these government rules allways changers, however…..& then the last words….”it’s a state lew”…..while walking into different restaurant they have different rules….”and oh it’s state law too…..(please explain)???

  • Yankel Todres

    To #3:
    I stand by my earlier statement, you have it all wrong.

    1) By now everyone knows that too much salt is no good for you.

    2) This doesn’t even apply to every restaurant.. Only CHAIN restaurants. I think that if they’re that big they can certainly clue us in as to what they put in our food.

    3) It doesn’t say that they have to use a precise laboratory assessment to note the amount of sodium in the food. Also they have to do is put up a salt shaker icon, with no measured amount noted at all.

    4) They don’t have to do anything at all, unless they put more than a teaspoon of salt into your portion!

    As a consumer I see this a great step forward.

    • Milhouse

      1) By now everyone knows that too much salt is no good for you.

      A lot of people, apparently including you, have been fooled into believing it, but nobody “knows” it, because it isn’t true.