Health professionals often work to reduce their patients salt intake to reduce high blood pressure. Should the government get involved too? (Photo by James Gathany for the US CDC)
New research shows that Americans’ health
would benefit dramatically if we ate less
salt. But some people say it’s not the
salt in the saltshaker that’s the
problem. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
New research shows that Americans health would benefit dramatically if we ate less salt. But some people say it’s not the salt in the saltshaker that’s the problem. Julie Grant reports:
Darryl Bosshardt comes from a salt family. His grandfather started mining salt on their farm in central Utah. When Bosshardt hears about a new study that shows 100-thousand American lives could be saved each year if everyone reduced their salt intake by just a half teaspoon – he cringes.
He says salt is being given a bad name.
“And the challenge is, how we define salt.”
Most of the salt today all looks the same – perfectly pour-able, uniform bright white grains. It’s pure sodium and chloride, but Bosshardt, whose family owns the Real Salt Company, says it’s not the same as naturally occurring sea salt.
“Sea water occurs with many trace minerals. Over 50 to 60 trace minerals. It doesn’t occur, the salt in sea water doesn’t occur, as pure sodium and chloride.”
Bosshardt says those trace minerals help the body to process sodium, but most salt today looks perfect because the trace minerals have been taken out. He says when our bodies lack the minerals needed to process sodium; it raises blood pressure, which can lead to heart problems.
There are some books by holistic doctors that make these kinds of claims,but there’s not much science to prove this.
Most doctors today say salt is salt; sodium chloride. Our bodies need it, but not as much as much as most Americans are eating.
Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo is a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California in San Francisco. She’s lead author of that new study on salt – the one that finds Americans could reduce deaths from heart disease by 100-thousand just by slightly reducing salt consumption:
“I don’t think we’re saying salt is bad and one of these other types of salt would be good. I think the newer types of salt that are on the market might have a lower sodium content for the taste that they have and so that would certainly be potentially beneficial.”
But Bibbins-Domingo says most Americans only get 6-percent of their sodium from their own saltshakers. The rest comes from processed foods and restaurants. So buying expensive sea salts with those trace minerals isn’t going to make much difference to most people. She says the problem is that salt is ubiquitous – people don’t even realize they’re eating it:
“If you start out with a healthy bowl of cereal with some milk, you’ve already consumed quite a bit of salt right there. If you have that healthy turkey sandwich or tuna sandwich, you have a bit of salt right there. If you have the marinara sauce with the pasta, you have salt there. So you realize that there are so many different ways, without you choosing items that we might clearly associate with a high sodium content, that there are a lot of places that we’re all consuming salt.”
Bibbins-Domingo supports efforts like the one in New York City. There Mayor Michael Bloomburg is urging food manufacturers to reduce the salt in their foods by 25% over the next five years.
Mark Kurlansky thinks it’s a terrible idea. He wrote a book called “Salt.” When laws curb smoking – that’s one thing. But salt is something different:
“You have to deal with the fact that people like salt. There isn’t the moral imperative of cigarettes because there isn’t a problem of second hand salt. If you don’t want to eat salt and the guy at the next table wants to eat it, it’s not going to affect you. It becomes an issue of government messing around with individual choice.”
But most people don’t realize they’re making that choice – there’s just so much salt in all the foods they buy. Other countries, such Finland and England, have worked with food manufacturers to lower salt content. In the UK, they cut sodium in foods by 10-percent. And researchers say the public didn’t even notice. They’re still studying to see if it’s actually improved health.
Dr. Bibbins-Domingo says the health savings of reducing salt are comparable to cutting the number of smokers in half. (Photo by Paul Goyette)
If you read nutrition labels on food packages, you might be surprised by how much sodium there is in a lot of foods.
Some researchers say all that salt is causing a plethora of health problems – and they want the government to force food manufacturers to lower the salt content. Julie Grant reports.
Transcript
If you read nutrition labels on food packages, you might be surprised by how much sodium there is in a lot of foods.
Some researchers say all that salt is causing a plethora of health problems – and they want the government to force food manufacturers to lower the salt content. Julie Grant reports.
When Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo sees patients with high blood pressure, she advises them to cut back the on the salt.
She says they often return to the office – happy to announce that they’ve cut out fast food and processed snacks.
“AND THEN I ASK THEM TO TELL ME WHAT THEY’RE EATING AND I AM AWAYS BLOWN AWAY WHEN THEY COME BACK WITH THESE NICE HEALTHY VEGETABLE SOUPS THAT ARE CHOCKED FULL OF SALT. AND SO ALL THE THINGS THAT THEY DON’T REALIZE ARE HIGH IN SALT ARE ACTUALLY STILL THERE IN THEIR DIET.”
Bibbins Domingo is associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California in San Francisco. She’s also lead author of a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers at Stanford and Columbia University Medical Centers co-authored the study.
