The  Invasion  of  the  Food  Police

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.


Restaurant chains, vending machines will have to post calories.  In an effort to tackle national obesity, the FDA's draft guidelines require any businesses with more than 20 locations to post the calorie information in the same size type as the menu item or price.

Where's the Michelle Obama Who Said This?  Earlier this year, Michelle Obama ... rolled out this nationwide initiative, Let's Move, earlier in 2010.  She said she learned when she and Barack were working that her children's nutrition was suffering from not being able to cook meals for them.  She said she started making changes and wanted to bring those lessons to the White House.  Apparently, they were all lessons she forgot when trying to win over Iowa voters on the campaign trail with her husband.

Michelle's Flawed Crusade.  One may not like the ratio of nutrients in a food for whatever reason, but it is almost impossible for a food to be "nutrient-poor" or "low-nutrient."  (It is similarly impossible for a food to contain "empty Calories."  A food Calorie is a standard unit of energy measuring 4186.8 joules.  An "empty Calorie" is like an inch without length.)  That is the science.  Anything else is "politics or ideology."

San Francisco pol wants to take the joy out of a Happy Meal.  Toys that have been synonymous with kids' meals at fast-food restaurants could soon be banned in San Francisco under a new law proposed Tuesday [8/10/2010] if the food contains too much fat, sugar or salt.  Earlier this year, Santa Clara County became the first local government in the nation to adopt such a law, but it only applies to unincorporated areas and affects a handful of restaurants.

Just trying to be a good neighbor.  It seems obvious that the best way that these nefarious peddlers of toxic sugar and salt can make amends for their disgusting and inexcusable behavior would be for them to voluntarily cease selling their products in those jurisdictions that find them objectionable.  This does not mean that they should change the recipes for their products.  No, that is the last thing that they should do.  They should band together and cease providing Twinkies, or hot dogs, butter, cheese, eggs, cake, cookies, soda and other such vile things into states and municipalities where they are unwelcome.  And do it immediately and suddenly.  Say, tomorrow for instance.

What Is Your Breaking Point?  Most of us are reaching the breaking point with Obama and the Democrats' agenda for more big government bankrupting the nation, higher taxes, job killing legislation, and infringements on our personal liberties.  Yet none of these assaults on our cherished American way of life can match the war on our taste buds.  The Democrats' crusade against food that tastes good is just beginning, and it's already out of hand.

Obama puts his cook in charge of your diet.
 Obama's personal cook made Senior Policy Advisor.  President Barack Obama (D) is treating his multi gazillion dollar spend our way out of debt and unemployment stimulus as his own private make work program, tossing taxpayer dollars to favored constituents, such as unions, and to favored areas, such as his home city of Chicago.  And now he's making it even more private, choosing his family's personal cook, Sam Kass, imported from Chicago, as... Senior Policy Advisor for Healthy Food Initiatives.

A Food Czar?  Really?  You may laugh about the White House assistant chef being appointed "Senior Policy Adviser."  You'll stop laughing when you realize that those in power really do want to tell you what to eat.

Unaccountable Czars Continue To Proliferate.  Barack Obama has appointed another czar from Chicago:  the new Food Czar Sam Kass.  Officially, he is labeled senior policy adviser for healthy food initiatives, but he's joining the list of more than 35 czars given broad and unaccountable power over our lives, habits and spending.

The New York Times seems horrified that it's legal to advertise cereal.
 Ad Rules Stall, Keeping Cereal a Cartoon Staple.  Lucky Charms.  Froot Loops.  Cocoa Pebbles.  A ConAgra frozen dinner with corn dog and fries.  McDonald's Happy Meals.  These foods might make a nutritionist cringe, but all of them have been identified by food companies as healthy choices they can advertise to children under a three-year-old initiative by the food industry to fight childhood obesity.

San Francisco Bans Coca-Cola, Mr. Pibb.  The sale of Coca-Cola is now outlawed at San Francisco City Hall.  That means if you need to wash down that tofu turkey dog, you'll need to order a bottle of soy milk.  Mayor Gavin Newsome has issued an executive order banning Coke, Pepsi and Fanta Orange from vending machines on city property.  The directive also includes non-diet sodas, sports drinks and artificially sweetened water.

