CSPI Nuts Would Prefer Kids Fast Than Eat Fast Food
Michael Jacobson, blowhard founder of blowhard nutrition group CSPI, appeared on Good Morning America earlier today (under a pseudonym, apparently) to tout a new study by the group. (Video here.)
His target this time? Just another helping of the same: blah blah fast-food restaurants and blah blah blah kids’ meals.
Jacobson’s language today, though, was particularly incendiary. Literally.
“A restaurant meal is a mine field,” Mike Jacobs of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, or CSPI, told “Good Morning America.” “It’s junk everywhere and the explosions are going to be in your stomach, your heart.”
[...]
[Even though every fast-food restaurant offers healthy] options, Jacob believes that children will still suffer.
“Overweight, then obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes,” he said. “That’s what’s coming down the road.”
And exploding kids’ hearts! Don’t forget their exploding little hearts!
Jacobson failed to mention in between nonsensical imagery of spontaneously combusting children that what will ultimately be coming down the road are more ridiculous CSPI lawsuits against fast-food companies.
California Says Farewell to Freedom Fries, Bans Trans Fats
California on Friday became the worst first state to completely ban trans fats from state restaurants. That sucks.
…Tammy Perez, owner of the Pizza Club restaurant in La Habra (Orange County), says the transition is not so easy. She switched to oil free of trans fat 18 months ago - and paid twice as much, she said. The bad economy is making it hard enough for restaurants to survive, she added, and now the new law is “pushing some of us over the edge,”
The law requires professional cooks to purge their kitchens of all ingredients containing more than half a gram per serving of artificial trans fat by Jan. 1, 2010. Inspectors could impose fines of $25 to $1,000 for violations.
Bakers have an extra year to adhere to the ban because pastries are the most difficult products to make without trans fat-laden oils and shortenings. Packaged foods are not affected by the law.
[...]
“As a former fourth-grade schoolteacher in East L.A., I saw firsthand the problems of obesity,” [Assemblyman Tony] Mendoza said Friday. “AB97 is a culmination of these concerns and works to benefit the well-being of kids and California.”
More politicians pretending to do stuff for kids here in the SF Chronicle.
Of course, until California’s overlords are nannying vegans–a distinct possibility in that state if any, frankly—it will be impossible to completely banish trans fats, since about 20% of the trans fats we eat occurs naturally in beef and the meat of other tasty ruminant animals. Though that 20% figure will rise as restaurants (but not, yet, grocers) are forced to cook how the state wants them to.
Jamie Oliver’s Obesity Fearmongering Reaches New Lows
Just in time for Christmas, Atari is set to launch a Jamie Oliver cooking game. It’ll celebrate Oliver, “a phenomenon in the world of food… [who is] one of the world’s best-loved television personalities and one of Britain’s most famous exports.”
But that’s not all Oliver is. He’s also a tremendously wealthy prattling twit whose “woefully” ineffective yet mushrooming anti-obesity hysterics I’ve gone on about from time to time.
But even I was unprepared for his latest export–the docudrama Eat to Save Your Life–which is debuting this week in foodielicious Australia:
It is also tough-love Jamie-style: he calls all the ladies “darlin” - and then makes a particularly rotund one submit to a bath in which she is doused in slithery liquid to represent all the excess fat she’s consuming. The piece de resistance, however, is expert Gunther von Hagens: at Jamie’s request the good doctor cuts up the innards of a 28-stone corpse in front of all of us. It’s very, very tough love - and very watchable.
Jamie, darlin’. I met you a few years back, and I have to say you seemed a pleasant and charismatic enough chap. But, dude, the only autopsy I want a chef taking part in is the slicing and dicing of a cow, pig, chicken, or other non-human carcass for purposes of making me dinner.
If you really want to do something about obesity–and this advice is as free, moneywise, as the change people need to make to lose weight–cut the showboating, stop trying to scare everyone to death, stay away from quacks like von Hagens, stop grossing people out, and remind your fellow countrymen how to go for a walk.
L.A. Councilwoman to South Central: No Fruit and Walnut Salad for You!
An L.A. councilwoman is making good on her longtime “health zoning” threat to ban new fast-food joints from her South Central neighborhood, the WaPo reports:
Citing alarming rates of childhood obesity and a poverty of healthful eating choices, a city councilwoman is pushing for a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in South-Central Los Angeles.