They did a computer simulation – to see what would happen if every American reduced their salt intake by a half teaspoon a day. That’s 3 grams.
“WHAT WE FOUND THAT IS IF WE WERE ABLE TO REDUCE SALT IN THE U-S DIET BY 3 GRAMS PER DAY, WE WOULD ANTICIPATE 100-THOUSAND FEWER DEATHS EACH YEAR, 100-THOUSAND FEWER HEART ATTACKS, AND MORE THAN 100-THOUSAND FEWER CASES OF NEW HEART DISEASE.”
Bibbins-Domingo says the health savings of reducing salt are comparable to cutting the number of smokers in half.
But not everybody puts that much stock in the new study.
Michael Alderman is a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He says the government shouldn’t act so quickly based on this new study:
“WELL, IT’S INTERESTING THAT IT’S CALLED A STUDY, WHICH I THINK SORT OF SUGGESTS THAT THERE ARE REAL OUTCOMES AND REAL PEOPLE THAT WERE STUDIED. IN FACT, OF COURSE, WHAT IT IS A SIMULATION, A MATHEMATICAL MODELING.”
Alderman says there are lots of different findings when it comes to sodium consumption. And some show reducing salt intake could have actually have negative health effects:
“WE KNOW THAT REDUCING SODIUM INTAKE, BY AN AMOUNT SUFFICIENT TO REDUCE BLOOD PRESSURE, ALSO INCREASES SYMPATHETIC NERVE ACTIVITY, IT INCREASES RESISTANCE TO INSULIN…”
If we already ate low salt diets, the researchers in this latest salt study say those concerns might be valid. But Dr. Bibbins-Domingo says salt consumption in the U.S. is higher than is recommended, and it’s on the rise.
But she says there are high levels of salt in so many foods, it’s hard to avoid. Cereal. Bread. Lunch meat. Pasta Sauce.
And she says consumers can’t really reduce salt consumption without some changes by food manufacturers.
“RIGHT NOW THERE ARE NO CHOICES THAT ARE REALLY AVAILABLE THAT MIGHT BE LOWER IN SALT. I THINK THAT’S WHERE THE EFFORTS WITH THE FOOD MANUFACTURERS ARE ABOUT REALLY MAKING A RANGE OF CHOICES SO WE CAN EAT LOWER SALT, WHICH IS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE RIGHT NOW.”
Some governments are responding. New York City has already started urging food manufacturers and restaurant chains to lower the salt in their foods by 25-percent over the next five years. Bibbins-Domingo says California is considering salt limits in foods the state buys for schools, prisons and other public institutions.
She also wants the Food and Drug Administration to require food makers to alert consumers when foods are high in salt.
In the meantime, Bibbins-Domingo advises her patients to look at food labels – and really look at the sodium content – so they know what they’re getting.
Linda Barberic's partner Keith helps her prepare a healthy meal, using olive oil instead of butter.
(Photo by Julie Grant)
With so many Americans facing diabetes,
heart disease, and other health problems,
the Thanksgiving meal has become a battleground
in some families. Some family members want
to make it a healthy meal, others want to
stick with their traditional family dishes.
Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
With so many Americans facing diabetes,
heart disease, and other health problems,
the Thanksgiving meal has become a battleground
in some families. Some family members want
to make it a healthy meal, others want to
stick with their traditional family dishes.
Julie Grant reports:
Four years ago, Linda Barberic gave her left kidney to her sister. The surgery went well. But since then, there have been a lot of other health problems in the family.
“We’ve had a few strokes in the family, we’ve got diabetes, we’ve got high blood pressure, we’ve got some other heart conditions, a few heart attacks.”
That’s some serious stuff. Linda thinks a lot of it has to do with the way her family eats: lots of salt, fat and sweets. She is hosting everyone for Thanksgiving dinner. And thought this might be a good time to get them all on board with healthier eating.
So she sent out a mass email to the family.
“So I thought this year, why not give everyone a challenge and make it a healthy Thanksgiving. Really – no fats, no butters, no salts, no heavy creams.”
Linda even suggested some recipes: steamed green beans with lemon zest, fingerling potatoes roasted with fresh garlic and thyme.
The resounding response: No salt, no fat, no fun.
Someone even said they wouldn’t come. They wanted the turkey with gravy, green bean casserole with crispy onions on top, and Mom’s dumplings with lots of butter.
Her brother-in-law Matt Previte is one of those with a heart condition. He and Linda’s sister, Sandy Previte, appreciate Linda’s thought, but…
Matt: “For one meal, for one day, one special occasion – it’s not worth it.”
Sandy: “How often do we eat gravy? Twice a year. So I’m like, let’s do the traditional. Why not? Let’s just stick with what it’s about – people getting together to have good food.”
So Sandy says why not have the gravy, have the butter?
But her sister Linda says it’s not one or two days a year. Her family, like many, eats fatty, salty foods all the time.
That’s one big reason why two-thirds of American adults are considered overweight or obese. And diabetes has become an epidemic.
