Fear of Fat Flying

This satirical ad from the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a PETA-like anti-meat pressure group, is the latest example of how the food police’s efforts to raise awareness about obesity are digressing into outright mockery and persecution of overweight people under the guise of public health. 

I guess we’re supposed to believe that if everyone became a vegan, the world would be populated solely by thin, beautiful people. Does the PCRM think they’re fooling anyone into thinking that’s what the average vegan looks like, or that overweight people will want to convert to veganism after seeing this? Does it occur to them that they can praise the benefits of veganism without disparaging non-vegans? (Oh, right, that would decrease the shock value they need to get attention.)

I’d rather sit next to a fast-food eater on my next flight. I won’t have to listen and nod as they prattle on and on about soy and quinoa and how their chosen diet makes them so superior to carnivores.

I’ll give the ad a few points for cleverly imitating an airline commercial, and there’s a joke about the vegan character’s pretentiousness about the very end, but those qualities don’t compensate for the ad’s discriminatory message. Considering that this ad follows PCRM’s fat-shaming “Your Thighs On Cheese” billboard campaign, I think I have no choice but to report them to President Obama for being bullies.

Garden/State

A few posts ago, we wrote about Occupy Our Food Supply, a protest against the corporate food system, which tried to encourage people to get off the grid, food-wise. The irony is that under the progressive, hyper-regulatory Obama Administration, it’s getting harder and harder to grow your own food.

(cutandfill.blogspot.com)

The news has been filled with stories of local and federal agencies coming after farmers and gardeners in the last few years. The FDA has been cracking down on raw milk sellers: they recently raided an Amish dairy farm which has since shut down, and last summer joined forces with the LAPD to raid a raw foods store in Southern California.

It's not just businesses; local officials have also gone after private citizens. In Nevada, a Farm to Fork dinner was raided by the Southern Nevada Health District, who declared the food unfit for consumption and had the farm owners destroy the food with bleach.

In Michigan and Oakland, CA, officials have threatened citizens for growing food on their own property. The gardener in Michigan, Julie Bass, was actually threatened with jail time for growing tomatoes and cucumbers in her front yard (the charges were eventually dropped).

Aspiring urban farmers in various cities have had to push through layers of regulation like a root trying to break through concrete.

And these are only a few examples.

 

If you have a hunger for homegrown food and you lean left politically, you should stop and think about who you’re voting for. When the government centralizes everything, it eventually withers all of our freedoms, including the freedom to develop valid alternatives to Big Food. The Obamas may have planted a garden at the White House, but it can’t feed everyone.

(Hat tips to commenter Radel and Food Freedom)

The Red Meat Scare of 2012

Warning: If you eat a burger for lunch, you may not live to see dinner.

Or at least that’s the impression you might get from the Harvard study on red meat consumption that came out last week and the resulting media hype. The study, which was based on what people said they ate but did not track what they actually ate, found that eating any type of red meat in any amount increases the risk of early death.

In light of this alarming research, perhaps Mitt Romney should halt his grab-a-burger-with-Mitt contest. He can’t afford to kill off the few enthusiastic supporters he has. Likewise, President Obama should stop serving all that steak at White House dinners. The country can’t afford for him to kill off the few allies we have left with our poisonous grass-fed beef.

Sensible people have long realized that red meat should be enjoyed in moderation, but such level-headed sentiments don’t make for compelling media headlines that can be cited by those who want to regulate meat and sugar. Humans have been eating red meat for centuries/eons/a really long time, but we seem to hear that meat is getting deadlier to us as time goes on. If that’s the case, we suspect it has to do with modern lifestyles overall, and not just what we eat.

Lamentations for a ‘Fast Food Nation’

At The Daily Beast, author Eric Schlosser reflects on the state of food politics since the publication of his best-selling book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, which paved the way for similar books and films including Morgan Spurlock’s McDonald’s-bashing documentary Supersize Me. While his decade-old book may have made waves in the left-leaning media world, Schlosser laments that America is “Still A Fast Food Nation” and that McDonald’s is serving more people around the world than ever before.

Schlosser correctly points out that since his book’s release “a food movement has arisen across the country, promoted by authors, activists, and filmmakers … That culture rejects highly processed foods, genetically modified foods, and the whole industrial approach to food production.” We think this movement is fine and well for those who want follow its precepts. The problem is that many progressives in this food movement are trying to turn their personal dietary preferences into law, starting with school lunch and food stamp programs. And the targets of this movement are no longer just big corporations like McDonald’s; more vulnerable small businesses like food trucks are bearing the brunt of heavy-handed regulations which even the left-wing L.A. Times editorial board call misguided.

(Shirt from zazzle.com)

While we disclose that we have not read all of Fast Food Nation, we’ve read a few excerpts over the years, and Schlosser’s writings generally give the impression that business is a monstrous force threating society. In his new article, he insinuates that that chain restaurants are conspiring to perpetrate some sort of Fast Food ‘Final Solution’ (“The fast-food chains, like the tobacco companies, are now aggressively targeting African-Americans, Latinos, and the poor,” he writes). He also tries to alarm his readers with some pretty laughable points: tossing out a statistic that “more than 23 million low-income Americans now live in ‘food deserts’ that lack supermarkets” (a RAND Corporation report released this month has somewhat debunked this notion by finding no correlation between subjects’ weight, consumption, and proximity to food outlets, and blaming George W. Bush for blocking further progress in food regulation (he can’t help blaming Bush: he’s a liberal).

