Introduction:
As if there wasn't already enough government intervention in the everyday decisions
made by a "free" people, there is a new regulatory fad underway — an Orwellian attempt
to get you to eat healthy food whether you like it or not. Without the
cooperation of the national news media, the Food Police would be just an annoying
group of easily ignored troublemakers. Unfortunately there are plenty of
elected officials who love to embrace a "crisis" in an attempt to appear to be
solving problems. The Nutrition Crisis is the perfect bait for
publicity-hungry politicians. After all, who could be against good
nutrition, especially for "America's Children"?
The national news media, rather than questioning anything they hear, have been fueling
this debate by adding just enough hype and phony concern to keep people watching TV or
reading the newspaper. Their use of the term "Obesity Epidemic" implies that obesity is
contagious. But in many cases, obesity is the result of poor self-control, and the obese
individual has only himself to blame.
Motorized wheelchairs don't help matters at all. Most of the people riding around on electric scooters
in the grocery store are the very people who need to be on their feet, burning off calories. A vocational
counselor told me recently of a report indicating that the average weight gain is 100 pounds in the
first year that a person owns a motorized wheelchair.
Unfortunately there is much more to this issue than junk food. It has to do with
trial lawyers, intrusive government, personal responsibility and freedom. This page is
primarily about the busybodies, not the problem of obesity or the nutritional value of french
fries.
Dependency Mindset Limits Health
Care Choices. In New York City, a federal judge has approved a city ordinance that would require
chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus. Proposed legislation in Mississippi would prohibit
restaurants from serving people with a Body Mass Index greater than 30. Intrusive tactics like these
represent a growing trend in government over-reach, while the overwhelming reception of bureaucratic
involvement reveals a sense of government reliance never before seen in the United States.
Force-Feeding
Food Facts . One government body after another has the idea that some people need more information,
and it will be supplied or else. The targets of this campaign are restaurants. New York City has a
new law commanding chain outlets to post the calorie count of every item on menus and menu boards. The
legislatures in New York and California are considering state laws to require even more extensive disclosures.
Mandatory calorie counts cross the line between
informing and nagging. The restaurant business is highly competitive. If customers really
were clamoring for conspicuous calorie counts, restaurants would provide them voluntarily. A legal
requirement is necessary not because consumers want impossible-to-ignore nutritional information but because,
by and large, they don't.
Senior
citizens offended by donut 'cops'. For years, [Putnam] County Office for the Aging nutrition
centers received widespread donations of day-old donuts, cakes, pies, breads, bagels and donuts from delis,
supermarkets and donut shops throughout the tri-county area. County nutritionists decided that the
sugary treats were not in the best interests of the over-65 set, so the "war" now facing county lawmakers
centers on senior citizens' determination to make that decision.
Nanny State 911: In a
world where foie gras is outlawed, only outlaws will munch on goose liver fatted by gavage.
In his new book Nanny State, Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi documents in appalling and
encyclopedic detail exactly "how food fascists, teetotaling do-gooders, priggish moralists,
and other boneheaded bureaucrats are turning America into a nation of children."
What if bad fat isn't so bad? Suppose you were
forced to live on a diet of red meat and whole milk. A diet that, all told, was at least 60 percent
fat -- about half of it saturated. ... Consider the curious case of the Masai, a nomadic tribe in Kenya and
Tanzania. In the 1960s, a Vanderbilt University scientist named George Mann, M.D., found that Masai men
consumed this very diet (supplemented with blood from the cattle they herded). Yet these nomads, who were
also very lean, had some of the lowest levels of cholesterol ever measured and were virtually free of heart
disease.
Half
of overweight adults may be heart-healthy. You can look great in a swimsuit and still be a heart
attack waiting to happen. And you can also be overweight and otherwise healthy. A new study
suggests that a surprising number of overweight people — about half — have normal
blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while an equally startling number of trim people suffer from some
of the ills associated with obesity.
Exiling the
Happy Meal. Despite its health-crazy reputation, parts of Los Angeles are plagued by obesity
rates that rival any city in America. Now, the city may join a growing roster of local governments
aiming to put their residents on diets by cracking down on the fast-food industry.
Baseball Fans Get a Never-Ending Ballpark Buffet.
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks. And some more. And more. A growing trend in all-you-can-eat
seating at sports venues is making baseball's summer chorus sound more like "Take Me Out to the Buffet." Dozens of
arenas, stadiums and tracks have offered tickets that come with unlimited snacks. The seats have been a hit with
fans, a moneymaker for the venues and a worry for obesity-conscious health officials.
New Jersey Lawmakers Consider Tax On Fast Food.
The sputtering economy has caused an increase in prices of many staples including gasoline, rice, ice cream, even
beer. Now some lawmakers in New Jersey are considering taking food taxes a step further and install a proverbial
"sin" tax on fast food. Yes, the idea of marking up your favorite fast food burger or pack of fries is
actually being tossed around, and it's not settling well with many residents.
Put down that
Whopper before the government has to intervene again. It was official as of Sunday. New York
City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg has banned trans fats because they're bad for us. Also as of Sunday,
New York City now requires restaurants to post the calorie content on their menus next to each food item in type
as large as the price. According to the Associated Press, McDonald's and Burger King are not complying.
Instead, they're suing New York City to protect their First Amendment rights and to keep their menu boards
uncluttered.
Well-Intentioned Food Police May
Create Havoc With Children's Diets. Earlier this year, our small Midwestern school district
joined the food wars, proposing a new policy that would discourage all food in classrooms, ban nuts and
sugary foods and do away with vending machines. So much for peanut butter sandwiches, snacks for
kindergartners and birthday cupcakes.
Striking Back at the Food
Police: A prominent Washington lobbyist, [Rick] Berman runs the Center for Consumer Freedom, a
nonprofit advocacy group that is financed by the food and restaurant industries. Two months ago, after a
report in a leading medical journal cast doubt on several assumptions about obesity, he pounced. His
group ran $600,000 worth of full-page ads in a half-dozen newspapers, gloating that the study showed that
obesity was not an "epidemic" but rather a lot of hype.