“Some people will say, ‘Well, people just don’t have to eat it,’ ” said Jan Perry, the Democrat who represents the city’s overwhelmingly African American and Latino District 9. “But the fact of the matter is, what if you have no other choices?”
I don’t know South Central, but I do know that its things like this, from the LAT last year, that tend to limit choices:
[British grocer] Tesco has said it will put stores in low-income neighborhoods, including one that’s planned for Los Angeles at East Adams Boulevard and South Central Avenue.
[...]
A coalition of 25 community organizations in Southern California is set to call on Tesco today to sign a “community benefits agreement” that would bind the British retailer to its previous promises to pay its Southern California workers well above the minimum wage, offer health benefits and to be environmentally responsible when it launches its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market chain of small grocery stores this fall.
Right. Way to encourage choices. As the excellent Katherine Mangu-Ward writes in the latest issue of Reason, “Few sins are less forgivable in polite society than offering poor people products they actively seek.”
Note the evil McDonald’s “fruit and walnut salad” in the WaPo’s story photo, btw.
Irony Between Slices of Bread
A Texas group celebrating Juneteenth, a commemoration of the end of slavery in the state that is celebrated in many states across the country, almost had to shut down the event due to a run-in with the law over… sandwiches.
Organizers of a Juneteenth celebration are demanding an apology after two health department food inspectors threatened to put a stop to their event.
Black Cultural Council President Jo Ann Davenport-Littleton said health inspectors told organizers it was illegal for the group to serve 600 free barbecue sandwiches because the sandwiches weren’t prepared at the site where they were served.
Organizers say volunteers and the black community felt “humiliated” by the incident.
[...]
The county’s top health official, Gino Solla, said state law prohibits any food service operation from having food prepared in a private home for public consumption.
KSWO has more here.
Solla took a firmer line elsewhere:
Solla said he won’t apologize.
“We have to be aggressive when the public interest is involved,” he told the paper. “If there was any kind of forwardness and if it was perceived as rude, that I’ll apologize for. But when it comes to public health, I don’t think I have any apology for that.”
Of course you don’t. You’re a statist ass. More in the Dallas Morning News here.
EU to Banish Bendy-Banana Ban
The EU has been great in many ways for member countries. A common currency and free movement across borders have been a boon for trade. On the downside, though, are the many stupid regulations that hinder trade.
The two-class rule for selling fruits & veggies–which creates categories based on conformity to some centrally dictated ideal–has long been one of the banes of sellers and has been responsible for driving up food prices. It’ll be no more, though, reports the Daily Mail, at least for some foods.
Bendy cucumbers and misshapen bananas are to make a comeback on supermarket shelves thanks to a change in EU laws.
Brussels bureaucrats have decided to ease strict guidelines governing the appearance of fruit and vegetables.
It is hoped the move will encourage shops to stock less-than-perfect-looking produce and cut down on the amount of food going to waste.
Under current rules, fruit and vegetables are classified into two grades, with ‘class one’ goods meeting strict criteria on size, shape and appearance.
It means apples are often rejected for being ‘too red’ or carrots for being ‘too wide’.
Although supermarkets can stock cheaper ‘class two’ produce, many choose not to because they believe their customers would not buy it.
Around 26 of the EU’s 36 directives will be abolished, although minimum standards will remain on goods including apples, lettuces and peaches.
More here. The NYT riffed on bendy-banana rules back at the dawn of the EU.
Duckathlon Recap II: New at Reason.tv
Duckathlon Recap: New at Reason Online
I have a piece up at Reason Online today on D’Artagnan’s great Duckathlon, and how it fits in with–and counteracts–the rise of the food nanny state in New York City. A snippet:
So while the city has hundreds of outstanding restaurants, each likely claiming thousands of devoted customers, it also has millions of residents who can’t afford (or be bothered) to eat in them. Those people instead frequent the inexpensive chain restaurants city regulators target.
New York City might be foodie heaven, but if you’re an eater rather than a gastronome, regulators are increasingly futzing with your food. The food really under fire in New York City right now is not that eaten by, for example, billionaire Michael Bloomberg—whose mayoral manse chefs competed at the Duckathlon—but by everyday diners.
Still, the vigilance of [D'Artagnan's Ariane] Daguin, her staff, and Duckathlon participants is as important as it is admirable.
“In a small little way,” Daguin says, “I hope it’s paving the way to more freedom.”
Crispy previously on the Duckathlon here. D’Artagnan’s Flickr photostream from the event here.