Pass the pot brownies, but drop that soda.  In the City by the Bay, it may soon be easier to get a pot-laced brownie than a can of Pepsi.  San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom recently intensified his surge against soda pop just as the city's health department issued regulations to guide medical marijuana shops in how to prepare "edible cannabis products."

McDonald's warned:  Drop the toys or get sued.  A nutrition watchdog group is threatening to sue McDonald's if the fast-food giant won't stop using toys to to lure children to its Happy Meals.

Liberal Group Threatens Lawsuit Against McDonald's.  The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a liberal consumer advocacy organization, has announced it will sue McDonald's unless the fast-food franchise stops using toys to market its "Happy Meals" to children.

Obesity Ills Are A 'Myth'.  Accepted medical wisdom that overweight people are more susceptible to diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure is a myth, a shock[ing] new report suggests.  Even people who are obese suffer no adverse health effects until they turn 40.  The research flies in the face of Government attempts to combat the so-called "obesity timebomb", which it has been claimed will lead to a generation of youngsters dying before their parents.

Snake Oil in Your Snacks.  Foods masquerading as drugs are the hot spot in the packaged-food business.  The world's biggest food companies are stuffing ostensibly beneficial bacteria, omega-3 fatty acids and other additives into packaged foods.  They are funding clinical research in order to justify health claims — often deliberately vague — that blur the line between nutrition and medicine.  The foods promise to boost immunity, protect your heart and digestive system or help you sleep.

Making Americans Sick.  [Scroll down]  The Fanjul family of Palm Beach, Fla., a politically connected family, has given more than $1.8 million to both Democratic and Republican parties over the years.  They and others in the sugar industry give millions to congressmen to keep high tariffs on foreign sugar so the U.S. sugar industry can charge us higher prices.  According to one study, the Fanjul family alone earns about $65 million a year from congressional protectionism.

San Antonio city manager wages war on sugar.  City Manager Sheryl Sculley has declared war on sugar.  Well, at least when it comes packaged in cans and candy bars.  Sugary sodas no longer have a home in the city's 250 beverage vending machines and unhealthy foods in the 75 snack machines in city facilities are next.

School Nutrition Bill to Study How Government Can Restrict Food Ads Directed at Kids.  A recently introduced House bill, said to mirror First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative, would spend $1 million to study how the government can restrict food advertisements aimed at children.  The study proposed in the "Improving Nutrition for America's Children Act" would "examine mechanisms regulating marketing in elementary and secondary schools, including Federal, State, and local policies; contracts; and sales incentives.

The Coming War on Bacon.  Having dramatically expanded the role of the government in your doctor's office and your bank this year, the Obama administration is turning its attention to your kitchen. Sara Burrows, a reporter for the Carolina Journal, reported on the ramifications of the Obama administration's war on salt, announced recently as a nationwide decade long program by the FDA.

Happy Meal toys could be banned in Santa Clara County.  Convinced that Happy Meals and other food promotions aimed at children could make kids fat as well as happy, county officials in Silicon Valley are poised to outlaw the little toys that often come with high-calorie offerings.

Happy Meal Insanity in the New Nanny State.  The "debate" was over a new ordinance passed by a local government in Santa Clara, California that bans toys being sold with Happy Meals at McDonald's.  Now why in the world would the local Board of Supervisors bother to ban toys being sold with Happy Meals, one might ask?  Evidently, they have the peculiar belief there that allowing parents to buy their own children meals at fast food restaurants that include toys only encourages the little whippersnappers to become fat.

Politicians want to tax us thin — but it's big government that needs a diet.  Obesity generates big fat headlines, which the state, the city and Washington love.  It's a crisis, and it won't go to waste.  The political class is hungrily loading its plates with more government employees, whose salaries and pensions you'll be paying forever, engorging itself on your taxes and nibbling away at business and its ability to sell legal products.  What the Fatty Poppins crew isn't doing is much of anything that is likely to trim America's waistline.

Bill Would Require Government to Track Body Mass of American Children.  A bill introduced this month in Congress would put the federal and state governments in the business of tracking how fat, or skinny, American children are.  States receiving federal grants provided for in the bill would be required to annually track the Body Mass Index of all children ages 2 through 18.