Suspension Over Sweets.
What does it take for a school to suspend an eighth-grader, bar his attendance from an honors dinner, and strip
him of his post as class Vice President? If you guessed drugs, alcohol, or a firearm, think again.
A bag of candy is reason enough. This week, a Connecticut school levied these very punishments on an
honor student with no history of misconduct, just for buying a bag of Skittles from his classmate.
"Food Police" Slams Chinese
Food. Column A, the foods that are bad for you. Column B, foods that are good
for you. The typical Chinese restaurant menu has much more A than B, a consumer group sometimes
called "the Food Police" has found.
Cupcake
Crackdown: Have the Food Police Gone Too Far? With childhood obesity rates skyrocketing,
the New York Times reports that "school districts across the country have been taking steps to make food in
schools healthier because of new federal guidelines and awareness that a growing number of children are
overweight." A few school districts have actually banned cupcakes at school birthday celebrations, which
has some parents up in arms, because, to many, "the cupcake holds strong as a symbol of childhood innocence
and parental love."
Food Police's Latest Victim:
Soda Industry. First the media tell you not to drink bottled water because it contributes to
global warming. Then they warned against finding any humor in beer ads. They've even made
overtures about the evils of energy drinks. Now media fear-mongering has spilled on to soda. "[A]
report tonight said that [consumption of soda] may be bad for our hearts," said CBS "Evening News" anchor
Katie Couric.
The Food Police: It
has become common to speak of an "epidemic of obesity." News sources routinely feature articles on
obesity, and some even suggest that the obesity epidemic is one of the greatest public health threats of our
times, perhaps rivaling AIDS or avian flu. Obesity is commonly linked to other social problems as
well. It has been named as a cost to businesses in terms of worker productivity, a cause for poor
pupil performance, a weight-load problem for airlines, and a security threat in terms of military preparedness.
Proposed and implemented social solutions have included snack taxes, corporate-sponsored exercise breaks,
stronger food labeling laws, and state-mandated student weigh-ins at public schools.
In England...
Obesity 'equal to terror threat'. Professor
Hunter said that governments since the 1970s, including the present Labour government, had "tinkered around the
edges" of the rising problem of obesity. … He said that bigger warning labels, changes in the taxation of
"unhealthy" foods, and even the use of compulsory regulations to force manufacturers to cut levels of salt,
sugar and fat in their foods could be employed.
FDA Is Urged
To Toughen Rules on Salt. A consumer group prodded the Food and Drug Administration yesterday to
regulate salt as a food additive, arguing that excessive salt consumption by Americans may be responsible for
more than 100,000 deaths a year. The government has long placed salt in a "generally recognized as
safe" or GRAS category, which grandfathers in a huge list of familiar food ingredients. But in an FDA
hearing yesterday [11/29/2007], the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) urged the agency to
enforce tougher regulations for sodium.
I Hate The Food Police And You Should Too.
These days you can't go anywhere without someone or something telling you what you should or shouldn't eat, or
how much or when you should eat, or how your food should be prepared. I'm really sick of it all.
Menus everywhere — from fast food restaurants to upscale joints — are lousy with healthy
choice options. We're told that our foods are cooked with canola oil, that we can substitute Egg Beaters
for the real thing and that we can order brown rice instead of white. Don't worry about some nefarious
governmental agency butting into our lives; be perturbed by "The Food Police."
The "food police" and the pseudoscience of self-denial.
[Michael] Jacobson's list of soda hazards nicely illustrates the hyperbolic approach to health advice favored
by CSPI, which the microbiologist turned food activist co-founded in 1971 after working for Ralph Nader.
Today the D.C.-based CSPI is one of the country's most influential nanny groups, with an annual budget of
$15 million and some 800,000 newsletter subscribers. It has the ability to grab headlines, kill
sales of products it doesn't like, and shape regulatory policy. The group is also emblematic of a
troubling cultural trend whose motto might be, "If it feels good, don't do it."
NYC
Revives Vote for Calories on Menus. Hoping the fat-filled truth about certain fast-food
items will shock New Yorkers into eating healthier, city officials are reviving a plan to force chains
to post calorie counts for their foods right on the menu.
Food
Makers Pressured to Cut Sodium. Now public health specialists are pressuring
the Food and Drug Administration to require food makers to cut the sodium. In a hearing
set for next week, they will call the government intervention crucial to fighting heart disease.
Kellogg's:
A Sad Cereal Sellout. The famed Battle Creek, Mich., cereal maker (which started out almost a
century ago as a health-food company), is now pleading guilty in the court of public opinion to charges that
it's partly responsible for our childhood-obesity epidemic and other nutrition-related woes.
Burger King Responds to Trans-Fat Suit.
Burger King, the world's second-largest hamburger chain, said in January it had begun in-restaurant testing
with several trans fat-free cooking oils. At the time, the company said it was on track to begin a
national rollout of trans fat-free cooking oils by late 2008. Based on that, the Center for Science in
the Public Interest sued Burger King on Wednesday [5/16/2007], claiming the company was moving too slowly and
had failed to set a definite timetable for removal of trans fats.
New FDA Report Threatens
Consumer Choices. Today [6/2/2006] a new report commissioned by the Food and Drug Administration
will recommend that U.S. restaurants reduce portion sizes, serve high calorie foods with lighter sides,
advertise healthier foods, and provide greater access to nutritional information. On its way to
restricting consumer choices, the report inappropriately singles out the restaurant industry as a leading
cause of obesity, ignores the impact of Americans' shrinking exercise habits, and dismisses the role of
personal responsibility in dietary choices.
This is just another angle
of The Government's Role as Your Overprotective Nanny.
Government Anti-Obesity Efforts Achieve Little
Success. States are increasingly using obesity as an excuse to feed at the taxpayer
trough. … Like other politicized public health initiatives, last year's obesity legislation adopted
a "for your own good" mantra set on protecting people from themselves.