So, why do we keep going back for more – when we know it’s making us sick?
Linda Spurlock is director of human health at the Museum of Natural History in Cleveland.
She says we’re hard-wired to crave sugar, fat and salt.
“If you did not have the inherited yearning for fat or for sugar and grab it anytime you could get your hands on it, you probably would not live to reproduce back 2- or 3- million years ago.”
But while our ancestors had to smash open bones to get to the marrow – so they could get the fat they needed – we can just pull up to the drive through and order whatever we want to eat.
Spurlock says the original Thanksgiving meal was probably a small, lean turkey, squirrel, raccoon, and roasted root vegetables.
“And how it got bigger and bigger and bigger –
I have a feeling that it wasn’t until quite recently that people had the expectation of several kinds of pie for dessert and yes giblet gravy and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes.”
Spurlock says Americans can start eating healthier by training themselves to enjoy the simple taste of vegetables. But she says Thanksgiving probably isn’t the time for it.
Linda Barberic has come to the same conclusion.
“ I kind of just backed off on it. And said, ‘do what you’re going to do.’ Thanksgiving is about family. I’m grateful that everyone is healthy this year and everyone is here. So, I’m just grateful to have Thanksgiving. But, I have a feeling there will be some fat. (laughs)”
Dr. Kessler's new book describes the three components in food that keep us addicted: sugar, salt, and fat. (Photo courtesy of the National Canter Institute)
On average, people in the US
are much fatter than just 30
years ago. Obesity is an epidemic.
The Environment Report’s Lester
Graham talked with the author
of the book ‘The End of Overeating,’
which argues the American diet
is to blame:
Transcript
On average, people in the US
are much fatter than just 30
years ago. Obesity is an epidemic.
The Environment Report’s Lester
Graham talked with the author
of the book ‘The End of Overeating,’
which argues the American diet
is to blame:
Lester Graham: This is The Environment Report. People in the US are much fatter than just 30 years ago. Obesity has become an epidemic. The author of the book, “The End of Overeating” argues, “It’s the American diet.” David Kessler is a pediatrician and served as commissioner of the US Food and Drug administration under George Bush I and Bill Clinton. Dr. Kessler, give me the short answer, why has obesity become so rampant in the US?
David Kessler: We’ve taken fat, sugar, and salt, put it on every corner in America, made it available 24/7, made it socially acceptable to eat any time. We’ve added the emotional gloss of advertising—you’ll love it, you’ll want it. We’ve made food into entertainment. In fact, we’re living in a food carnival.
LG: I’ve been watching restaurant commercials, especially since reading your book, and I see a lot of, “It’s a fun time, it’s a good time, bring your friends, it’s a family gathering.” There is a lot of that emotional appeal, but it doesn’t talk about nutrition.
DK: Exactly. Sometimes about the economic value of food, but always it’s the emotional gloss that’s added. And food’s very reinforcing. Fat, sugar, and salt stimulate us, we come back more. But when you add that emotional gloss: “You’ll want it, you need it, you’ll have a good time.” That amplifies the reward value of food.
LG: Now your book spends a lot of time looking at the science of why we respond to sugar, salt, and fat and how the food industry has taken advantage of our response to sugar, salt, and fat. Why do we like those things in our food, why do we always crave more?
DK: That was the question that got me started 7 years ago. I wanted to understand why it was so hard for me to resist my favorite foods. I was watching Oprah one night, there was a woman on the show who said, “I eat when my husband leaves for work in the morning, I eat before he comes home at night, I eat when I’m happy, I eat when I’m sad, I eat when I’m hungry, I eat when I’m not hungry.” And then she said, “I don’t like myself.” And it was that behavior, I could relate to that. I have suits in every size. That’s what I wanted to understand, I wanted to understand the science and we finally do have the science to explain to that woman that it’s not her fault. In fact, her brain is becoming excessively activated by all the food cues in our environment—she’s being bombarded, she’s being constantly stimulated.
LG: You infer the food processors and the chain restaurants, are using some of the same techniques the tobacco companies used to get people hooked on cigarettes. In what ways?
DK: They certainly understand the inputs. They understand that sugar, fat and salt stimulate. They understand the outputs, that you come back for more. Have they understand the neuroscience? I doubt it. But they learned experientially what works, and they optimized food, they constructed food to stimulate us to come back for more. Let me explain how it works, let me give you analogy with tobacco. We have to be careful, there are similarities but there are also differences. Nicotine: nicotine is a moderately reinforcing chemical. But add to that the smoke, the throat scratch, the cellophane crinkling of the pack, the color of the pack, the image of the cowboy, the glamour, the sexiness, the sense that it was cool, the imagery from 20, 30, 40 years ago. What did we end up with? A highly addictive product. If I give you a packet of sugar and say, go have a good time, you’ll look at me and say, “What are you talking about?” Add to that sugar fat, add texture, add mouth-feel, add color, add temperature, put it on every corner, make it into entertainment, and what do we end up with? One of the great public health crises of our times.