Tobacco Tyrants Turn Their Attention To Salt.  Why do food processors put a certain quantity of salt in their products?  The answer is the people who buy their product like it, and they earn profits by pleasing customers.  The FDA has taken the position that what the American buying public wants is irrelevant.  They know what's best and if you disagree, they will fine, jail or put you out of business.

It's A Gateway Spice:  FDA Wants To Regulate Salt.  The Food and Drug Administration is planning an unprecedented effort to gradually reduce the salt consumed each day by Americans, saying that less sodium in everything from soup to nuts would prevent thousands of deaths from hypertension and heart disease.  The initiative, to be launched this year, would eventually lead to the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in food products.

The Editor says...
 I'd rather take my chances with too much salt than with too much government.

FDA Plans to Force a National Salt Cutback.  To use one of the president's favorite words, this expansion of the Nanny State is unprecedented.  The federal agency believes that, without further authorization from Congress, it can go ahead and take charge of our palates. ... Alas, now that the government has taken an even larger stake in the health-care industry, it will now busy itself finding inexorably more intrusive ways to govern our personal health.

Chefs Call Proposed New York Salt Ban 'Absurd'.  Some New York City chefs and restaurant owners are taking aim at a bill introduced in the New York Legislature that, if passed, would ban the use of salt in restaurant cooking.

A Matter of Bad Taste.  Earlier this year, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled the National Salt Reduction Initiative, a set of "voluntary" guidelines to cut the amount of sodium in processed and restaurant foods by 20 percent over the next five years. ... In order to make 308 million lives worth living, a mayor is telling a country how to consume grilled cheeses and frankfurters.

Pol:  Ban all salt from restaurant cooking.  Brooklyn Assemblyman Felix Ortiz has introduced legislation to eliminate the use of salt "in any form" in preparing food in every restaurant in the state — a move similar to Mayor Bloomberg's efforts to change people's eating habits, including reducing salt intake.  Ortiz['s] bill calls for a ban on salt.

Desalinizing America.  Public health groups want Uncle Sam to start separating us from salt for our own good — along with saturated fat and sugar.  Uncle Sam is listening — and doing. Call it the blanding of America.  Or call it another blow by the nanny state for freedom — freedom from our undisciplined appetites.  Freedom from personal responsibility.  Freedom from choice.  Why, even freedom from freedom.  Look, freedom from freedom works for zoo animals, doesn't it?

Federal War on Salt Could Spoil Country Hams.  If the food police get their way, North Carolinians can kiss their country hams, bacon, and fresh Bright Leaf hot dogs goodbye.  These Southern specialties might not disappear altogether, but, if the health agency's crusade against salt is successful, they never would taste the same again.

The next Obamacare target:  Your bacon sandwich.  Are you prepared to go from the supermarket to the black market for your bacon?  The Food and Drug Administration is preparing to lower the boom on sodium content in American food.  And companies are scrambling to lower the salt levels in their products in advance of the new rules.

New York schools' ban on homemade goods at bake sales has parents steamed.  Low-fat Doritos and Pop Tarts are in; goodies baked at home are out.  School officials say they're fighting obesity.  Angry parents say it sends the wrong message about food habits.

New USDA Effort Targets Link between Obesity and Food Stamps.  A growing number of local programs from Boston to San Diego are trying to make healthier foods more appealing and affordable for low-income families — the population of Americans who are most reliant on food stamps, and most likely to be obese.

Somebody must stand up for hotdogs.  You may have seen a warning this week from the American Academy of Pediatrics that hotdogs need to be "redesigned" by manufacturers because their current shape is a potentially lethal choking hazard for children. ... I suppose the American Academy of Pediatrics will shortly be calling on God to redesign bananas, carrots and peanuts.

Beware the Hot Dog Police!  In addition to trying to cut the deficit, reform health care, stop global warming, and fix Washington's broken political culture, President Barack Obama has taken on an even weightier task:  Getting rid of killer hot dogs.  It seems that around a dozen kids choke to death every year eating hot dogs.  The threat — of more government meddling — is real.

Hot-dog hysteria:  Believe it or not, the government is about to regulate the shape of hot dogs. ... It's true that compared to some other foods, hot dogs seem to present a slightly higher risk.  Of the 66 to 77 choking deaths for children younger than 10 in 2006, hot dogs reportedly accounted for about 11 to 13 deaths.  But this claim of relative risk isn't conclusive because there has been no attempt to account for the fact that children might be eating more hot dogs than other types of food.