I'm
Fat. You're Fat. And Your Kids Are, Too. Blaming the Big Corporations that are simply
providing what you want and demanding that government ban various elements of the food supply won't reduce your
waist size, but it will increase your loss of personal freedom and choice.
Sorry,
Cupcake, You're Not Welcome in Class. The days of the birthday cupcake — smothered in
a slurry of sticky frosting and with a dash of rainbow sprinkles — may be numbered in schoolhouses
across the nation. Fears of childhood obesity have led schools to discourage and sometimes even ban what
were once de rigueur grammar-school treats.
McDonald's
Didn't Make Them Fat. I have a question for federal Judge Robert Sweet: If your own children
blamed McDonald's for making them fat, would you buy it? I don't think so. Yet the judge has given
the green light to a lawsuit against McDonald's by two teenaged girls who claim the popular fast-food chain
tricked them into eating food that made them fat and sick. At first it looked as if this lawsuit was
going to be pushed down the garbage disposal, but now it's back.
The Futile Crusades of Dem Quixote:
[Scroll down] "Some people will say, 'Well, people just don't have to eat it,'" she told the Washington Post. "But the
fact of the matter is, what if you have no other choices?" Marqueece Harris-Dawson, executive director
of Community Coalition, based in South-Central, said, "You try to get a salad within 20 minutes of our
location; it's virtually impossible." But, um, McDonald's serves salads. In fact, the AP photo
that accompanied the Post story on Perry's crusade featured a South Central McDonald's. The largest
single object in the photo was not the golden arches, but the sign advertising McDonald's "new fruit &
walnut salad."
KFC
owner sticks by its cooking oil. A leading fast-food company has refused to bow to the [Australian]
Federal Government's demand it remove harmful fats from its products. The Assistant Health Minister,
Chris Pyne, hosted a meeting of industry leaders in Sydney yesterday [3/12/2007] but failed to secure
unanimous support from fast-food groups for healthier cooking.
Revealed: Secret tricks to sell junk food
to children. Some of Britain's biggest food brands, including McDonald's, Nestlé and
Kellogg's, are using "underhand tactics" on the internet to directly target children with their unhealthy
products, according to a report. Stung by moves to restrict traditional methods of selling junk food to
children, such as TV advertising, the consumer group Which? says companies are often turning to the less
heavily policed internet.
[If a 4-year-old kid has $20 in his pocket and wants to drive over to McDonald's to buy dinner for the family,
more power to him. But in reality, adults decide where to eat, adults spend the money, and adults have control
over the diets of their children, no matter what the kids have seen on TV.]
Proposed Trans Fat Ban Irks Chicago
Restaurants. "Our concern is that these laws should not be forced upon restaurants," explained
Illinois Restaurant Association President Colleen McShane. "Forcing them to immediately change their menu
items or recipes can and will have a negative impact. We support a voluntary effort to reduce trans fats
from menus, not a government mandate."
Media's Warning This Memorial Day: Step Away from the
Grill. Journalists constantly attack the foods Americans eat and the companies that make
them … Reporters hype food dangers, complaining about the obesity "epidemic" and bringing on "consumer"
experts who try to scare viewers from eating just about everything. They also rarely include any
comments from the very companies or industries they attack.
Trans Fat Ban: In the wake of New York
City's ban on restaurant use of trans fat, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the ban is "not going to take away
anybody's ability to go out and have the kind of food they want, in the quantities they want. … We are
just trying to make food safer." That, my friends, is tyrannical double-talk.
NYC Mulls Ban on Trans Fats
in Eateries. Three years after the city banned smoking in restaurants, health officials are
talking about prohibiting something they say is almost as bad: artificial trans fatty acids.
Fat
chance for the new prohibitionism? What if restaurants throughout this country were too scared of
a lawsuit to sell foods deemed fattening? It's not a far-fetched possibility, at least if a misguided
gaggle of lawyers, legislators and researchers get their way. … Dozens of states either have introduced
or passed legislation aimed at curbing obesity. Measures include restricting advertising to children;
requiring schools to provide parents with information about student body mass index; requiring schools to
provide diabetes screening; mandating insurance coverage for obesity prevention and treatment; and
establishing nutrition education programs.
City of Portland
looks at trans fat ban. New York is doing it. Now, so is Starbucks. Now Portland could
be next to ban trans fats in restaurants. According to City Commissioner Randy Leonard, Portland is
looking very seriously at banning trans fats this year.
Burger Baloney. Researchers from
the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, looking into whether beef consumption could be
linked to increased risk of colon cancer, published a study in January [2005] with apparently alarming
conclusions. Closer examination, however, revealed more creative slicing and dicing of data by a few
researchers at the NCI who seem to have a history of publishing anti-meat research.
Disney
to serve healthier food at parks. The Walt Disney Co. will begin serving more nutritionally
balanced meals at its domestic theme parks and will sign movie and other endorsement deals only with
restaurants that limit fat and sugar in menu items, the company said Monday [10/16/06].
A Sweetener
With a Bad Rap. Many scientists say that there is little data to back up the demonization of
high-fructose corn syrup, and that links between the crystalline goop and obesity are based upon
misperceptions and unproved theories, or are simply coincidental.
When Bad News is Good News: The
Spinach Story. While death and disease of any sort is tragic, the fact that a foodborne illness
has received so much attention at all is one indicator of just how safe our food supply generally is.
Despite the perpetual calls for additional federal oversight … Americans already enjoy the safest
food supply in human history — and it's getting safer every day.
Shutting Down Debate. Eric
Schlosser, the anti-fast food crusader who wrote Fast Food Nation, has a new "children's book" out on
the same subject, titled Chew on This. I put "children's book" in quotation marks because while
this book has pictures and simplifies complicated issues, it delivers a mostly grown-up message about how evil
big corporations exploit farmers, hide the harmful health effects of their products, pay their employees too
little, put profits before people … well, you know the litany.
