I received a gift from the Shanghai government yesterday. A small plastic spoon designed to help moderate people’s salt intake for health benefits. The spoon holds 2 grams of salt. On the package it advises that 3 spoons of salt a day keeps the doctors away. (well, not the second part). So now every Shanghai resident can measure and try to stick to the 6 gram optimal intake. I find it to be a very good preventive measure, also a delightful surprise that epitomizes the shifting paradigm of policy making in China, which is in general more long term thinking and humanistic.
The salt spoon also reminds me of an episode of Open Source, in which a political professor said policy design has a lot to learn from product design. The latter inherently ackowledges human flaws and irrationalities, therefore is designed around those to avoid likely pitfalls. Take a spoon for an example, its shape and material are selected to give us convenience and safety. Policy making on the other hand largely assumes intelligence and rationality of human being, which explains a lot failed results. The subprime fiasco offers a good example. The spoon seems like a case of the merge of product and policy design; An example of China’s improving policy making. But some things such as awkward slogans change more slowly. The package also proudly reads ‘healthy Shanghai World Expo, healthy Shanghai.’
« Prev：Gouda Made in Rural China ChinesePod Goes Video：Next »
August 29, 2008 8:09 pm
Only question I have. If you eat out a lot, how are you meant to know how much salt you’ve eaten. If you then add 3 spoons of salt when at home, then you’re bound to be over the recommended level??
August 29, 2008 10:38 pm
Very interesting, Jenny. Out of curiosity, what was the professor you referred to? Was it part of the MIT Open Courseware site?
August 30, 2008 7:19 pm
jenny, lets catch up when u get to syd. shirley is marrying in nov? i thought she and john married like decades ago. im learning new things abt shanghai from u, its good, cos i dun read news at all, let alone shanghai’s. btw, that spoon picture did not show up on the blog, seems like its for baidu users only.
August 31, 2008 6:39 am
6 grams of salt per day? Wow…in the US we recommend less than 2.3 grams per day in all of our foods. We’d never dream of giving people spoons to encourage eating salt directly. Britain recommends no more than 4 grams, but acknowledges they’d like people to consume less.
On the other hand, western pregnant women would never dream of eating sushi and yet Japanese women don’t seem to suffer any ill effects…
September 1, 2008 1:29 am
Wow Jenny, the insight into policy design vs product design is amazing. I never realized how one could be of benefit over the other when it came to government policy. I swear sometimes I think China is a real genius.
September 1, 2008 1:02 pm
Lester,
I think it’s the kind of things very difficult to observe precisely unless you are a nutritionist or hypocondriac. A spoon won’t be the solution to our dietary hazards, but at least it has made a lot of people aware of a largely overlooked problem.
阿皮，
That’s shocking! We are the saltiest nation in the world! I guess it’s not too surprising after all given China’s undying love affiar with MSG and other kinds of salty seasoning. Maybe we’ve built mechanisms to handle all the extra salt.
September 1, 2008 1:20 pm
Nathan,
It’s Open Source Radio with Christopher Lydon. A very stimulating show with various academics mostly. Here is the link to the analogy http://www.radioopensource.org/george-lakoff-obama-in-a-bind/. The guest is George Lakoff, who is described as ‘the most astutely political of the best-selling brain scientists’. The show actually looks at Barack Obama’s triumph from a ‘politically astute’ neuron scientist’s point of view. Hope you enjoy it!
Jing,
Thank you for the lovely note. Will see you in November! PS Baidu has seriously let me down. What happened to open source content?
Aaron,
I think there is a lot of great work and studies being done in the public sector. But it tends to go unnoticed and unanalyzed because of the spectacular failures on key issues and that in a healthy society the media and cilvil society’s role is to challenge and scrutinise the government.
September 2, 2008 5:20 pm
Actually, the UK recommendation is also 6g (not 4g – http://www.salt.gov.uk/no_more_than_6.html). But it is still high. We are grappling with all of these numbers over here, particularly as it’s so hard to track how much salt goes into a lunch sandwich, etc.!
But true, yes it’s all about awareness. I wonder, Jenny, what some in China might say about MSG?
September 2, 2008 10:03 pm
Lester,
MSG/味精/wei4 jing, (which litereally means ‘flavor essence) was extensively used in Chinese cooking, at home and in restaurants. There is however increasing awareness of its downsides. A lot of people (my mom and myself included) have stopped using it and turned to chicken powder/鸡精/ji1 jing1 (although it’s still quite heavily chemical based). But most restaurants are still crazy about MSG since it’s a shortcut to good flavor. This obsession reveals how Chinese define as good taste.