LG: Now I don’t think the food industry sees this as necessarily trying to build addiction or using these chemicals as a way to re-wire our brain. I think any good chef will tell you, I want to cook things that will please you, that make you happy. It just so happens that sugar, salt, and fat make us happy. So, what’s wrong with it, if that’s what we want?
DK: The argument that the food companies will use is that all their giving consumers is what they want. But we now know, we have the science to show, that these chemicals are activating the brains of millions of Americans and what happens is that we keep on coming back for more. Look at modern American food, pick any appetizer from any major American restaurant chain. What is it? It’s layered and loaded with fat, sugar, and salt.
LG: Well, let’s pick one you highlighted in your book, because I happen to like it, it’s the Southwest Egg Roll at Chilis. It’s tasty!
DK: The Washington Post outed me because I had to go dumpster diving in order to find out what was in restaurant foods. We worked for a decade at the FDA putting nutrition facts labeling on all foods in the Supermarket, but not so in the restaurant foods. If you look at the ingredients, some fifty ingredients: the sugars, the fat, the fat loaded on fat, the salt in that eggroll. One industry insider just called it the equivalent of a fat bomb.
LG: You spend a little bit of time in the book on how food is labeled. How, for example, cereal manufacturers hide just how much sugar is really in that box. How do they hide it?
DK: Different names on the label, not just sugar, they’ll use honey, they’ll use molasses, they’ll use other terms so its not the first ingredient listed on cereals. But, understand, its not just any one ingredient. We have made food highly stimulating. The multi-sensory nature of food, it’s a rollercoaster in the mouth. 30 years ago, we used to chew on the average of 30 times per bite. Now it’s less than half of that. Food goes down in a whoosh, it stimulates, it rarely lingers. In fact, most of what we are eating is so pre-digested. Chicken: I went in and ordered a margarita grilled chicken dish, I thought it was healthy. Little did I know it was bathed, it was mixed in these cement mixers with sugar and fat, our meat is injected with these needles, solutions are added, sure it tastes good. But in some ways it keeps us in this cycle of consumption. And understand the cycle of consumption based on past learning, past memory, we get cued. Our brains get activated. The cue can be as simple as a sight, a smell, a location, my car can be a cue! Because where I’ve gone before, I get in the car and start having these thoughts of wanting. I was walking down Powell street and I started thinking about chocolate covered pretzels. Why? Because I had been, six months earlier, a place on Powell street. I had forgotten entirely about it, we’re such effective learners—just walking down that street will create thoughts of wanting. Thoughts of wanting arouse me, they capture my attention, they pre-occupy me, I eat for that momentary pleasure. Next time I get cued, I do it again, and every time I engage in this cycle, I just strengthen the neural circuits. What am I in search of? I’m in search of this ephemeral pleasure, is there any real satisfaction? Rarely.
LG: Your book is called “The End of Overeating.” How do we stop overeating, when much of the food at the grocery store and the restaurants is prepared the way it is, we have all these visual cues, these reminders of how food is a reward in our lives. How do we stop that cycle, how do we break or rewire our brain back to a more healthy style of eating?
DK: First, we have to come to the understanding that our behavior is becoming conditioned and driven. And it’s not just our behavior, it’s the behavior of our children. And once we understand that, once we understand that food in fact has become hot stimuli, and preoccupy us and capture our brains, and hijack our brain circuits, and we can see this on the neural imaging. What we have to do is cool down the stimulus. How do you cool down a stimulus? First, you can just get rid of the cues. That sounds easy, you create a safe environment in your home, but you end up walking down the street so that’s not very practical. The other effective way is to eat with some structure. What do we do in The United States? By putting fat, sugar, and salt on every corner, eating 24/7, eating in our cars, eating all the time, we’ve taken down any boundaries. So eating with some structure—knowing what you’re going to eat, when you’re going to eat it, and if it’s food that you want, it helps protect you from being bombarded by cues, because if you know what you’re going to be eating in several of hours, the cues in the intervening time that you get hit with just don’t have the same power. In the end, what’s the best way to reduce and take the power out of a stimulus? How do you change what you want? Want something else more. What we have to do, and I think this is essential as a country, because social norms effect us, they really effect our behavior, they effect our neural circuitry. If I look at that huge plate of fries and say, “That’s my friend, that’s gonna make me feel better,” my brain’s going to get activated and then there’s nothing I can do to stop myself from finishing that plate of fries. If however, we change how we view food, psychologists call it a critical perceptual shift. How did we win, well, we haven’t quite won it but how did we succeed in the perceptual shift against tobacco? 30, 40 years ago we used to view the product as something that was cool, something that was socially acceptable, something that we wanted. We changed that perception. Now we look at it for what it is, a deadly, disgusting, addictive product. Tobacco is easy because we can live without tobacco. Food is much harder. But, all the processed foods, foods that stimulate us, that are just fat and sugar, fat and salt, fat and sugar and salt, getting us to come back for more and more, I think we have to change how we view food back, perhaps it’s very simple in the end, ho w much real food are we eating?