The Fast Food Police Gang Can't Shoot
Straight. In 1988, the Center for Science in the Public Interest demanded McDonald's cease using
beef tallow to cook its French fries and instead substitute partially hydrogenated cooking oils that contain
trans fat. CSPI contended partially hydrogenated oils are relatively innocent compared to beef
tallow. CSPI's Web site still claims this as one of its food police victories … but it turns
out they were wrong. On the same Web site, CSPI now simultaneously touts a class-action lawsuit
it has filed against KFC demanding it stop using oil containing trans fat, which it alleges
kills 50,000 Americans a year.
Bill Clinton Cuts a Deal to Make School Snacks
Healthier. Snacks sold in schools will have to cut the fat, sugar and salt under the latest
crackdown on junk food won by former President Clinton. Just five months after a similar agreement
targeting the sale of sodas in schools, Clinton and the American Heart Association announced a deal
Friday [10/06/2006] with several major food companies to make school snacks healthier — the latest assault on
the nation's childhood obesity epidemic.
[Has Bill Clinton ever been a role model for good nutrition, or anything else?]
The
nanny party thinks parents are incompetent to raise children. I'm not knocking Dr. [Susan]
Lynch's advocacy in support of healthy lifestyles. No one is in favor of childhood obesity. It's
just not the government's job, or the job of government-run schools, to keep kids from drinking soda or
eating chips.
Animal Rights Group Attacks
Katrina-Torn Mississippi Schools. The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom has called on the
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a Washington-based animal rights group, to withdraw a
callous school-nutrition "report card" it issued to public schools in Hancock County, Mississippi. PCRM
gave Hancock County a grade of "D," based largely on its complaint that the six-school district serves
children meat entrees including "the BBQ pulled-pork burger and the chicken patty sandwich."
Deep fried panic:
The people at the Center for Science in the Public Interest could give meddlesome busybodies a bad name. In
fact, that almost seems to be the point of their latest lawsuit, which targets KFC's use of cooking oil with
trans fat. CSPI thinks that if companies and customers don't shun this type of fat, the courts should step
in and force them to.
The Fried Logic of the Food Police: What
are we to make of Arthur Hoyte, a retired physician from Rockville, Maryland, who is suing KFC because he
thought fried chicken was a health food? In a lawsuit sponsored by the Center for Science in the Public
Interest, Hoyte claims he had no idea the restaurant chain fries its food in partially hydrogenated vegetable
oil. … Aren't doctors supposed to be smart, at least when it comes to health-related issues?
Doctors call for 'fat tax' on Coca-Cola
and Pepsi. Delegates at the powerful American Medical Association's annual conference will demand
a levy on the sweeteners put in sugary drinks to pay for a massive public health education campaign. They
will also call for the amount of salt added to burgers and processed foods to be halved.
Menu madness:
According to a June 2 Associated Press report, "Those heaping portions at restaurants — and
doggie bags for the leftovers — may be a thing of the past, if health officials get their
way." … The story pertains to a report, funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration … Among
the report's recommendations for restaurants are: list calorie-content on menus, serve smaller portions
and add more fruits and vegetables and nuts. Both the Health and Human Services Department and the FDA
accept the report's findings.
AMA
wants to tax your soda pop. Are you ready for a "fat tax" on your soda, America? Do you want
to pay extra for your Coca-Cola or Pepsi to fund a national anti-obesity program? If some members of the
American Medical Association have their way, there could be such a tax. And while they're at it, AMA
members also want to cut by half the salt used in fast food, processed foods and restaurant meals.
Ten Dumbest Food Cop
Ideas: Over the years, the growing cabal of diet dictators have proposed a litany of crazy
proposals to tax, legislate, and litigate away many food and beverage choices. This article lists
ten of their dumbest ideas.
Food and Drink Police: Center
for Science in the Public Interest wants government to control our eating habits.
An Epidemic of
Obesity Myths: Overblown rhetoric about the "obesity epidemic" has itself reached
epidemic proportions. Trial lawyers increasingly see dollar signs where the rest of us
see dinner. Activists and bureaucrats are proposing radical "solutions" like zoning
restrictions on restaurants and convenience stores, as well as extra taxes and warning
labels on certain foods.
If fat is an illness, can ugly be far
behind? If obesity, in government-speak, no longer is "not an illness," one can assume it is an
illness, and, if it is an illness, it must be covered by Medicare. The change means that Medicare and
Medicaid participants may begin asking for reimbursement for treating excess weight and these requests will be
considered. The implication is HUGE!
Examination
of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. CSPI is the undisputed
leader among America's "food police." CSPI was founded in 1971 by current executive
director Michael Jacobson, and two lawyers from Ralph Nader's Center for the Study of
Responsive Law. Since then, CSPI's joyless eating club has issued hundreds of
high-profile — and highly questionable — reports condemning
soft drinks, fat substitutes, irradiated meat, biotech food crops, French fries,
and just about anything that tastes good.
Busybodies
or tyrants? Some call the people behind the Washington-D.C.-based Center for Science
in the Public Interest (CSPI) busybodies, but I call them wannabe tyrants.
Dora the
exploiter? All the talk of injuries and damages is a charade. As obesity litigation
advocate Richard Daynard notes in this month's American Journal of Preventive Medicine, one advantage of
suing food companies under state consumer protection statutes is that it "avoids complicated causation
issues."
Super-Sized
Statistics. Using words like "epidemic," policy makers [have] rushed
to debate on everything from "fat taxes" on junk food to the regulation of fast-food
advertising, from Medicare covering obesity-related surgeries to banning sodas
from schools.
You bet I want
fries with that. I don't usually follow nutrition stories, but it was hard to miss last
week's shocker about low-fat diets. Like many papers, The Boston Globe put it on Page 1,
high above the fold: "Study finds no major benefits of low-fat diet."
