Bloomberg Wants to Ban Big Drinks from Big Apple

New York Mayor Bloomberg keeps taking his jihad against sodas and sugary beverages to new levels. "New York City plans to enact a far-reaching ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks at restaurants, movie theaters and street carts, in the most ambitious effort yet by the Bloomberg administration to combat rising obesity," The New York Times reports.


(Photo: New York Times)

"The proposed ban would affect virtually the entire menu of popular sugary drinks found in delis, fast-food franchises and even sports arenas, from energy drinks to pre-sweetened iced teas. The sale of any cup or bottle of sweetened drink larger than 16 fluid ounces — about the size of a medium coffee, and smaller than a common soda bottle — would be prohibited under the first-in-the-nation plan, which could take effect as soon as next March."

The Times also quotes The People's Mayor as saying, “Obesity is a nationwide problem, and all over the United States, public health officials are wringing their hands saying, ‘Oh, this is terrible,’ ... New York City is not about wringing your hands; it’s about doing something,” he said. “I think that’s what the public wants the mayor to do.” Or, as King Louis XIV would put it, "L'État, c'est moi."

"OK, and in what universe is this even remotely acceptable political behavior?" tweets Commentary editor and NY Post columnist John Podhoretz. I guess in the same universe where the city can regulate salt shakers and arrest a woman for trying to compliantly turn in her licensed firearm before entering the 9/11 Memorial.

(P.S. Wouldn't banning large sodas somewhat defeat the purpose of taxing them?)

UPDATE: Mika's Cup o' Poison
In the clip below, Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski perfectly illustrates snobbish, clueless hypocrisy by drinking a large Starbucks drink right after praising Mayor Bloomberg's proposed sugary-drink ban.



The unspoken liberal assumption is that regulations like these are intended to keep poor fat people from drinking sodas and slurpees, not to keep well-off, educated types from sipping their coffee drinks.

UPDATE: Bloomberg defends the ban by saying, “We’re not taking away anybody’s right to do things, we’re simply forcing you to understand that you have to make the conscious decision to go from one cup to another cup.” Yeah, and somebody needs to force him to understand that he's supposed to be a mayor, not a diet coach.

Step Up, Everyone. But Don't Call It Big Government!

Hey all you mayors, city planners, food manufacturers, supermarkets, and "everyone" else: First Lady Michelle Obama wants you to "step up." But don't worry, she assures us "this isn’t about government telling people what to do."


Mrs. Obama was on Good Morning America to promote her new book American Grown. When Robin Roberts (who was also the chosen softball interviewer for President Obama's historic gay-marriage flip-flop announcement) brought up criticisms of her Let's Move program, Michelle asserted that the program is not about big government or telling people what to eat. About a minute later, though, she says we need "everyone stepping up," "mayors stepping up," and "cities being restructured."



The private sector also needs to step up. "We need our food manufacturers stepping up and really thinking about how to reformulate food products so that they are a little more healthy [and] affordable. We need big supermarkets to locate grocery stores in under-served communities," she said.


If I didn't know better, I'd say her vision of mobilizing local governments, businesses, and the general citizenry for her cause leans slightly in the general direction of Big Government. In a small- or non-government solution, it would mainly be the parents and kids who would be asked to "step up" and change their behaviors.


Without using the term "food deserts," Michelle said part of the problem is that some people "don't have accessible, affordable food in (their) community." She was not asked any questions about food deserts, the existence of which has been recently found to be quite dubious. Oh well, this is just a soft-news morning show.


The First Lady's flat assertion that her program's goals aren't Big Government is like her husband saying that making the wealthy pay their "fair share" isn't socialism and the Buffett Rule isn't class warfare. We should take her denial with a grain of salt ... or whatever seasoning Michelle would approve of. Maybe some herbs from her garden.


(Hat tip: The Blaze)

The Weakest Link?

A new Department of Agriculture study says that healthy foods are not necessarily more expensive than unhealthy foods, and in many cases cost significantly less.

"In fact," reports USA Today, "carrots, onions, pinto beans, lettuce, mashed potatoes, bananas and orange juice are all less expensive per portion than soft drinks, ice cream, chocolate candy, French fries, sweet rolls and deep-fat fried chicken patties, the report says."