LG: You did the research, started 7 years ago, you wrote the book, now you’re talking about food on interviews like this. How has it changed your life?
DK: What’s very interesting, being trained as a physician, I thought I would go into the world and understand the metabolism, the endocrinology, the bariatrics, the physiology. What I actually gained in understanding was that we’re all wired to focus on the most salient stimuli in our environment. That’s what makes us so successful as a species. It could be alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, it could be gambling, but for many of us, food has become the most salient stimuli, and what about that food? It’s the fat, sugar, and salt. I look at that food and I say, I need it, it’s going to make me feel better, and I’ve come over time to understand that I can feel just fine, eat about half as much as I was eating but feel just as satisfied.
LG: David Kessler is the author of “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite.” Thanks very much for speaking with us.
The state
proposes returning some of the land to its natural marshy state, and using other parts for stormwater
reservoirs. (Photo courtesy of the National Parks Service)
The state of Florida is working on a plan to restore water flow to its troubled Everglades. It wants to
buy a huge sugar grower and the land it owns between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. Ann
Dornfeld went out on the lake to find out what’s at stake:
Transcript
The state of Florida is working on a plan to restore water flow to its troubled Everglades. It wants to
buy a huge sugar grower and the land it owns between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. Ann
Dornfeld went out on the lake to find out what’s at stake:
The first thing to know about Lake Okeechobee is that it’s not your stereotypical clear blue lake. It’s
shallow, murky, covered with tall grasses, and thick with everything from birds and rabbits to frogs
and alligators.
The lake is about 35 miles wide. It’s known as the ‘liquid heart’ of the Everglades. And Paul Gray is
here to take its pulse.
Paul Gray: “I think it’s a glossy!”
Ann Dornfeld: “What’s that?”
Paul Gray: “A glossy ibis.”
Gray gets excited about birds. That makes sense – he’s the Science Coordinator for the Audubon
Society’s Lake Okeechobee Watershed Program.
It’s his first time out on the lake since the last big storm, and he’s eager to see how it’s doing.
Stormwater is diverted into the lake from development and farmland like the U.S. Sugar fields. That
floods the lake, which has nowhere to drain because it’s surrounded by a dike.
The best way to get to the middle of a marshy lake is an airboat.
(sound of airboat starting up)
As the boat zips across the grassy lake on a cushion of air, brightly-colored bugs and tiny green frogs
the size of your thumbnail land inside.
Once we skid to a halt, Paul Gray scans the water, and throws up his hands, disappointed.
“We’ve stopped in an area that’s probably four feet deep now. This is very, very sparse – just a little
stem sticking up every four to five feet. If everything was working right this would be all vegetated,
full of birds and stuff. Right now I’m not sure what will happen to it. [sighs] It’s a little demoralizing
right here, but we’ll look for some better spots.”
All this vegetation drowned in the last big storm.
“All of Okeechobee’s water used to flow into the Everglades, but now it doesn’t do that anymore.”
Instead, extra water is dumped into the fragile estuaries. They’re supposed to be a delicate mix of
saltwater and freshwater. And dumping all that lake water into them destroys the ecosystem.
“And the great tragedy is in 2004-2005 we had so many storms, and we dumped so much water
from Lake Okeechobee that we could’ve met all our water needs for a decade. The year after dumping
all that water out, we were in a severe drought and the farmers were only getting 45% of the water
they wanted.”
Last summer, the state of Florida announced a tentative deal with U.S. Sugar Corporation to buy the
company out. U.S. Sugar’s land blocks the flowaway between the lake and the Everglades. The state
proposes returning some of the land to its natural marshy state, and using other parts for stormwater
reservoirs. Gray says the U.S. Sugar deal would be a huge boon to the lake and the Everglades. It
could even improve the birdlife in northern states and Canada that fly south for winter.
“When those little warblers and things reach Florida, they’ve gotta get fat. They need to double their
body weight before they fly across the Gulf of Mexico, or they can’t make it!”
We arrive at a shallower part of the lake, and Gray pumps his fist in victory.
“This is much better news. We’re sitting in a big patch of green plants with little white and pink
flowers. It goes on for several hundred yards. This is called smart weed. It produces little very hard
black seeds. And ducks love these seeds, and migratory seed-eating birds like sparrows and other
things love these seeds. When all of the wintering waterfowl get down here they’re gonna have a ball
with this! [laughs] Wow. That’s nice. Alright, we can go.”
It’s a small success. But Gray says until the flow of water into Lake Okeechobee is returned to normal,
the liquid heart of the Everglades will be struggling to beat.