Illinois Set to Ban Soda and Snacks in
Schools. The Illinois State Board of Education, following the urging of Gov. Rod Blagojevich
(D), on December 15 began the process of banning the sale of high-fat, high-calorie foods and drinks
to most of the state's elementary and middle school students. … While the proposed regulations have been
developed in consultation with the American Heart Association, experts note there is no consensus on
what junk food actually is.
Fast
food justice isn't good justice. Some lawyers say fast food is dangerous. It
can make you fat. I say some lawyers are dangerous. They can make you poor and take
away your choices. But special privileges for favored industries, such as the bill the House
recently passed to protect the fast-food industry, are the wrong cure. … People aren't
endlessly stupid, so companies serving nearly 100 million people every day must be serving
their customers well.
Some Rare Good News on the
Obesity Front. So much of what passes for obesity science has a large element
of junk science in it, whether it's about the supposedly 400,000 Americans who die from being
overweight each year (false) or the claim that consumers of French fries are likely to get
cancer from acrylamide (false).
Supersized
nanny state: America has become the country of the warning label. California
is the warning-label state. … Whatever I do, it must be wrong, because there's always a sign
telling me that what I'm eating, drinking or buying is bad for me. If all of these
things are so hazardous, why am I alive?
Chicagoans Force-Fed Animal Rights
Nonsense. Ducking the opportunity to stand up to animal-rights extremists, the Chicago City
Council voted on Wednesday [4/26/2006] to outlaw the sale of the delicacy foie gras.
The Editor says...
Call me a bumpkin if you will, but I had never heard of it. Apparently it's some kind of dish made from goose liver.
Daley has a beef with calorie
counts. Mayor Daley had a field day ridiculing aldermen for banning foie gras and suggesting
Chicago restaurants sharply restrict artery-clogging trans fats. Now the mayor has a new target:
mandatory calorie counts. One week after Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th) proposed the idea, Daley shot it
down with a sarcastic vengeance. He argued that restaurant patrons can count their own calories and make
their own food choices. He insisted that restaurants already forced to endure back-to-back bans on smoking
and foie gras should be left alone by a City Council with better things to do.
I want my foie gras!
Outspoken foodies Anthony Bourdain and Michael Ruhlman sound off about New Jersey's plan to ban the duck
delicacy — and how the food police are ruining America.
Update:
Chicago overturns ban on
foie gras in restaurants. Dining on foie gras — a delicacy made of duck and goose
liver — will soon be legal again in Chicago. The City Council on Wednesday [5/14/2008]
repealed its two-year-old ban on the gourmet dish, drawing dissent from animal rights activists who consider
foie gras cruel because the birds are force-fed to make their livers bigger.
Chicago
Overturns Foie Gras Ban. Chicagoans can feast on foie gras once more. The Chicago City
Council just repealed the ban on its sale that it put in place two years ago. Monica Davey, the TimesŐs
Chicago bureau chief, says the ban has been a source of embarrassment for the city and the repeal comes as
residents have accused officials of trying to micromanage peopleŐs lives, with talk of prohibiting smoking
even outside along the lakefront and eliminating transfats from restaurants.
Top Ten Junk Science Stories of the
Past Decade: Swedish scientists alarmed us in April 2002 that cooking high-carbohydrate
foods — like potatoes and bread — formed acrylamide, a substance linked with
cancer in lab animals. But even if lab animals were reasonable predictors of cancer risk in
humans — a notion yet to be validated — someone of average bodyweight
would have to eat 35,000 potato chips (about 62.5 pounds) per day for life to get an
equivalent dose of acrylamide as the lab animals.
Half-baked
science: When I was a kid, my mother thought spinach was the healthiest
food in the world because it contained so much iron. … It turns out that spinach
is an OK source of iron but no better than pizza, pistachio nuts or dried peaches. The
spinach-iron myth grew out of a simple mathematical miscalculation: A researcher
accidentally moved a decimal point one space, so he thought spinach had 10 times
more iron than it did. The press reported it, and I had to eat spinach.
Artificial sweetener cleared of cancer link. A
huge federal study in people — not rats — takes the fizz out of arguments that the diet
soda sweetener aspartame might raise the risk of cancer.
A review of "Chew on This: Everything you Don't Want to Know about fast food"
Authors Provide Heaping Portion of Misinformation
About Food. This book is a must-read for all those who really care about our food supply, really
care about our nation's economic system, and wish to see how a book can attempt to destroy them both. It
is very well written and often extremely interesting … while at the same time being a near total
distortion of the truth. It is intended to create an anti-capitalist mindset among America's
youth while leading them to accept reduced individual freedom leading to a socialist political
and economic system.
Fat
feedback … and fantasies. Obesity hysteria recently collapsed
under its own weight. But the public health establishment, media and politicians
are doing their best to revive it.
Critics Can't Stomach
Detroit Mayor's Fast-Food Tax Proposal. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
has proposed a 2 percent tax on fast-food purchases, alarming critics who say it
would fall mainly on low- and middle-income persons and would slow economic development.
Bureaucracy and Obesity: The
Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has recently taken some
hits for how it spends around $7 billion of federal taxpayer money, lacks a clearly defined
mission. In fact, it has too many missions and is still looking for more.
Fat check: Every
time a new obesity study comes out, pundits latch onto it as proof that the government either should or
should not take an interest in what Americans eat and how much they exercise.
Obesity Epidemic's
Heavy Costs: How times change! Wasn't it just in April that the media and food and
beverage lobby ran riot over a single study claiming that being overweight is actually good for you?
The Agency
That Cried "Epidemic": An article in this week's issue of Science magazine,
the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, describes the controversy
over the CDC's exaggerated estimate that 400,000 Americans die each year because of excess
weight. A more recent study from researchers at the CDC, led by Dr. Katherine
Flegal, indicates the number is much, much lower.
CDC's
Credibility is Shot. When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
announced that obesity killed 400,000 Americans annually, the media and pharmaceutical
industry pounced. … A study released [mid-April 2005] reported that the actual number of
overweight- and obesity-related deaths was closer to 26,000 — one-fifteenth the
original estimate.
