Salt, sugar, trans-fats, have all been in the news lately as Michelle O leaves her backyard vegetable garden and takes to the mean streets on her crusade against body fat. In her wake, there’s a deluge of federal, state, and local law initiatives rising up against obesity. What I refer to as the “food police” others call progress. OK, we are probably the fattest developed nation in the world. We have access to a wide variety of colas, cakes, breads, cookies, candy bars, chips, carbs and sugars limited only by our grocery budget. But never fear, our great protector and omnipotent caretaker, the all knowing, all seeing, government will swoop in and save us all from plaque buildup, strokes, and a wide assortment of heart ailments.
How will this angel of mercy extend a healing touch? First, they’ll use stimulus funds (aka our tax dollars) to label menus and advertisements with the danger of calories, and perils of sodium, sugar, and fats. Recently Massachusetts was awarded over $12 million in stimulus funds to do just that. Secondly, the government vilifies and demonizes the food industry from Kraft to Crispy-Creme, to big Macs, Frito-Lay to Outback threatening to levy taxes on the cost of their ads unless they place warnings on unhealthy foods. You’ve seen the warning disclosures currently required by the FDA on TV for pharmaceutical ads that run for 3 minutes listing every risk, every side effect known to mankind, that could ever possibly show up by taking this medication. Picture it now, a 30 second TV ad for Hellman’s Mayonnaise would run 5 minutes in length; 30 seconds about the great taste and 4 minutes and 30 seconds warning you of diabetes, coronary artery disease, allergic reaction to eggs, rash, hives, diarrhea, glaucoma, nose bleeds, hyper-pigmentation and an erection lasting more than 24 hours. Please see your doctor, NOW!
There’s even an assault by food critics on the portion size that restaurants serve.
Is there anything our government won’t do to make our lives more comfy and safe?
To my knowledge there’s not a shred of evidence that demonstrates our government sponsored patchwork of weight loss, nutrition initiatives, and taxes on food products does anything to directly improve our health. But we can all feel better knowing that someone in central planning is watching after us.
People’s exercise of free choice lies at the core of this issue. Is there anyone with an IQ above 100 that does not understand over-indulgence of any product or activity (food, sugar, caffeine, salt, calories, lack of or over exercise) is unhealthy? That message is out there. People have knowledge and then make decisions. The government in this case wants to make those decisions for you. Is it just me, or does it seem a little scary that the government wants to mandate the amount of salt and sugar I can use to season my food?
6 Comments
I wish the government would just get it over with and mandate a brainwashing program that would make me stop wanting to eat all the bad things for me. Now I’ll just have to pay more for them.
Here is an idea! I understand that some health care plans offer discounts to certain gyms, to their clients. Wouldn’t be nice if the new health care plan would require that, that way people could use the excuse that gym prices are too high to pay.
May I please see a new “pic” of our messiah “O” puffing away on his cigs? What a joke.
I know when I got fatter. Didn’t need anybody to tell me.
(Turn your hairy head!!! hee,hee) Oh what memories.
When that was said, I was not fat Rick-pics to prove it.
However, last year I really got tired of being tired. So thanks to the good Lord and my new membership in a health club, I am on my way to some of the goals I thought about in regard to weight loss.
It is unbelievable to hear the conversations I hear at my part time job of what the government should do or not do.
Hello-Social Security, etc.
Didn’t start with Obama-been there a loooong time. He is just another one who is power hungry and looking to global power. America is simply a steeping stone for him.
And you know I cannot end this comment without saying, “God is so in control and will continue to do what is necessary to those who seek Him and obey Him.”
Thank you Lord for loving all of us. I am not worthy!
Hugs,
Bet
Rick you’ve done it again! as usual you’re right. I heard last week our English neighbors across the big pond has an epidemic of overweighted people. Jay Leno called it fat a…s, caused by not- brushing their teeth….
They can have my trans fats when they pry them from my cold, dead arteries!
It amazes me to see so many people (who should know better) rush to the defense of the corporations which are killing us. And then when the government does something on behalf of the People, such as asking the corporations to simply LIST the garbage they are putting in the People’s food, brain-washed people complain on behalf of the Corpos.
I’ve seen the phenomenally disingenuous e-mails forwarded around to the old, entrenched right-wingers (my aunt sends them to me) about how great it was when we had lead in paint, and cars with no seat belts, and kids played with toys didn’t need any safety warnings.
Did you ever wonder who wrote those e-mails? They don’t come from an old grey-haired granny wistfully remembering bloody bodies and choking infants, those fake e-mails come straight from a right-wing corporate think tank. Its written to plant the seeds of deregulation of all safety laws in the minds of its readers. The authors of this propaganda want you to ignore how many children were permanently brain damaged from lead pain, to ignore how many of your aunts and uncles and children died from no seat belts, or badly designed steering columns, or no airbags, and to ignore how many of your babies died from choking on unsafe toy parts or poisonous toys.
Wake up. Not a single corporation would have changed their behavior without government intervention or a punitive verdict from a plaintiff’s lawsuit. And why? Because Corporations don’t care if they kill you, or make you sick over time, as long as they make a profit. Look at BP. Look at Phillip Morris. Look at Hellman’s (Best Foods) Mayonaise.
It’s all corporate poison, and you COMPLAIN when the government, on YOU BEHALF, demands that corporations warn you? One of the few times they work for the People, you complain? Did I miss something, because corporations are destroying America as fast as they can, they have captured the government, they have abandoned our factories for offshore sweatshops, and these corporations could care less about you, as long as they make a buck selling the stuff that sickens your arteries, poisons your livers, gives you cancer of the esophagus or colon…
Newsflash! We have a crisis of unhealthy foodstuffs being sold to unwary consumers, who believe that the food is healthy, and why? “Because the government wouldn’t allow it to sold if it were unhealthy.” Don’t believe it,
Newsflash! From Ronnie Raygun forward the FDA has been systematically dismantled. (Yes, Republicans and Democrats are on the SAME SIDE – the side of the Corporations!) You’ve been hoodwinked and tricked into thinking your are protected from poisonous insecticides and unclean vegetables and meats… When the corporate boardrooms know that ain’t so…
And now Rick tells you to complain because someone wants to put a warning label on the garbage on the grocery store shelf? Why? Perhaps a few intelligent people, maybe even a few stupid people, would not eat the garbage if they only knew what was being sold to them. If there is any place a government has business regulating, I’d say it was in regulating the safe and clean production of food, meat, dairy products and water. Trust a corporation to do that? Are you nuts? Corporations are cost cutters, bargain seekers, embracing the least-common-denominator when it comes to safety, as long as it improves the bottom line and gives the CEO a bigger bonus.
And if we don’t fix the problem, who pays for the cancer wards, the coronary bypasses? I got news for you, it won’t be KRAFT and CON-AGRA steppin’ up and paying your hospital bills… Its time to wake up and realize it isn’t the Republicans vs the Democrats, its a WAR between the People and the Corporations, and from this sad endorsement of Corporate Crimes and the people who endorse it, I can see that the Corporations are winning.
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