Each year about 118,000 people are hurt and 1,300 people are killed on the roads during snowy and icy conditions. So, snowplows hit the roads, scraping snow and ice off the surface… and spreading incredible amounts of salt on highways, streets and roads to help keep them clear. Lester Graham reports there’s some concern about the long- term effects of all that salt:
Transcript
Each year about 118,000 people are hurt and 1,300 people are killed on the roads during snowy and icy conditions. So, snowplows hit the roads, scraping snow and ice off the surface… and spreading incredible amounts of salt on highways, streets and roads to help keep them clear. Lester Graham reports there’s some concern about the long- term effects of all that salt:
This dump truck is getting ready for a load of salt for a coming winter storm. Salt helps make icy roads safer. It helps prevent people from slipping and falling on sidewalks. And… it’s pretty cheap. But there are problems with salt. Salt pollutes and salt corrodes.
Mark Cornwell has spent a good deal of his career trying to convince highway crews that there are better ways to keep things safe and reduce how much salt is dumped on roads and sidewalks:
“Salt basically damages just about everything it comes in contact with. Salt moves through concrete and attacks structural steel, bridges, roads, parking structures; it eats the mortar out of bricks and foundations. It damages limestone, you know, just on and on and on.”
So, even though salt is cheap, the damage it does costs a lot. It’s a hidden cost that’s seldom calculated. Imagine the cost of having to replace a bridge five years early because the structure is weakened by salt. And then there are your direct costs: trying to keep salt washed off your vehicle, and still seeing rust attack your car.
Cornwell says there are some cities and road commissioners working to reduce the amount of salt spread on the roads. But in most places, the political pressure to get the salt trucks out early, and laying it on thick to keep drivers happy, outweighs any concerns about trying to reduce the salt:
“I’m sure the public expects full attention to snow and ice. And they have absolutely no understanding, however, of what it costs to provide that.”
Nobody thought a lot about the damage salt was causing until the last couple of decades. In a few places, the people responsible for keeping the roads and walkways safe have been trying to reduce the amount of salt they use and still keep public safety tops on the list of concerns:
“So, this is our shops. The brine-maker is right here.”
Marvin Petway is showing me some of the tools in his arsenal to reduce how much salt is used and still keep things safe. He works at the University of Michigan, where there’s a goal to cut the amount of salt used in winter in half. What they’ve learned is using innovative ways of putting down salt can actually help melt snow and ice faster. One way is to mix it with water to get the chemicals in salt working a little more quickly:
“Why use 5 pounds of rock salt when you can use 2 gallons of liquid salt? We’re able to get better coverage, quicker, better cost, and we’re putting the material that is effective in reducing ice build-up directly to the area where we don’t want ice located.”
The crews trying to reduce salt use computer assisted spreaders to measure out only the salt needed, they mix in less corrosive chemicals that make salt brine more effective, and even just wetting the salt in dump trucks with chemicals all help to melt snow and ice faster and in the end use a lot less salt.
Nothing is going to replace salt altogether, but those efforts can add up to a lot less salt. That means less destruction of infrastructure.
But there are more reasons for reducing salt than the damage to roadways and parking decks. Salt also damages the environment.
Mark Cornwell first noticed the effects of salt because he was a horticulturalist. He’d work all spring, summer and fall planting shrubs, make the grass green, tending beds of flowers. Then the winter would come:
“Unfortunately what we were doing in six months of winter was undoing everything we did in the other six months of the year. If you’re going to get ahead, you’ve got to solve the problem and in my mind, that was misuse of salt.”
Use too much salt and it kills plants. And it turns out the cost of using all that cheap salt could be even greater than anyone guessed. For decades, it’s been assumed that rain washed away most of the salt, but studies in Ontario find that a lot of the salt doesn’t get washed away.
Instead, a good deal of it is percolating down into shallow aquifers. Researchers predict that in the future we’ll start find salt is getting into the groundwater that supplies many of the wells where we get our drinking water.
For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
Crew chief Mohammed Sangare tests the "Federal Kivalina"'s ballast tanks
for invasive species. (Photo by David Sommerstein)
The St. Lawrence Seaway's Terry Jordan shows off the refractometer that
tests the ballast water for salinity. (Photo by David Sommerstein)
The United States and Canada are trying to
figure out how to keep new invasive species out of
the Great Lakes. 185 have already snuck in, costing
the region billions of dollars a year. Many
hitchhiked in the ballast tanks of foreign cargo ships.
Both countries want the public to know they’re doing
something about the problem. So they invited journalists
to the port of Montreal to see how ballast tanks are
tested for invasive species. David Sommerstein
reports:
Transcript
The United States and Canada are trying to
figure out how to keep new invasive species out of
the Great Lakes. 185 have already snuck in, costing
the region billions of dollars a year. Many
hitchhiked in the ballast tanks of foreign cargo ships.