Nutter proposes 2-cent-per-ounce sweet-drink tax.  [Philadelphia] Mayor Nutter wants to treat the city's weight and wallet problems in his 2010-11 budget with the same remedy:  the nation's highest tax on all sweetened beverages including soda, energy drinks, ice tea, even chocolate milk.  Nutter's plan would put Philadelphia at the front of the movement to tax sweet drinks, an effort that the beverage industry already opposes and that could encounter resistance in City Council.

The Stimulus Bill's Hidden Attack on What We Eat, Drink, and Smoke.  One of the more extreme proposals floated early in the national health care debate was the idea of taxing soda and other sugary beverages.  That trial balloon was almost immediately shot down by the American public, but the Obama administration is attempting to achieve, by subterfuge, soda taxes and a lot of other ways to micromanage our lives in the name of public health — whether or not ObamaCare passes.

Soft drink tax battle shifts to states.  After successfully quashing discussion of a federal tax on soft drinks last year, Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and the fast-food industry are facing a new battle on the state level, where legislators are beginning to consider their own taxes on sweetened beverages.

Ready for Feds in Your Kitchen?  On the one hand, I want genuinely to commend first lady Michelle Obama for her passion to launch her campaign against childhood obesity, "Let's Move." ... My concern, however, is that the first lady's nutritional quests, like Washington's health care crusade, ultimately will lead to more big-government and union-based solutions, as well as enact more faulty legislation like the 1966 Child Nutrition Act, which the Obama administration is seeking to update, or "overhaul."  (Of course, update and overhaul in government translates into upgrade and expand; you can bet your last tax dollar on it.)

FLOTUS to Food Manufacturers:  Cut 1 Trillion Calories Annually by 2012.  With the goal to reduce 1 trillion calories in food sold annually by 2012, First Lady Michelle Obama announced a private-sector partnership for her Let's Move! Childhood obesity campaign.

Obama wants school vending machine changes.  The Obama administration will ask Congress to improve childhood nutrition by ridding school vending machines of sugary snacks and drinks and giving school lunch and breakfast to more kids.

Citing Hazard, New York Says Hold the Salt .  First New York City required restaurants to cut out trans fat.  Then it made restaurant chains post calorie counts on their menus.  Now it wants to protect people from another health scourge:  salt.

Rand study: It ain't the Big Macs that make the poor fat.  The whole song and dance is that eating healthy is expensive.  It is not.  My mother made do raising 5 kids on barely above minimum wage pay.  A study by the Rand Corporation found that far from preying on the poor, fast-food outlets avoid those neighborhoods because of crime and well, the customers don't have much money.

Missing from the First Lady's fat crusade:  cost.  Launching a worthy campaign last week to reduce childhood obesity, Michelle Obama identified many culprits, including aggressive marketing of fatty and sugary foods, a lack of physical activity and parental ignorance.  What never crossed her lips:  The pocketbook problem.  The fact is, lots of low-income families simply don't have the money to buy better groceries — especially in this economy.

Child Obesity in the Nanny State:  Good intentions aside, a presidential task force isn't going to do what millions of American parents already don't do — namely, pull the plug on the 68 percent of kids with televisions in their bedrooms, or on the average 53 hours per week that "Generations M's" (8-to-18-year-olds) spend engaged with electronic media.  Nor will the task force change the way most families eat.

Fattening the Nanny State.  Obese people and public-health scolds have one thing in common:  a compulsion to keep behaving in a way that does not produce helpful results.  The obese tend to keep eating too much and exercising too little regardless of what others say.  Disciples of maternal government persist in meddling in individual choices whether it works or not.

New 2010 laws:  Cooking to texting.  From same-sex marriage in New Hampshire to payday loans in Kentucky, new state laws taking effect on New Year's Day will change the way people live.  California becomes the first state to bar restaurants from cooking with trans fat — partially hydrogenated oils that have been linked to strokes and heart disease.