Just
how fat are we? In March 2004, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
said 400,000 Americans die each year due to obesity-related problems. … [But now]
the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics says, no, the real figure is 111,909. And
after you deduct the beneficial effects of being moderately overweight, the figure declines
to 25,814!
A role
model he is not. Bill Clinton is going to stand up to Ronald McDonald. And he will be
doing it for your children. The shapeless blob of an initiative also will focus on schools and
community groups to increase physical activity. … And Clinton will make sure all children eat
their broccoli before he moves on to his next role — America's marriage counselor.
Food Cop
Fines Schools For Selling Fries. Texas Agricultural Commissioner and
self-described "Food
Czarina" Susan
Combs is robbing Peter and pummeling Paul. … The
Carlisle School was fined more than $1,000 for selling Crystal Lite (which has only 5
calories per 8 oz. serving). The Calallen Middle School received a fine of $666 because
the bags of Chili Cheese Fritos were too big. The Bartlett Elementary school was fined
more than $2,400 for, among other things, selling fried potato products twice in a week.
Black-Market
Bubble Gum. Draconian food-cop policies almost always have unintended
consequences. Such is the case in Austin, Texas, where one high school's ban
on snack foods has created a thriving black market for candy bars and other sweets.
The
"serving size" myth. Most people would eat one blueberry muffin for
breakfast. When the label tells you there are just 215 calories per serving,
you'd think it was a reasonably low-cal breakfast. But the label in tiny print
on one muffin ABC News bought also said the serving size was one-third of a muffin.
Health
hype: The idea that sugar causes hyperactivity is a myth. … In
one study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, some kids ate sugared
foods while others got foods with artificial sweeteners. Their parents and the
researchers didn't know who was eating sugar and who wasn't.
The
productive vs. the unproductive: If we developed the practice of removing
products from the market because some people are harmed by them, we might starve to death.
The Flawed Fast Food Tax:
As politicians look for new ways to prop up their sagging budgets, Detroit mayor
Kwame Kilpatrick is the latest political figure to float the idea of a "fast food
tax." If his effort is successful, Detroit would become the first city in the nation
to pass an extra tax on quickservice food.
CSPI Scam dot com: The Center for Science in the Public
Interest (CSPI) is not as nice, sweet, and unbiased as its name might imply. The group routinely uses scare
tactics justified by "junk science" and media theatrics as part of their ceaseless campaign for government
regulation of your personal food choices.
Don't Get Tricked When
You Hand Out Treats. Insist on the Obesity Liability Waiver … because no one wants a
lawsuit with their candy.
Let
Cookie Monster be Cookie Monster. After three decades, the well-meaning
social engineers of PBS have announced he's not a Cookie Monster at all. In the
interests of teaching kids not to be gluttons, CTW has transformed Cookie Monster into
just another monster who happens to like cookies.
Another
war … on obesity. Writes Jacob Sullum of Reason magazine, Kelly
Brownell, "a Twinkie tax advocate who never tires of comparing Ronald McDonald to
Joe Camel," actually sports "an extra chin and an ample gut." Apparently
Brownell has seen the enemy and it is him. But, he would presumably add,
it's not his fault. People are helpless victims of evil profit-minded fast
food restaurants and soft drink manufacturers.
Yummy!
Thick
lawyers and thickburgers: Hungry? If you grab a new Hardee's
Monster Thickburger, you won't be. The burger, which is 2.5 inches thick,
packs 1,420 calories and 107 grams of fat. It contains two 1/3-pound
slabs of all-Angus beef, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese
and mayonnaise on a buttered sesame-seed bun.
Big
Media Continue Skewing Obesity Debate. Diet and obesity continue to weigh heavily on the
minds of Americans. Those concerns have carried over to the news media, but the coverage takes
on a strong anti-business slant, as if businesses and advertisers were responsible for obesity.
The Food
Police: Coming Soon to a Texas School Lunchroom. School nutrition guidelines were
recently announced by the Texas Department of Agriculture. The 15-page culinary blacklist amounts
to yet another attempt by big government bureaucrats to usurp the power of local governments, school
districts, teachers and parents charged with the primary education and care of our children.
Hyperbolic Hypocrisy. The
critics of consumer choice and enemies of a wide variety of menu options have never been known for their
consistency. From flip-flops about obesity lawsuits to schizophrenic support of domestic terrorism,
the food cops, animal rights nuts, and other radical activists have practically got the market cornered
on hypocrisy.
Soda Pop Media Feeding Frenzy. An
article in the August 25 [2004] issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, "Sugar-Sweetened
Beverages, Weight Gain, and Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes in Young and Middle-Aged Women," adds yet another
chapter to the feeding frenzy that drives our nation's love affair with epidemiological risk
factorology. The article is a textbook case of misusing epidemiological research for the
development of public health recommendations.
No Fizz in Soda Scare. The
food police filed a petition this week with the federal government to require that regular (non-diet) soft
drinks carry health warning labels. But scientific data, including a new study published this
week, expose such soda scaremongering for what it is — junk science-fueled nanny-ism.
Granola
bars, Lay's and Oreos rule, U.S. snack sales data show. Granola bar sales are booming,
especially in Los Angeles. Lay's rules the potato chip market, but not in Philadelphia or
Baltimore. And Oreos are the top-selling cookie, period. Those are some of the findings
of a study of snack sales over the past year in U.S. supermarkets, compiled by Chicago-based
Information Resources Inc.
Nanny-state
nonsense from the country that once ruled half the world. England used to be a world
power. Now it is morphing into a caricature of political correctness. A government
proposal to ban TV advertising for "junk food" makes a mockery of the principles of freedom and
individual responsibility.
Now
health and safety cut number of holes in chip shop salt shakers. Pot-holed roads, crumbling
schools, litter-strewn streets — there's no shortage of problem areas crying out for their
attention. But councils believe they have found a better use for their money: reducing the number
of holes in chip shop salt shakers.
