14 Comments

  • Denny’s menu features items that “are dangerously high in sodium,” according to the class action lawsuit filed by a New Jersey man with the support of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition and food safety nonprofit group.

    The Center for Science in the Public Interest is a nutrition and food safety nonprofit group? Really? What it is is a Ralph Nader spin off that has its own agenda that has nothing to do with public interest or food safety. They are to food what PETA is to animals. This is just a stunt to gain attention for their organization. No sane individual could unknowingly order the “Meat Lover’s Scramble” — two eggs scrambled with bacon, diced ham, crumbled sausage and topped with Cheddar cheese, served alongside two bacon strips, two sausage links, hash browns and two buttermilk pancakes as a ”healthy” meal. If you don’t like what’s on Denny’s menu then don’t eat there. We don’t need food Nazis deciding for us what we are allowed to eat.

  • Denny’s isn’t the only restaurant chain currently being sued over its food’s nutritional content. There’s also now a class action suit against Applebee’s (and Weight Watcher’s) alleging that the caloric count of items on its “Weight Watcher’s” menu are not correct. check out:
    http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090721/NEWS01/907220324/Is+light+menu+really+light

  • I recently ate at Denny’s and asked for no salt on my food and the waitress told me they don’t cook or add salt to their food. So I am glad someone is doing something about the amount of salt that restaurants add to their food.

  • Aren’t meats cured with salt to preserve them?

    If you go to the supermarket and check the label on any of the meats, you find a high level of sodium.

    Bogus suit.

  • Healthy non-hypertensive people adequately excrete excess consumed salt through their kidneys and sweat glands, and too much salt in food is an annoyance (tastes too salty) rather than a health risk. This moron with hypertension had no business being in Denny’s. First Denny’s owes no duty to anyone with respect to the sodium content of their food. But if they did, a hypertensive individual assumed the risk. In any event, eating one meal at Denny’s, even if it were loaded with more than the minimum RDA of sodium would cause no traceable harm.

    Denny’s should be worrying about its customer base. A little salt adds flavor. Too much is a real turn-off.

  • I’ve been pre-hypertensive or hypertensive since I can remember. I choose unprocessed, unsalted or low-sodium foods to avoid damaging my health. I’ve never had the urge to sue anybody about it, let alone try to dicate to other people what they can and should eat. I wonder if nutritional-content suits are the new bogus ADA litigation…

  • A little evidence-based science, anyone? Here, from investigative science journo Gary Taubes, in Science:

    http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/288/5470/
    1319

    After hearing the DASH-Sodium results at the ASH meeting, those who were skeptical of the wisdom of recommending that an entire nation eat less salt remained resolutely skeptical. David McCarron, for instance, of the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, pointed out that for those with normal blood pressure eating the healthy DASH diet, reducing salt from 8 grams to 4 grams a day made little difference in blood pressure (1.7/1.1 mmHg). “If you are eating the healthy DASH diet and you have normal blood pressure, sodium restriction has almost no effect. … So why should salt reduction be the major message, when it says if you go on a healthy diet, salt reduction is a moot point?”

    A stickier issue speaks to the nature of public health recommendations. The better part of the salt controversy centered not on the size of the blood pressure reductions that could be achieved by eating less salt, but on whether it would improve our
    health to do so. Over the years, researchers have been unable to demonstrate that reducing salt improves health. The authors of a 1998 comprehensive meta-analysis on salt reduction published in The Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that “The optimum solution to the controversy are long-term trials with hard end points, such as stroke, acute myocardial infarction, and survival.”

  • More from Taubes on salt here:

    http://tr.im/uasy

    I highly recommend his book, by the way.

  • A news commenter on television said something to the effect- these meals aren’t carrot sticks and celery, don’t people know when they order meals like these, isn’t it their responsibility…in regards to Denny’s meals.
    As the family cook, a hamburger can be made nutritious; it is the ingredients that are chosen. There is healthier salts to use;, go to a health food store and look at pink salt or Celtic salt and read up on them, some say they are actually good for blood pressure because of the extra minerals not just sodium/chloride as regular salt. Whole wheat buns or white whole wheat-which is soft;
    grape seed mayonnaise; sprouted breads; organic potato and vegetables. Lean organic meats, or buffalo meat.
    Meals should be nourishing. A person should be able to eat a double cheese burger and be healthier because of it; which could be the case if the restaurants chose better ingredients.

  • “A person should be able to eat a double cheese burger and be healthier because of it;|

    Hahaha.. you Americans so funny. I like double cheese burger and the coorly fries, but not good for me.

  • CSPI has never been anything but a smear group. See their profile on activistcash.com.

  • This is sick… Driving cars can be bad for your health,lets go after the car manufacturers. I’m sure coffee can kill you as well, and we should also sue those who make cell phones without proper warnings to not text when you drive. Better yet, why not sue mobile phone manufacturers who allow their pohones to work in an automobile, or a train.. We all know that somone will use it will driving and kill somone… argghh Great website

  • […] Hans Bader isn’t impressed by the numbers slung around by the Center for Science in the Public Interest in its lawsuit charging that the food at Denny’s restaurants is too salty. [Washington Examiner, earlier] […]

  • […] As penance for her sins, Dr. Benjamin could seek to intervene in the “public interest” lawsuit recently filed against Denny’s, accused of killing its customers with salt. […]