Captain Crunch is an enemy of the state.  If you buy cereal for your children, or yourself, you should be aware that the Food and Drug Administration thinks you are falling down on the job.  Last week, the FDA issued "Guidance" to the food manufacturers of America pronouncing the agency deeply troubled over efforts by various segments of the business to use "Front of Package" branding to delineate their products as useful — say a "Smart Choice" — for the consumer.

Michelle:  $373 million in stimulus money for better vending machine food.  First Lady Michelle Obama visited the headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington Tuesday [10/13/2009].  She devoted much of her talk to "the growing threat of obesity, particularly childhood obesity" in the United States, and she touted HHS's recently-announced plan to spend $373 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on plans to, among other things, improve the healthfulness of foods in vending machines.

Pelosi's Health Care Bill Would Regulate Snack Machines.  The House health-care reform plan unveiled last week by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would do more than regulate insurance companies — it would even regulate vending machines. ... The regulation could wind up costing vendors millions of dollars to make the changes, according to industry estimates.

The Editor says...
 This is only one of the surprises buried in the 1,990 pages of Pelosi's bill.  Obamacare not about insuring the uninsured or reducing the cost of medical treatment.  It's about politicians making decisions for you because they assume that you're too dumb to make your own choices.  It's about taxations and control of every aspect of American life.

What you eat is everybody's business in the Nanny State.  Anyone familiar with our country's track record on internal "wars" — think drugs and poverty — should be skeptical of anti-fat schemes.  Adding a little extra salt to your french fries, or cooking them in oil that some people find tastier, isn't worthy of government intervention. ... Consumers know that some food choices carry more incremental health risks than others.  It doesn't take a registered dietitian to point out the difference between a salad and a triple-bacon cheeseburger.  And remember:  There's no such thing as "secondhand fat."

Sweet And Sour.  Government can't be allowed to use its taxation powers for an illegitimate purpose like directing the behavior of the populace. ... We've already let the government criminalize tobacco, fossil fuels and trans fat.  Will we now let Washington add sugar to its index of forbidden substances?

Food Fight:  An Unappetizing Development.  Our regulation-hungry leaders in Washington are acquiring a new taste in governmental control.  A sumptuous feast of tempting regulatory delicacies awaits them under the guise of improving the safety of our food supply.  Is this a well-meaning but horrendously misguided attempt by the administration to "protect" the public through draconian regulations heaped onto farmers and small food processing businesses?

Lawsuit alleges unsafe salt at Denny's.  A class action lawsuit filed Thursday by a New Jersey man alleges meals at Denny's contain unsafe salt levels, a non-profit groups said.  The lawsuit, filed with the support of the food advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, seeks to compel Denny's to disclose on menus the amount of sodium in each of its meals and to place a notice on its menus warning about high sodium levels.

Health Care Bill Mandates Nutrition Information on Restaurant Menus.  Restaurant chains with 20 or more stores would be required to display nutrition information, including calorie counts and "suggested daily caloric intake" on their menus, under a mandate contained in the health-care reform bill drafted by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

FDA Takes Cheerios to Task for Boastful Labels.  President Obama isn't just rewriting rules regulating the environment and the financial markets — he is also going after the food industry.  Target and example No. 1:  Cheerios.  "Based on claims made on your product's label," the FDA said in a letter to manufacturer General Mills, "we have determined (Cheerios) is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug because the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation and treatment of disease."  If the government's enforcement action against Cheerios were to hold up, the cereal would be pulled from grocery shelves and consumers would need a prescription to buy a box of those little oats.

Uh-oh, Cheerios.  The latest verdict from the Food and Drug Administration is that Cheerios is a drug.  Parents, then, must be drug pushers.  The FDA sent a warning to Cheerios maker General Mills Inc. that it is in serious violation of federal rules.

HR 2749 — The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009.  Although the bill includes some provisions that could improve the mainstream food system, many of these are vaguely worded and do not clearly define the scope of the agency's power, creating the potential for inappropriate application and enforcement.  Small farms and local artisanal producers are part of the solution to the food safety problem in this country; the bill would impose on them a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme and would disproportionately impact their operations for the worse.

Restaurants sizzling over city tax on frying oil.  During some recent restaurant industry audits, the city [of Denver] has claimed separate sales tax on frying oil, claiming that the oil is a separate product because it is not absorbed into the product.  Try telling that to a cardiologist who wants you to cut down on French fries.

