pktechgirlbackup | FDA chooses poor target poorly

The FDA has a category called GRAS, which stands for "generally recognized as safe" and means "this was in common use before the FDA was created, and may in fact be raw food, so we assume it's safe". GRAS includes the four basic food groups: salt, sugar, fat, and caffeine. Of those four, I'd say salt is the least harmful: it may raise blood pressure in some individuals with the right genetics and environment, but is completely harmless for everyone else (in quantities that humans are likely to consume). It's delicious friend simple sugar is packed with calories, causes more ill effects than a similar amount of calories packaged differently, and is mildly addictive. Fat is the only nutrient that humans don't actually need to survive (technically you can survive without carbs for a while, but you won't like it). For caffeine, we can drop the mildly from addictive, add the phrase amphetamine, and consider the fact that (as far as we know) it is not a required nutrient.

So which of these food groups does the FDA want to move off of the GRAS list, opening it up to regulation? Why salt, of course Salt that makes things more delicious without any ill-effect for the vast majority of the population. Salt that enables manufacturers to forgo other, less tested, less natural preservatives. All I can say is, wtf?