(AP File photo)

So if food deserts are a myth, and healthy food doesn’t really cost more than junk food, what exactly is the link between obesity and poverty that we're always told about? It sounds like a pretty weak link to us. If poor people can afford bad food which costs more on average than healthier food, and in general have access to buy food, how can we believe that poverty causes obesity? How can advocates of Big Government use poverty to justify their freedom-inhibiting and market-tampering power grabs?

How do lose sight of the reality that while poor people in most other times and places were undernourished not overweight, we in America continue to think of the poor as a class of helpless individuals who must be spoon-fed by the nanny state? 

P.S. In today's other predictable research findings, scientists have discovered organic food turns people into pretentious jerks, and that men like to eat meat because they think it's a manly food. Yes, really.

Gateway Schools

This month, at a conference of more than 1,000 obesity experts in D.C., a “panel of independent experts” got together to discuss the role schools should play in fighting the obesity “epidemic.”

“The panel recommended that schools position themselves as gateways to obesity prevention,” says the L.A. Times, “ensuring that children get at least an hour of physical activity daily, barring access to foods and beverages high in calories, and offering all students healthful, nutritious foods and instruction in the fundamentals of healthful eating and living.”

 
It seems to us that school are already positioning themselves as miniature food police states, or, we mean, “gateways to obesity prevention.” In the news, we hear of schools where officials inspect sack lunches and replace them with chicken nuggets, and where students’ eating and exercise habits are monitored both on and outside of school grounds.

A school district in Colorado has banned sweets, even for fundraisers. Legislators in Massachusetts passed a bill banning bake sales but the public/parental backlash was strong enough to motivate the governor to lift the ban only days later.

In Utah, two different high schools have been fined nearly $20,000 for the crime of accidentally selling soda, prompting Rep. Rob Bishop to lecture his colleagues on the Constitution.

And the food control doesn’t end at the school gates—there’s a bill in California that would restrict food trucks from operating within 1,500 feet of a school.

This is what the obesity experts want to see more of—even though research finds no link between student obesity and “junk food” sold in schools, much less outside of school grounds.

The good news is that sometimes, as in Massachusetts, the parents assert themselves and get results. We also see students rebelling against their schools' food restrictions … even up in socialist-friendly Canada:

The “experts” want schools to shift from education to indoctrination–on food and other subjects–and what they’re doing in the schools is what they’d like to do in society at large. It’s up to "We the People" to be their hall monitors.

Food Deserts' Dwindling Defenders

While there has been no official administration response to the New York Times’ food desert myth-busting story, there a few lonely voices stranded in the rhetorical wasteland, making weak attempts to salvage the concept or at least shift the message.

 

One of those voices is that of food policy researcher Mari Gallagher, who according to the Chicago Tribune "popularized the term 'food desert.'" Gallagher said she welcomed the two research studies but attacked the New York Times reporter’s "sloppy job of getting the facts straight." Gallagher faulted the article for giving "the inaccurate impression that food access and the concept of food deserts does not matter." Well, if the concept of food deserts is a false one, it matters only as an example of misleading propaganda that uses poverty as an excuse to expand government’s size and power.

In a real desert, you don't get fat. You starve.

Another food-desert clinger is Sam Kass, a healthy food policy guru/assistant chef for the White House. In an interview with The Root, Kass argues that the administration never claimed that simply building more grocery stores would solve the problem, and that more government programs will be needed. It’s classic liberal thinking: if one wasteful program doesn’t work—or, in this case, addresses a made-up problem—we should deploy several more wasteful programs.

 

The Root interviewer writes that Kass is “unconcerned” about public criticism of the food-desert initiative. His defense is basically a rehashing of talking points: "'I think there were attempts to paint this effort as something that it's not. This is a bipartisan effort that has support from all sectors of society,’ he said, adding that everybody has a stake when one in three Americans are on track to have diabetes by 2050 if nothing changes." Yes, we are all in this together and the administration has nothing but good intentions, so nobody could possibly have a legitimate criticism.