Eating fatty foods may boost your memory, say scientists.  Could eating fatty foods boost your memory?  Researchers at the University of California-Irvine think so.  A team of scientists found that oleic acids from fats are converted into a memory-enhancing signals in the part of the brain responsible for remembering emotional events.

U.S. to Tighten Food-Safety Standards.  The Obama administration said it will toughen safety standards to prevent contamination of eggs, poultry, tomatoes, lettuce and other foods, and strengthen enforcement to make sure the industry complies with the new procedures.

Senators want to expel junk food from US schools.  U.S. schools with vending machines that sell candy and soda to students could soon find the government requiring healthier options to combat childhood obesity under a bill introduced on Thursday by two senators.  While school meals must comply with U.S. dietary guidelines, there are no such rules on snacks sold outside of school lunchrooms.  Many are high in fat, sugar and calories.

Report calls for new food safety oversight.  The food safety system 'is plagued with problems,' an advocacy group says.  It favors naming an FDA official to oversee the food supply and eventually creating a Food Safety Administration.

The Editor says...
 This is a particularly bad idea, since there is already a Food and Drug Administration, and if the FDA is ineffective, expanding it won't help.

Want a warning label with those fries?  The worthies who govern Massachusetts haven't been able to keep the state's population from dwindling, its property taxes from soaring, its budget from imploding, its Big Dig from leaking, or its politicians from getting arrested.  But failure hasn't diminished their ambition — or their presumption:  Now they're going to keep the rest of us from overeating.

Taking a bite out of crime...
 Pennsylvania Pie Fight:  State Cracks Down on Baked Goods.  On the first Friday of Lent, an elderly female parishioner of St. Cecilia Catholic Church began unwrapping pies at the church.  That's when the trouble started.  A state inspector, there for an annual checkup on the church's kitchen, spied the desserts.  After it was determined that the pies were home-baked, the inspector decreed they couldn't be sold.

Gimme Some Sugar.  Ever tried a Passover Coke?  Right about this time of year, when matzos begin appearing on the shelves ... Coke makes a subtle tweak to its formula.  Because some — though not all — Jews avoid eating corn on Passover, Coca-Cola does a limited run sweetened with regular sugar instead of corn syrup, labeled with a tiny "P" next to the Kosher symbol.  Foodies have stalked this elusive beverage for years, along with Mexican Coca-Cola, which is also made with cane sugar.

Bill would have trans fat taken out of eating out.  Texas diners who like everything — Twinkies to bacon — a heaping lot better if it's been deepfried soon may be chowing on healthier cuisine if the Legislature approves a measure to ban heart-clogging artificial trans fats from restaurant meals.  Lawmakers in coming weeks will consider bills by Houston state Rep. Carol Alvarado and state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, that would outlaw restaurant use of certain oils, shortenings and margarines by September 2011.

Texas Senate OKs bill banning trans fat.  Under a bill passed Friday [5/8/2009] by the Senate, restaurants across the state would be banned from cooking with oil that contains trans fat.  Many major fast-food chains and doughnut shops already have stopped using trans fat, said Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, sponsor of the measure.

Creating the Great American Potato Famine?  McDonald's just agreed to pursue pesticide-free potatoes for its restaurants.  The anti-technology zealots pushing this organic move had better hope the company drags its feet — or we risk having the first McDonald's in history with no French fries.  Less than a decade ago, the Danish government's high-level Bichel technical committee concluded that an organic-only mandate would cut Danish potato production by 80 percent.

Universal Healthcare and the Waistline Police.  Imagine a country where the government regularly checks the waistlines of citizens over age 40.  Anyone deemed too fat would be required to undergo diet counseling.  Those who fail to lose sufficient weight could face further "reeducation" and their communities subject to stiff fines.  Is this some nightmarish dystopia?  No, this is contemporary Japan.

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.

U.S. menu labeling may be gaining steam.  A nationwide system requiring fast-food chains to list calories on their menus could be gaining support in Congress as more states adopt the practice and the restaurant industry concedes change is on the way, a consumer, industry and health panel said on Friday [11/14/2008].  Laws requiring that calories and other nutritional information be posted have become increasingly popular as states and cities struggle to combat the country's growing obesity problem while promoting health and nutrition.

