" Now, in the wake of the three Woman’s Health Initiative studies showing that fat doesn’t seem to cause heart disease nor cancers or the breast or colon, comes a study from the venerable NHANES II data showing that not only does salt intake (or to be more precise, sodium intake) not cause premature death from heart disease it actually seems to protect against it. And consuming more sodium appears to protect against premature deaths from not just heart disease but from all other causes as well." Say what? Fat and salt are NOT bad for us? Let's see if I can get agreement. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/bmj%3b322/7289/757=> "little effect on total mortality" with fat consumption = 95% confidence interval 0.86 to 1.12. and "No statistically significant associations were reported either among Japanese-American men of the Honolulu Heart Study or in the MRFIT cohort." with salt consumption. So WHY does the gov't want to waste my money on these apparently controversial food information? Oh yeah to save me money in the long run for diabetes costs etc even though they don't have a shred of evidence what the causes are. Let's concede for fun, although I don't buy it, that these factors cause diabetes, heart dx etc. and we'll also assume for fun that people will read the nutritional info. and adjust their behavior, I'm friggin sure, then the gov't will have made a wise investment in our tax dollars, right? Alas here comes this from Plos=Fat People Cheaper to Treat. With respect to people who were either obese or thin (smokers were also included and are not costing gov't as much as those damn healthy people) "Cancer incidence, except for lung cancer, was the same in all three groups. Obese people had the most diabetes, and healthy people had the most strokes. Ultimately, the thin and healthy group cost the most, about $417,000, from age 20 on.

The cost of care for obese people was $371,000, and for smokers, about $326,000."

There you go, salt/fat don't make us live shorter and even if they did, it'd end up costing us more anyway