Schlosser’s most interesting point sounds like a food version of John Edwards’ old talking point about “the two Americas.” He writes, “Two vastly different food cultures now coexist in the United States. While some Americans eat free-range chicken and organic produce, exercise regularly, and improve their health, most are consuming inexpensive processed foods, drinking large amounts of soda, and reducing their life expectancy.” He has a point, but is he suggesting that our country once had a single food culture? Haven’t wealthier people always eaten better, or at least had the opportunity to do so?

By focusing on the two extremes, with the healthy affluent people on one end and the processed-food eaters on the other, Schlosser is leaving out the vast population in the middle: those who value freedom, who take responsibility for their own health, and who want to be able to select their own diet without the interference of the government or the constant hectoring of those who have a compulsion to politicize every aspect of life including what we choose to eat and drink. Out of this population, another food movement is arising to counter the movement pushed by the Eric Schlossers of the world, and that food movement will surely create its own books, films, and blogs in the years to come.

Keep On Truckin’ Somewhere Else

California has earned a rep for being anti-business. One of the latest regulatory bills in Sacramento would “significantly limit where lunch wagons can operate, keeping them even farther from schools than marijuana dispensaries,” according to an L.A. Times report.

(Photo: latimes.com)

Many food trucks serve health-conscious, trendy dishes that aren’t really aimed at kids, but Assemblyman William Monning (D-Carmel) thinks other trucks serving more typical fast food are contributing to the childhood obesity problem. According to the Times, “Food truck operators say the restrictions would put large swaths of their market—as much as 80% of streets in some places—out of reach.”

A representative of the food-policy lobbying group that masterminded the bill is quoted as saying that food truck-free zones are “a logical next step, now that sugary sodas have been banned from campus vending machines and schools are adopting healthier cafeteria menus.” This is all part of the food police’s game plan: set up food dictatorships inside the public schools and extend their influence as far outward as possible—all for sake of the kids, of course.

As the chief executive of the Southern California Mobile Food Vendors Association points out, "This bill won't do anything to cut children's access to unhealthy food," and the California Restaurant Association says it “has deep concerns about any proposal that treats any type of restaurant like a sexual predator.”

If passed, this bill could score a Big Government trifecta by hindering business (small business in particular), limiting consumer choice, and not doing a darn thing to lower child obesity rates—which probably wouldn't stop this bad idea from spreading to other states.

Automated Cupcake Machine

In an economy this bad, why would the media put a negative spin on the story of a small business that's developed an innovative way to sell more of its products?

The answer, of course, is because the products in question are officially considered “bad for you” by the so-called intelligentsia.

How is this a bad thing? (AP photo)

The business in question is Sprinkles, a popular Beverly Hills bakery which is launching an ATM-like machine to sell its popular cupcakes after normal business hours. The resulting news story has run in many major media outlets like Wall Street Journal, Yahoo, USA TODAY, and Newsday with the negative-sounding headline "Convenient Cupcakes Are Dangerous for Dieters," making it sound as if Sprinkles had launched an attack on calorie-counters. (The story itself is more positive than the headline.)

It’s a subtle, almost cute example of the finger-wagging that newsreaders are treated to on an almost daily basis.

(Related link: See a machine that dispenses fresh baguettes.)

Math for Meatheads

Do they think meat-eaters are stupid?

CBSnews.com reports: “Some big changes are coming to raw meat and poultry products sold at grocery stores, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced (on March 1). Under a new rule that goes into effect March 1, packages of raw meat - whole, ground or chopped - will carry nutrition fact labels.”

CBS quotes Dr. Elisabeth A. Hagen, Under Secretary for Food Safety at the USDA, who says, “Under the new rule, a package of meat that says it's 85 percent lean will now say right next to it that it contains 15 percent fat.”

Wow, that’s some incredibly obvious information there (these are worse than Walmart’s Great For You labels). Do the bureaucrats think people are going to read the labels and be like, “Whoa! Meat has fat in it? Forget it, I’m going vegetarian!”

(Emphasis mine)

Michelle Unleashed in the Mess Hall



Toying with our soldiers?

The First Lady has been visiting military bases to promote new nutritional standards and a food labeling system for the Armed Forces. On her visit to the Little Rock Air Force Base last month, she even told one airman, “Don’t worry, you’ll be a vegetable guy soon.” She’s quite good at mingling with the commoners, isn’t she?

Under the new program, healthy foods will be labeled green, moderate foods amber, and high-calorie foods red. Soda machines are being replaced with “hydration stations.”

It might at first seem condescending to subject our brave men and women in uniform to this kind of eat-your-veggies, color-coded rigmarole.  As Rep. Allen West said, “Let soldiers eat what they want to eat, okay?” Then again, soldiers should probably watch their intake very carefully considering how Obama’s defense budget proposes cuts in healthcare benefits for both active-duty and retired military.

(Hat tips: The Blaze and CNS News)