Hold the Salt.  The city has come up with a plan to help you shake your salt habit, according to New York magazine.  In a closed-door gathering at Gracie Mansion late last month, health experts and food-industry representatives were told about Mayor Bloomberg's next crusade — an effort to reduce the salt in processed food by 20 percent over the next five years, the magazine reports in this week's issue.

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.

Bake Sales Fall Victim to Push for Healthier Foods.  Tommy Cornelius and the other members of the Piedmont High School boys water polo team never expected to find themselves running through school in their Speedos to promote a bake sale across the street.  But times have been tough since the school banned homemade brownies and cupcakes.  The old-fashioned school bake sale, once as American as apple pie, is fast becoming obsolete in California, a result of strict new state nutrition standards for public schools that regulate the types of food that can be sold to students.

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.

Prison blues:  States slimming down inmate meals.  The recession is hitting home for inmates, too:  Some cash-strapped states are taking aim at prison menus.  Georgia prisoners already didn't get lunch on the weekends, and the Department of Corrections recently eliminated the midday meal on Fridays, too.  Ohio may drop weekend breakfasts and offer brunch instead.  Other states are cutting back on milk and fresh fruit.

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.

Honey laundering.  The international honey trade has become increasingly rife with crime and intrigue. ... Big shipments of contaminated honey from China are frequently laundered in other countries — an illegal practice called "transshipping" — in order to avoid U.S.import fees, protective tariffs or taxes imposed on foreign products that intentionally undercut domestic prices. ... Tens of thousands of pounds of honey entering the U.S. each year come from countries that raise few bees and have no record of producing honey for export.

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.

Don't throw away leftovers, warn 'food police'.  [British] Householders are to be visited by officials offering advice on cooking with leftovers, in a Government initiative to reduce the amount of food that gets thrown away.

Open up, madam.  We've a warrant to search your fridge.  As if we're not already overrun with thousands of five-a-day co-ordinators, nagging us to eat our greens, and legions of recycling enforcers, sifting through our dustbins for evidence of carelessly discarded potato peelings, plans were unveiled for a new standing army of food police, charged with cutting down waste.

Chocolate bars to be made smaller in Government anti-obesity drive.  The Government is set to order manufacturers to shrink the size of chocolate bars and fizzy drinks.  Health Secretary Alan Johnson will tell firms such as Mars, Coca-Cola, Britvic and Nestlé that smaller versions of their products should be available in all garages and corner shops to help stop people piling on weight.

Here Come the Food Police.  They could arrive in America any time now:  food police.  I refer to an interesting item in the U.K. Telegraph.  The British government is sending contractors door to door to teach its citizens how to manage leftovers.  British bureaucrats, you see, worry that Brits are wasting too much food — one third of store-bought grub, they say, is tossed out.  That is bad for the environment.

The Editor states the obvious...
 If your government can tell you what to eat and how to eat it, you are living in tyranny.

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.

Vegemite is safe despite salt content, says Julia Gillard.  Many Australians consider Vegemite to be a cultural icon, despite it being owned by American company Kraft Foods.  A shadow has been cast over the future of the spread as [an Australian] Federal Government taskforce considers special taxes and other deterrents on the sale of fatty, sugary and salty foods.

Doctor recommends fat kids should be taken from parents.  Child protection authorities should be called in to handle "extreme" cases where parents allow their kids to get too fat, an Australian doctor says. ... "We argue that in a sufficiently extreme case, notification of child protection services may be an appropriate professional response," writes Dr Alexander in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Call for obese children to be taken into care.  Severely obese children should be notified to child protection authorities, and even taken into care, if their parents are unwilling or unable to help them lose weight, experts have argued.  The continuing failure of parents to ensure treatment for their obese child could be considered medical neglect when the child is suffering, or is at high risk of suffering, associated severe health problems.

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.

Activists' Attacks on Meat Harm Health, Environment.  Over the years, Americans and others around the world have been subjected to a barrage of absurd claims about beef production and consumption that, in a rational world, should be dismissed on sight.  We have witnessed how, with enough money and sufficient coordinated effort, vast portions of the world's population, along with their elected leaders, can be convinced the Earth faces destruction because we eat meat.  These scare tactics are without factual support.

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