Why the State Hates
Cholesterol: Cholesterol is found in every cell of the body. This fascinating molecule,
found in rich abundance in the tastiest of foods, is the most critical component of mental
function — surely one reason the State has waged its historical role on this vilified yet truly
magnificent molecule, independent thought being the primary threat to its existence.
Dishing It Out, But Not Taking It. When
it comes to criticism, Morgan Spurlock, director of "Super Size Me," can dish it out, but he sure can't take
it. Ask him a tough question, and he turns to blubber.
'American Morning' is on a
Yo-Yo Diet of Obesity Hype. Has CNN's "American Morning" gotten its fill of the "obesity
epidemic" hype? Maybe not, but on two separate occasions in the past few days, the program's reporters
have scoffed at candy makers' and schools' attempts to keep kids from developing a sweet tooth.
Supersized
Bias: Big Media's Role In Covering And Promoting the Obesity Debate. More
and more Americans are obsessed with their weight, and the news media have responded with an
abundance of stories about food and fat. But there's more to the fat story than just
giving the public more news they can use. Some anti-corporate activists have seized
upon the public's worries about weight to bash the companies that feed America. They
argue that the fattening of America is less the result of poor personal choices than poor
behavior by U.S. businesses, and that the "obesity epidemic" can best be cured through a diet
of new taxes, more regulations, and a flood of lawyer-enriching lawsuits.
Note: The following
article contains profanity.
Let's Sue
Somebody. The food police are looking to take a healthy bite out of corporate
America. What is their beef? They think the food industry is making all of us fat. Are they
recommending we eat less or hit the gym? Not really. Their solution is lawsuits,
of course.
The food police say
milk is unhealthy for kids. CSPI has added whole and 2% milk to their list
of "poor nutritional quality" beverages and says they should be removed from
schools. "Anyone who would suggest that milk is unhealthy for kids is out
to lunch," said Richard Berman, executive director of the Center for Consumer
Freedom. "CSPI once boasted that it was 'proud about finding something wrong
with practically everything.' Now it's proven it."
Who's
Behind The Latest Anti-Soda Study? It hasn't been published or peer-reviewed,
but in the last few days nearly 100 media outlets have reported on a questionable bit of
number-crunching that tries to link soda consumption with diabetes. Five of the study's
seven coauthors, it turns out, are certified obesity alarmists, and some have close ties
with the self-described "food police" at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Is Obesity
an Epidemic? A new report disputes commonly used statistics and cites
evidence of obesity hysteria driven by pharmaceutical industry.
Pass
the Cheeseburger Bill, Hold the Lawsuits. Americans overwhelmingly
agree that restaurants should not be sued over obesity.
To thwart
lawyers, Pennsylvania should pass its own burger bill. Remember the guy who
sued fast-food restaurants for making him fat? He became a poster boy for frivolous
litigation. But that hasn't stopped the trial lawyers who see dollar signs where
most of us see dinner.
Food Fight: Politically
charged talk about the so-called "epidemic" of obesity has, itself, reached epidemic
proportions. Elected officials, presidential candidates, mid-level bureaucrats, and
left-wing activist leaders are playing a high-profile game of leapfrog to see who
can come up with the most outrageous proposals.
Salmon: Health
food or pink poison? Like alcohol and chocolate before it, salmon
is now the subject of contradictory science. So what is the bewildered,
bemused consumer to do, pelted with so many admonitions about what to eat,
what not to eat, and how to eat it?
There's
Just No Satisfying The Food Cops: Thankfully, most Americans have
rejected proposals to tax, ban, regulate and restrict their favorite foods. But
some activists won't take this obvious hint.
Soft Drink
Hysteria is Hard to Swallow. Legendary TV chef Julia Child, who passed
away [recently], warned us that "when you're afraid of your food, you don't digest it
well." Unfortunately, American consumers have been scared silly about nearly every
item on the menu, from beef and chicken to salmon and veggies. The latest phony
food scare centers on soft drinks and their alleged link to type 2 diabetes.
AMA Drops Call for Soft Drinks Tax.
The American Medical Association (AMA) has backed away from a proposed resolution calling for states and the
federal government to levy special taxes on "sugary drinks that are devoid of nutritional value." At a
November meeting of AMA delegates in Las Vegas, delegates instead opted for an alternate resolution calling
for collaborative efforts across the health and beverage industries to fight obesity.
Anti-cheese campaign is seen as 'nannying gone
mad'. New advertising rules which will brand cheese as "junk food" were yesterday criticised as
"dietary nannying gone mad" by a leading farming industry figure. "To suggest there is anything inherently
harmful about cheese is absurd," said the National Farming Union's national director of communications, Anthony
Gibson. He said the rules would be "thoroughly unhelpful to farmers" at a time when the dairy industry had
been going through a very difficult 12 months.
Soda Study Is
the Latest Fizzy Science From Food Police. A newly published study in the
Journal of the American Medical Association was co-authored by several individuals with
close ties to the self-described "food police" at the Center for Science in the Public
Interest (CSPI), an activist group leading the nation's anti-soda crusade today.
The Michael Moore
of Fast Food: How does a film-industry nobody become the liberal elite's favorite
filmmaker? By trashing the world's most successful corporation.
Public-Health
Zealots Hit Sour Note. The choir of anti-obesity fatheads is reaching a crescendo
as a new article in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) describes a purported
consensus among public-health busybodies in favor of severe restrictions on our favorite foods.
Biotech Food Is Safe and
Widely Used. Anti-biotechnology activists claimed recently that "genetically
modified" material, albeit in minuscule amounts, has moved into and thereby "contaminates"
conventionally produced seed supplies. As usual, they're way off base. In fact,
the "contamination" is more like finding Lexus parts in your Yugo.
French
fries kill? Almost no week goes by without a report on some food or
environmental danger that can kill us. It is quite remarkable that any of us are alive
given our exposure to secondhand smoke, asbestos, lead in paint, cellular
phones and seesaws; our ingesting alcohol, sugar, fat and arsenic-laden water; and
our inhaling polluted air.