Chicago’s Foie Gras Ban is Dead!
Minutes ago, Chicago’s dreaded, idiotic foie gras ban died a deservedly graceless death, reports the Chicago Tribune.
With Mayor Richard Daley running the vote, the Chicago City Council on Wednesday repealed its controversial ban on foie gras.
Over the shouted objections of Ald. Joe Moore (49th), the ban’s sponsor, the council used a parliamentary manuever to put the ordinance on the floor for a vote.
On to California!
Congratulations to all who worked to overturn the ban, and especially to Didier Durand and Chicago Chefs for Choice. This is truly a great day for liberté du choix.
Crispy on foie here. Read my 2007 profile of Chicago Chefs for Choice and Durand here.
This Week in Bacon
I was happy to see the maple bacon lolly get some play in The Onion this week, but the real bacon news comes courtesy of everyone’s favorite libertarian game show host, Drew Carey, at Reason.
Watch as Drew travels through L.A., where he uncovers the truth behind the illicit trade in… bacon hot dogs.
Crispy first brought you the plight of L.A.’s bacon dog vendors a couple of months back.
Boston Bans Big Booze Bottles
Boston is trying to become what South Carolina was until recently–home of small bottles of booze. Boston’s not looking to shrink things down to mini-bottle size, but the city’s licensing board chair is on the hunt against full bottles of booze and, it seems, booze in general.
“This is totally prohibited and it won’t be tolerated,” [Boston Licensing Board Chairman Daniel F.] Pokaski said. “It’s not going to happen in Boston. It’s just wrong. It forces alcohol consumption.”
[...]
Pokaski said [selling alcohol in large bottles] violates so-called “happy hour” laws that ban serving more than two drinks at a time to a patron.
[...]
“We’re not New York and we’re not South Beach,” he said. “The city of Boston has a lot more to offer than just getting people inebriated. If all they can offer their clientele is just swilling down alcohol, then perhaps they shouldn’t be in the business.”
Hear that New York and Miami? Boston isn’t like you: towns full of low-class, drunkards. No, Boston is civilized, classy, and intellectual, and… hey, wait just a minute!
I’m not sure what bizarro Boston Chairman Pokanski lives in. The Boston I grew up just outside is hardly bereft of places that offer their clientele little more than the opportunity to drink alcohol. Bars, Daniel. They’re called bars. And Bostonians like them as much as the next person–maybe more.
More here. Bostonians, New Yorkers, and South Beachians, let Pokanski know what you think of him and his neo-Prohibitionist, d-bag ways here.
Hey Brit Kids, Watch This and Click Here
A British law against showing ads for so-called “junk food” to kids on the telly is writhing in defeat, apparently, due to something called Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, a popular TV show in which ads play a central role. The problem, as the whining nannies see it, is that, though it’s an adult show, kids like Ant and Dec, too, and so the show should be relegated to showing only ads for celery, watercress, or barley.
A ban was introduced in January on adverts for foods high in salt, sugar or fat during programmes whose viewers were mainly under the age of 16. It did not, however, affect the programmes with an audience mainly made up of adults, even though many more children watch them.
Among the programmes affected was the children’s cartoon SpongeBob Squarepants, which attracts about 170,000 child viewers. But Saturday Night Takeaway, a family show watched by more than a million children, was not.
New research has concluded the number of times children watch junk-food adverts during these family programmes has risen in the past two years by 26 per cent. The figures come from Dr Will Cavendish, director of health and wellbeing at the Department of Health, who described the trend as “worrying” at a time when almost a third of 11-year-olds are classified as overweight or obese.
In a report to the Westminster Food & Nutrition Forum, Dr Cavendish said ministers could take tougher action. “We know large numbers of children are still seeing TV ads for high fat, sugar and salt food and drink, though in programmes not specifically aimed at children,” he wrote.
The figures will fuel calls for a total ban on junk food ads before the 9pm watershed. A private member’s Bill to that effect, introduced by the Labour MP Nigel Griffiths, will receive its second reading this month. It aims also to create “significant restrictions” on marketing on the internet.
Restrict this. And this, this, this, and this. More here.
LA Confuses Catering with Loitering, Hates on Tacos
From LA Now, the LA Times’s SoCalCentric blog:
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is considering a new law that could leave the owners of taco and catering trucks facing jail time if they park in the same spot too long.