Both countries want the public to know they’re doing
something about the problem. So they invited journalists
to the port of Montreal to see how ballast tanks are
tested for invasive species. David Sommerstein
reports:
A couple dozen reporters crowd the deck of the cargo ship Federal Kivalina.
Cameras click, pencils scribble, and tape rolls as a man in a bright orange
uniform steps forward to test for invasive species.
“My name is Mohammed Sanare.”
(sound of tape measure sliding down)
Sangare is the bosun, the crew chief. He slides what looks like a metal tape
measure down a tube. It’s the opening of one of the Kivalina’s 16 ballast
tanks.
“Down to the bottom now. The bob’s down to the bottom.”
The tape hits the tank bottom, and Sangare reels it back up.
Terry Jordan, a St. Lawrence Seaway official, is waiting with a handheld
gizmo. It’s a refractometer that tests water salinity. He carefully places a
drop of ballast water on it.
“All it takes is one drop of water on the refractive lens, OK.”
Jordan peers through the refractometer’s lens. It reads 38 parts salt per 1000
parts water.
Recent scientific studies show that concentration of salt water kills up to
99% of the organisms hidden in these ballast tanks. That’s important
because those critters can compete with native species and damage whole
ecosystems.
David Reid is a researcher with the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration.
“Salinity was very effective at killing many of the organisms that we would
expect to be able to survive in the Great lakes.”
So for the first time this year, all ships voyaging into the Great Lakes have to
do something that sounds like a mouthwash ad.
“Swish and spit.”
Yeah, “swish and spit”. Terry Jordan says on its way across the ocean, the
ship flushes its ballast tanks with salt water, and presumably, kills potential
invasive species. The refractometer test is proof of the swish and spit. If the
ship fails, its ballast tank is sealed and its owner is fined up to 36,000
dollars.
“Swish & spit” has been voluntary for years. Environmentalists say the new
mandatory rules are a step in the right direction, but too little and way too
late.
“Some would argue that the dam has already burst.”
Hugh MacIsaac specializes in invasive species at the Great Lakes Institute
for Environmental Research in Windsor, Ontario. He says if ships were
“swishing and spitting” from the beginning, we might have been able to
prevent the zebra mussel, round goby, and other invasions.
But, MacIsaac warns there are other species lurking on the horizon, like
one in Germany, ominously called the killer shrimp.
“And so any protective measures that we put in place today that would
prevent or retard their ability to get in, I would welcome.”
Scientists doubt anything can be fool-proof. Invasive species still can hide
other places on the ship. And the new rules do nothing to stop salt-water
invaders like the mitten crab from attacking ports on the East and West
Coasts.
Terry Johnson is the St. Lawrence Seaway’s U.S. Administrator. He says
“swish & spit” is a huge step forward for the Great Lakes.
“So does that mean that it is absolutely, definately 100% positively assured that there
won’t be invasives coming in with these new regulations? No, it’s doesn’t.
But it dramatically reduces the risk.”
Congress is considering even tougher rules that would force shippers to
install cutting-edge ballast cleansing systems. The proposal could cost up to
a million dollars per vessel. The Bush Administration has threatened a veto.
For The Environment Report, I’m David Sommerstein.
A ship discharging its ballast water (Photo courtesy of the US Geological Survey)
Ships should be bringing in fewer unwanted
pests into the Great Lakes. Both Canada and the
U-S are now requiring ships to flush out their
ballast water tanks before entering the lakes.
Tracy Samilton reports:
Transcript
Ships should be bringing in fewer unwanted pests into the Great
Lakes. Both Canada and the U.S. are now requiring ships to flush out their
ballast water tanks before entering the lakes. Tracy Samilton reports:
Ships need to take on ballast water to keep them stable. When they pump in
water from freshwater foreign ports, they also suck up pests.
Since 2006,
Canada has required ships to flush their tanks with salty ocean water
before entering the Great Lakes. The U.S. adopted the requirement at the
start of this year.
Collister Johnson is with the U.S. side of the St.
Lawrence Seaway, which connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Great
Lakes. He says the rule will eliminate almost 99% of freshwater
pests in ballast tanks.
“If they’re exposed to salt water, especially full strength sea water, they
are effectively killed.”
Samilton: “Why didn’t we do this before?”
Johnson: (laughs) “I don’t know.”
It won’t completely eliminate the problem because some aquatic pests can
still survive in the sediment in the bottom of ballast tanks.
The new de-icing product, GeoMelt, would use less salt than other methods of de-icing roads. (Photo by Lester Graham)
There’s been rising concern in recent years over the environmental impact of
road salt. The salt helps melt ice on the roads, but it corrodes cars and
damages bridges and concrete. Now, there’s a new way to help de-ice
roadways, and it comes from sugar beets. Dustin Dwyer reports:
Transcript
There’s been rising concern in recent years over the environmental impact of
road salt. The salt helps melt ice on the roads, but it corrodes cars and
damages bridges and concrete. Now, there’s a new way to help de-ice
roadways, and it comes from sugar beets. Dustin Dwyer reports:
The product is called GeoMelt, and it mixes with a salt brine to drop the freezing point
along roads. This method uses less salt than the traditional way of de-icing roads.