No French Fries,
No Peace! Last week, McDonald's announced that it would eliminate the
Super Size option from its menus. McDonald's claims this move will simplify its menu. However,
we all know that this explanation is … ridiculous. McDonald's is
attempting to defend against the next round of fast food lawsuits.
If you
are what you eat, then sue. The House of Representatives voted
276 to 139 Wednesday [3/10/2004] to pass the Personal Responsibility in
Food Consumption Act — also known as the "cheeseburger bill" — to prohibit
overweight Americans from suing the food industry for their avoirdupois. Given
that a 2003 Gallup Poll found that 89 percent of Americans don't believe in blaming
the fast-food industry for obesity, you'd think the bill is unnecessary.
Governor
Doyle to Obesity Lawyers: "Bring 'Em On". Governor Doyle's
vetoes mean that the food industry remains exposed to frivolous obesity
claims and that these claims can be based on "junk science." The
Wisconsin legislature ought to override these vetoes.
Fast
food damnation: The day before the House approved the Personal Responsibility
in Food Consumption Act by a 2-to-1 margin, [it was said that] the bill "is surely
premature, because there has been only one obesity lawsuit, and it was dismissed by
a federal judge."
Ice
Cream From Hell: The FDA doesn't want to ban ice cream. It just wants
the power to do so. It wants the power to define substances like dioxin as health
threats at any level of concentration whatever. And guess
what. There's dioxin in ice cream.
Does FDA Regulation
Violate the Constitution? From the orange juice we drink to begin our day,
to the lunch we eat at a restaurant, to the wine we consume in the evening, the federal
Food and Drug Administration regulates what nutritional and health information food and
drug manufacturers can share with us. When Ocean Spray's Web site recently provided information
and links to health research regarding juice consumption, the FDA threatened to seize
the company's inventory, because the agency had not approved the "health claims."
Horse slaughter banned. The
House voted on Thursday [9/7/2006] to ban the slaughter of horses for meat, a practice that lawmakers thought
they already had ended. Instead of banning it outright, Congress last year yanked the salaries and
expenses of federal inspectors. But the Bush administration simply started charging plants for
inspections, and the slaughter has continued.
The Editor says...
If people want to eat horse meat, why stop them? My understanding was that most horse
meat ends up in dog food anyway. The opposition to slaughtering horses is another example of
decision making based
upon emotion instead of reasoning.
Pass
the Toxins & Carcinogens. We live in an intensely chemical-phobic
society, one where food labels and menus brag of being "all-natural" and "purely
organic." Poultry sections offer fryers from "happy, free range
chickens." "Chemical-free" cuisine is in.
Reducto
Ad Totalitarianism: [We need to] return to the concept of man
as a rational, self-responsible individual entitled to make his own decisions — and take
his own risks — without the paternalistic "protection" of liability lawyers.
The Case against
Lawyers: In her new book, Catherine Crier identifies the culprits in what
she terms a flight from responsibility: the creation of a system of endless rules, mandates,
implied duties, and special legislation in our current legal system.
The
Man with "Television Addiction" Threatens to Sue Cable Company: Tim
Dumouchel of Fond du Lac said his family's viewing habits — forced on
him by cable TV — caused his wife to become overweight and his children to grow lazy.
Ailing
Man Sues Fast-Food Firms: A New York City lawyer
has filed suit against the four big fast-food corporations,
saying their fatty foods are responsible for his client's
obesity and related health problems.
Who's Next? Krispy Kreme? Legal Man Takes
on the "Fat Pushers": In today's America, of course, giving people free and enticing donuts may
be enough to set up Krispy Kreme for a lawsuit … by fatties.
The
Fast Food Three vs. The Whopper: Just as smokers sue tobacco companies,
despite 40 years of warning labels, this lawsuit asks us to believe people too
stupid, too ignorant to distinguish between healthy and non-healthy diets.
Fat
is as fat does: Humorist Art Buchwald once observed that it was
becoming more difficult to write satire because truth was funnier. That's
how I feel about news that a 56-year-old New York man is suing four leading fast food
chains for contributing to his obesity, several heart attacks and other health problems.
"Food
Police" Target Pizza: The same group that said
Chinese food, popcorn and soft drinks were no good for us is now
targeting another of America's favorite food items: pizza.
Senator
Wants Limits On Schoolyard Junk Food: A Vermont senator
believes too many public school students are being sold what he considers "unhealthy
drinks and snacks" during lunch in school and he wants the Agriculture Department to
tighten up its regulations on such sales. His legislation would "tighten" current
federal regulations under the National School Lunch Program.
Editor's Note:
The story above was originally on one of the media
bias pages because it is the kind of "news" story that appears on local TV news
programs without any rebuttal. You're supposed to hear the story and feel better
about your big omniscient government protecting "America's Children." But sooner
or later, kids are going to have to learn how to make their own decisions about their
diets. This "pro-choice" Senator prefers to put more laws on the books rather
than allowing kids to make their own dietary choices. I suggest that he's more
interested in increasing the power of the government than in improving the children's
health.
(Related stories below.)
Soft Drinks,
Hard Bias: Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., just introduced a bill to restrict sales of soft drinks in
schools. "The Better Nutrition for School Children Act of 2001" comes on the heels of a series of
anti-soft drink articles in The Washington Post. But Sen. Leahy should know better than to
believe everything he reads.
Hard bias over soft drinks: The Washington
Post, in not reporting a study contradicting a government report on children and soft drinks, seems "more
interested in frightening parents and children than informing them."
Fizzy Myths Live
On: In a feel-good column about mother-knows-best practical health advice, a Los Angeles Times
columnist falls prey to the baseless claims about soft drinks.
Anti-Meat
Activists Target School Lunches: A health scare over school lunches is brewing. The driving forces behind
the junk science-fueled scare are the usual suspects — anti-meat and
environmental activist groups, and politicians who do the groups' bidding.
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