Currently, the food trucks that overstay the 30-minute limit in unincorporated Los Angeles County are subject only to a fine. But, as the San Gabriel Valley Tribune notes, the ordinance proposed by Supervisor Gloria Molina makes the violation a misdemeanor, which can carry jail time.
This is, um, bad. Food (including beer and wine) is pretty much the only great thing about 12% nation.** And taco trucks are pretty much the best thing about food in California. Which means that this new LA law is not only bad for California but bad for America.
**I apparently just coined this term, which refers to the fact California makes up 12% of the U.S. population.
English Nanny State Laws Set to Silence Pub Banter
Andy Capp is rolling in his grave, as new English anti-discrimination laws set to take effect on Sunday are keen on taking the banter out of the pub. The Morning Advertiser explains:
New discrimination laws to make employers liable for customers behaviour may make banter with the barmaid a thing of the past.
Landlords who allow sexist jokes or even words like “darling” or “love” at the bar could be taken before tribunal and handed unlimited fines.
Operators will need to show they have tried to combat sexual harassment of workers by customers if they are to guard against the risk of compensation claims.
Pubs have been advised to put up warning notices telling punters that staff harassment will not be tolerated.
Now, I’m all for bartenders feeling comfortable behind the bar. And that includes not taking any crap from the clientele. But I’ve never known a pushover bartender–male or female. They’re a hearty bunch, able to dish it even better than they take it.
But all that banter will be in the past, laments Tony Payne of the Federation of Licensed Victuallers Association. “[T]here has been rapport in the past,” he says, “you just can’t have it anymore.”
Rapport? Dead? In pubs? In England? Bloody sad, innit?
I have one question for Women and Equalities Minister Harriet Harman, the arse behind the rules. Harriet, love, can I get you a clue?
Chocolate Lawsuit Stinks Like Hershey Highway Robbery
Think you’re paying too much for a candy bar? Regional grocer Giant Eagle does, and they’re suing the manufacturers to put a stop to this chocolate chicanery.
Hershey Co., Mars Inc., Nestle SA and Cadbury Schweppes Plc are accused of fixing chocolate candy prices in the U.S. in a lawsuit filed by a Pittsburgh supermarket chain.
Giant Eagle Inc. claims in a suit filed March 26 that the companies and a Canadian wholesalers’ network, Itwal Inc., conspired to set artificially high prices for chocolates in violation of U.S. antitrust law.
The companies’ profits have fallen “because of increasing health concerns, and changing consumer preferences,” Giant Eagle claimed in its complaint, filed in federal court in Pittsburgh. “In the face of waning demand, defendants responded by instituting uniform parallel price increases” in the U.S. beginning in 2002, Giant Eagle claimed. (Ed.: emphasis mine)
Giant Eagle said in the complaint that it paid more than $200 million to buy chocolate bars, boxed chocolates and seasonal chocolate candy from the companies since 2002, at illegally inflated prices. Giant Eagle seeks unspecified damages, which may be tripled under antitrust law if the claim is successful.
More here. Suit here (PDF). The U.S. Dept. of Justice is also probing alleged price fixing by chocolate makers.
My 2 cents? Giant Eagle is full of crap. By noting chocolate bars’ “health concerns” and “waning demand,” the suit does nothing but tarnish the very products Giant Eagle sells. Sour grapes, if you ask me.
If the candy costs you too much, is unhealthy, and doesn’t sell very well, why the hell are you selling it, Giant Eagle? As for the U.S. government, the idea that there is such a thing as chocolate price fixing, and that this is something government attorneys would need to concern themselves with, shows just how big Big Brother really is.
Well-Financed Food Foes Bankroll NYC’s Shamtastic ‘Responsible Restaurant Act’
When a proposed law is so far afield that even New York City’s notorious, all-powerful Department of Public Health & Mental Hygiene finds it screwy, you know the bill’s backers are a prize and some peanuts short of a box of Cracker Jacks. Such is the case with the Responsible Restaurant Act, which would make city health officials responsible for settling labor disputes.
“Studies have shown, restaurants that are in violation of these employment laws, do have health issues involved,” said Responsible Restaurant Act supporter Joy Carlos. “So not only are the employees involved in this, but you as the customer is affected, as well”.
“So many workers are forced to work when they are sick, while preparing and serving food to the public,” said Cecilia, a restaurant worker who only gave her first name.
Opponents say the bill is vague and call it a direct attack on any establishment that holds a health department license, like cafeterias, hotels and night clubs.