 

Then there’s Sarah Parsons, a writer at the progressive-leaning activist organization/media outfit Good. Parsons’ May 2^nd article "Beyond the Food Desert: Why We Can't Get Healthy Foods in Poor Communities" somewhat concedes the weakness of the food desert argument, calling it a "puzzle." In her follow-up column on May 8^th, Parsons picks the food desert meme right back up again, writing that “more than 20 million people live in food deserts,” etc. Apparently she hasn’t received word from headquarters to drop the whole food desert thing, so she’ll continue just have to continue as if nothing happened—even though liberals are always supposed to bow before the latest science!

 

Like Kass and Gallagher, Parsons tries to shift away from the old message that wiping out food deserts is central to the obesity/poverty link to a new message that it is only one part of the big-government solution. Parsons says another factor is “a lack of access to exercise. Unlike their more affluent counterparts, low-income neighborhoods aren’t flush with playgrounds, tennis courts, parks, and gyms. Poor communities also tend to be more dangerous than those of higher socioeconomic status, so the public exercise options that are available may go unused for fear of violence.”

 

Fear of violence—by animals rather than other people—was what led to a recent HHS boondoggle in Nashville, in which money from an anti-obesity slush fund was used to spay animals because the local citizens where supposedly people too scared of stray dogs to go jogging. To make the episode more ironic, free pizza was served at the community meet-and-greets that promoted the anti-obesity program. Has anyone in the government ever heard of exercising indoors?

The nanny-staters want the power to magically deliver good food and "access to exercise" right to the doorsteps of the country's poor. Meanwhile in the real world, the supposed link between obesity and poverty just took another hit: "Contrary to popular belief, many healthy foods are no more expensive than junk food, according to a large new government analysis."

The reality is that everyone at every level has to make choices within their individual situation. It’s not that “We Can't Get Healthy Foods in Poor Communities” (to quote the title of Parsons’ article), it’s that it’s we can’t make people eat it. Human nature is funny that way--and progressive food nannies don’t seem to get it. 

Today's Burger News

From MSN Now: "A neighborhood city council in Melbourne, Australia is thinking about slugging fast-food outlets like McDonald's and KFC with a 400 percent increase in the rates they pay to operate in the area. The hope is that the so-called 'fat tax' will discourage consumers from eating junk food, and decrease ever-soaring obesity statistics and related maladies like diabetes and heart disease. Because, you know, increasing the price of things like alcohol and cigarettes has definitely solved problems like binge-drinking and smoking."

I hope no one tells the Melbourne city council about Epic Meal Time's latest creation: a 109,000-calorie bacon burger. They might try to tax the Internet itself.

The first story shows the state trying to punish perceived indulgence and exert control over behavior. The second story shows citizens who dare to cook and eat whatever they want in the face of the food police, health, and maybe even sanity. The Epic Meal Time guys made their burger-of-doom on their own; they didn't get it from a drive-thru. So should grocery stores be taxed, too?

And So Begins the War on Bake Sales

This week we have heard the opening shots of the War on Bake Sales. (And you thought Cupcake Wars was just the name of a Food Network show …)


Banned in Boston!
(Photo: thecupcakeblog.com)



 Greeley, CO school officials recently banned all sweets, even for fundraisers held outside of the school. They’re such food Nazis that even banned diet soda! Only treats made from an approved recipe that includes black beans will be allowed. Black-bean brownies? Uh, no thanks.

But that was just one school district. The entire freakin’ state of Massachusetts has now banned bake sales.

One parent told the Boston Herald, “The goal is to raise money ... You’re going to be able to sell pizza. You’re not going to get that selling apples and bananas. It’s silly.”

On the other hand, Sen. Susan Fargo (D-MA), says the child obesity “crisis” has made the ban an unfortunate necessity. “If we didn’t have so many kids that were obese, we could have let things go,” Fargo is quoted in the Herald. “But this is a major public health problem and these kids deserve a chance at a good, long healthy life.” Because we all know how many lives have been cut tragically short by bake sales and candy-bar team fundraisers. Out with lemon bars and in with Leninism – we have a crisis on our hands, comrades!

Are we the only ones who suspect that the parents, officials, and legislators who are anti-bake-sale would be A-OK with distributing condoms at school?

5/14/12 Update: After the public outcry, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick said he will lift the bake-sale ban, although the state health department says the ban will still apply in cafeterias during the school day. It's interesting how quickly Massachusetts, one of the most liberal states, reversed course. The food nannies definitely went too far with this one. Parents know when their authority is being usurped.