BrianGarst.com

Stephen Gardner of the Center for Science in the Public Interest hysterically declares, “Denny’s: Public Health Enemy # 1”

The Center for Science in the Public Interest filed suit today in the Superior Court of New Jersey in Middlesex County, seeking to compel Denny’s to disclose on menus the amount of sodium in each of its meals and to place a notice on its menus warning about high sodium levels. CSPI is working with the New Jersey firms of Galex Wolf, LLC and Williams Cuker Berezofsky.

The great majority of Denny’s meals is dangerously high in sodium, putting its customers at greater risk of high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke.

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The plaintiff, Nick DeBenedetto, is a 48-year-old resident of Tinton Falls, NJ, who has eaten for many years at Denny’s restaurants in East Brunswick and Brick, NJ. Nick takes a prescription medication to control his high blood pressure and at home does not cook with salt or use the salt shaker. Some of his favorite Denny’s items, such as Moons Over My Hammy or the Super Bird turkey sandwich, contain far more than 1,500 mg of sodium—even without soup, salad, fried onion rings, or other side dishes.

“I was astonished—I mean, literally floored—to find that these simple sandwiches have more salt than someone in my condition should have in a whole day,” Nick says. “It’s as if Denny’s is stacking the deck against people like me. I never would have selected those items had I known.”

Here’s an idea.  If a customer wants to know something and it isn’t stated on the menu, they can ask.  If they don’t get an answer, then don’t eat the food.  If you choose to eat it anyway, then you’re saying that knowing that piece of information just isn’t all that important to you as a customer.  If CSPI has a problem with people eating food without knowing every single ingredient in its exact proportions, they should encourage people to demand such information as a condition for their purchases, not force it through frivolous lawsuit and nanny-state regulations.

Another problem with these nannies, despite their fundamental distaste for freedom, is that they can’t get their stories straight.  Salt has gone from good to bad to good to bad so many times it will make your head spin.  As such, I’d take hysterical proclamations about its dangers with, well, a grain of salt.

frivolous lawsuits