I thought we covered "salt as wicked" when I was a kid. So wicked in fact I thought I should spell it whicked to get the full force of a "wh" opening.

There is merit in getting a couple of decades on. In the 70s and 80s we all learned though persistent media and news campaigns that salt created high blood pressure and that made for strokes and heart attacks. But it's back and after the kiddies, too:

Children's menu items at popular restaurant chains across Canada contain dangerously high amounts of sodium – in many cases, enough to raise a child's risk of developing high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and other serious health problems. It's a troubling reality that is fueling anger and frustration among a rising number of physicians, scientists and health advocates who have been urging the federal government to take action to prevent food companies from adding excessive amounts of salt to their products at the consumer's peril.

I caught that piece a few months ago about how the same products in Canada have 27 times the salt that the US version does. That is fairly weird. But as the salt shaker has not left the kitchen cupboard for at least 25 years in my house, I have a rare air of sanctimony over this. Time was I would cake salt on rare roast beef before I ate it. Once upon a time I added a shake whenever I made a pot of coffee and, on occasion as a Haligonian would, I tapped the draught glass with the salt before I drank it. But no more. Not for years. As a result, food at restaurants does come off tasting like a salt lick and is avoided accordingly. Swiss Chalet is actually dubbed "The Salt Lick" in my lexicon, a nod to an Ottawa Citizen food review of about 18 years ago. Without the saline crust, all food tastes like itself, not something dumbed down and mellowed for fear of offending. Now, when something before me is salty, it is more like a condiment - bacon, for example.

You know, you could have a great blog called "Bacon For Example" all about being clever and having figured something out years ago. Just so, you know, you can let something else kill you in about the same time frame in roughly the same way.