This is why we find the city health department on the side of good this time–opposing the measure alongside the state restaurant association. Thankfully.
The RRA effort is bankrolled by a group known as the Brennan Center Strategic Fund, which is no doubt made up of concerned restaurant employees. April Fool’s! The RRA is real, but proponents consist of well-heeled lobbyists and a collection of poor, downtrodden folks at NYU law school. NYU, incidentally, is also home to tiresome food cop Marion Nestle.
Boston Set to Ban Trans Fats
Boston, a city known for (among other things) having a fat, know-it-all mayor who tells other people how to eat, is set to ban trans fats today.
Anne McHugh, project director for Boston Steps, a chronic disease prevention program at the Boston Public Health Commission, said banning trans fats will save lives.
“There’s very strong research showing that trans fat consumption is significantly related to increased heart disease risk,” McHugh said.
If approved today, businesses will have six months to eliminate oils and spreads that contain trans fats. Within a year, hospitals, schools and eateries will have to eliminate trans fats from baked goods and other products, McHugh said.
Anne McHugh knows what’s best for you. No, seriously. Here’s McHugh quoted earlier this year at Boston.com:
“There is no need to have artificial trans fat,” said Anne McHugh, project director of the health department’s Boston Steps program, which combats obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. “It’s just bad.”
And here’s McHugh quoted in CSNews.com:
“We’re working on many fronts to try and influence children’s eating behaviors,” Anne McHugh, director of the Boston Public Health Commission’s Boston Steps program, told the paper. “Sugary drinks are just empty calories without any nutritional value, and it’s an area where we think we can have influence.”
McHugh also analogized adults to “toddlers” in a Jamaica Plain Gazette piece last year.
Finally, here’s an early internal document (PDF) that shows how the well-funded Boston Steps is suffering from a bad case of mission creep.
When it Comes to Kids and Ads, Fast Food Companies Can’t Win
Companies advertising in Canada have voluntarily agreed not to show unhealthy foods in ads targeting kids. If that sounds voluntary and fine enough it’s because it is. Naturally, not everyone is happy, led by so-called health advocates.
Elizabeth Frank, a dietitian in Lunenburg, N.S., looked over the company commitments and welcomed the initiative.
“With the amount of time children spend watching TV and the misinformation there is in there, I think it’s about time they started to concentrate on good nutrition,” she said.
In the case of McDonald’s, the company said its advertised meal aimed at children under 12 will contain no more than 600 calories, no more than 35 per cent of calories from fat, 10 per cent from saturated fat and 25 per cent total sugar by weight.
Its advertised meal for kids under 12 will either be four-piece McNuggets with apple slices, caramel dip and one per cent milk; or a hamburger meal with the apples and milk.
[...]
Frank said some of the amounts are still “pretty high” in the McDonald’s meal.
“The amount of fat and sugar could be lower, as far as I’m concerned,” she said.
“And 600 calories for a 12-year-old child … that’s a lot of calories in one meal. That would be more than they would get, say, if your mother made you a sandwich, and gave you an apple and milk to take to school. You wouldn’t get as many calories, and you would get a healthier meal of it.”
Skim milk and apples your mom gives you have less calories than the same stuff at McDonald’s? Really? On the other hand, does it take a dietician to conclude that fast food is generally not as healthy as what mom packs in a lunchpail? Uncanny, that Ms. Frank is.
Fat foes are like any other nannies — give them a voluntary inch and they’ll grunt and moan until some asinine legislator takes up their cause.
More here from the Canadian Press.
Note: Blogged from the bar at RFD.
English Censors Ban Singing-Kids Voices from Egg Ad
The nanny state may be creeping forward in the U.S., but it’s positively at full gallop in England. The country’s censors have banned the singing voices of children from an egg ad because eggs… well, because “most children would not be interested in” eating omega-3 eggs.
An egg advert that uses children’s voices has been banned by the advertising watchdog
The move comes just six months after a re-run of the “Go to work on an egg” campaign, fronted by Tony Hancock, was barred from the air waves.
This time, the children’s song, “Chick, chick, chick, chick, chicken, lay a little egg for me”, has incurred the wrath of the advertising watchdog.
An egg company planned to use the tune, sung by 10-year-olds, to promote its omega 3 eggs.
More from the Telegraph. As Megnut and anyone else growing up in Massachusetts during the 1980s (including me) knows, brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh.