Chris Duffy is a GeoMelt salesman. He says it’s essentially de-sugared sugar beet
molasses. And it doesn’t require any new chemical processes:
“It’s considered a co-product of the sugar process. And, you know, what they were using
it for was a cattle feed. And we just have come up with a different use for it.”
GeoMelt also helps cut the amount of salt washing onto farmland where it can ruin crops.
Duffy says thousands of cities in every northern state are now using the sugar beet-based
product.
Reporter Dustin Dwyer found all the ingredients for his Thanksgiving dinner within 100 miles of his house, including the turkey (poor thing). (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)
Turkey farmer Christine Roperti continues to farm near Detroit despite growing development pressures. (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)
Thanksgiving is about family, friends, and ridiculous amounts of food. But the food we buy can have a big impact on the environment. And a lot more people are starting to look for local ingredients to put in their meals. One movement encourages people to get all their food from within 100 miles of their home. Dustin Dwyer tried to find out how practical that could be for his Thanksgiving feast:
Transcript
Thanksgiving is about family, friends, and ridiculous amounts of food. But the food we buy can have a big impact on the environment. And a lot more people are starting to look for local ingredients to put in their meals. One movement encourages people to get all their food from within 100 miles of their home. Dustin Dwyer tried to find out how practical that could be for his Thanksgiving feast:
I like to look at labels on my food. I don’t care so much about the nutritional info, I just want to know where it came from.
But there’s a problem with that. Even if I know where something is packaged, I still have no idea where the actual ingredients come from. I mean, where the heck do they make partially hydrogenated soybean oil?
I have no idea. And so, for one meal, for the most important meal of the year, I decided to try to get all my food, and all the ingredients in my food, from within 100 miles of my apartment in Southeast Michigan.
If you’re impressed by my ingenious and creative idea, don’t be. I stole it from someone else. Alisa Smith and her partner James MacKinnon were on a 100 mile diet for a year, and they’re writing a book about it. I called up Alisa for some help.
Dwyer: “So my wife and I are going to do the 100 mile Thanksgiving, and I want to ask some advice.”
Smith: “Oh, great! For doing a single meal you picked a very good time to do it because it’s the harvest bounty, so that makes life a lot easier.”
I’m thinking, excellent, this could be a piece of cake. But I’m worried about a few tough ingredients, such as salt. Alisa says salt is a problem for a lot of people.
“I think in the end, you probably will find that salt isn’t available. And not being able t o make it yourself you might just say ‘okay salt is going to be an exception for us.'”
Ok, fine, but I still wanted to make as few exceptions as possible. I’ve got to have a challenge here, somehow.
That said, our menu would be simple: just turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie. Turkey turned out to be easy.
“Roperti’s Turkey Farm.”
Christine Roperti has been living on her family’s turkey farm in suburban Detroit all her life. Farms like this one are getting crowded out more and more by suburban sprawl. There’s even a brand new subdivision next door to Christine’s place. There have been offers for her land too.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to go anywhere. I like the farm, and like raising my turkeys.”
I liked knowing that Christine actually enjoys this, and cares about it. It made me feel good. And that’s important, because I was also paying a lot more for her turkey than the store-bought stuff.
Anyway, I was flying high, and things were going really well. My list of exceptions was firming up, and it was mostly spices: salt plus all the spices for the pumpkin pie.
Then, while I was bragging at work about how I’d be able to get almost everything but salt for my local dinner, someone reminded me that there are actually salt mines under the city of Detroit.
Like a good journalist I looked into it, and ended up on the most absurd shopping trip of my life.
“Okay I’m headed over the Ambassador Bridge, going from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. They do have salt mines in Detroit, but they don’t sell that salt as food salt in the US, they only sell road salt. So in order to get food salt that’s made within a hundred miles of my house, I have to go to Canada.”
Because of some trade regulation I don’t understand, table salt from this mine can’t be commercially shipped into the US. So I ended up in a city I barely know, looking for a grocery store. I went into the first, and then the second without finding the right brand of salt. Then an hour or so later, in the third store…
“Finally! Windsor salt.”
So, I wasted a lot of fuel putting this dinner together. It’s probably still an improvement over what the Sierra Club says is an average two thousand miles of driving that goes into each ingredient for my usual dinner.
But here’s the thing: if all this local stuff is available, I think I should be able to get it at the grocery store down the street. I should probably let them know that, and let them know I’m willing to pay more for it. I mean, that’s better than driving to Canada for salt, anyway.
But making that happen would take a lot more effort, a lot more voting with my pocketbook, and a lot more than just checking labels.
Health professionals often work to reduce their patients salt intake to reduce high blood pressure. Should the government get involved too? (Photo by James Gathany for the US CDC)
