Can It

In the latest episode of "Big Daddy Government Uses Kids As A Pretext to Tell Companies What to Make and Sell," The Washington Times reports on how The Breast Cancer Fund is about to launch a campaign against kids' canned food. The Breast Cancer Fund has a new report claiming toxic levels of bisphenol A, or BPA, in the lining on canned children's foods, sippy cups, and baby bottles.

Uh-oh, old-school Spaghetti-os!



Washington D.C.'s Competitive Enterprise Institute has challenged these findings, saying the campaign is part of an "irrational anti-chemical campaign to rid the world of a very valuable chemical" and that "the link between chemicals and breast cancer is not significant."

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California has introduced a bill to ban BPA from kids' food and drink containers. "I think we have to be careful, because in this country a chemical is used until the FDA finds it harmful. In Europe, there's something called the 'Pre-cautionary Standard' and companies have to prove that chemicals they use are benign. That's not true here." Yes, we're so underregulated here, aren't we?

The food elites have gone crazy over what kids eat, from Happy Meals to school lunches and now to canned foods. I don't think they'll be satisfied until parents prepare every single meal with food from their organic home garden. How do they think American kids ever survived before all of their alarmist activism?

Quick Bites: Bag Ban, Easy-Bake & Chuck Norris

• An L.A. city councilman wants to ban all disposable paper and plastic grocery bags.
• The federal government's phaseout of incandescent light bulbs forces Hasbro to redesign the Easy-Bake Oven.
• Chuck Norris delivers a roundhouse kick to the school-lunch cops.

War On Fries: Because Olive Garden Fries Are What's Making Kids Obese

Darden, the world's largest casual-dining company, boasting such chains as Olive Garden, has just hopped aboard Michelle Obama's  glorified photo-op ... we mean, anti-obesity campaign. "This is a breakthrough moment in the restaurant industry,'' says Mrs. The One. The "breakthrough" consists of plans to cut calories and salt by 10 percent over five years and by 20 percent over a decade. Darden's kids meals will come with sides of fruit or veggies. Fries will become the Side That Will Not Be Named on the kids menus, although apparently fries and soda will be given upon request (perhaps with a dirty look from the server).

But there may be more afoot here than just lame menu changes. As conservative blogger Michelle Malkin points out,"Darden Restaurants just happens to be one of the few and fortunate businesses to obtain one of those coveted Obamacare waivers." Now isn't that the Darden-est thing? 

Not-So-Voluntary Guidelines

Do you know how sometimes wives tell their husbands that whichever choice the husband makes about something will be fine, but the husband can tell that he'll be in trouble if he chooses the wrong thing? That's how foodmakers are probably feeling about the oxymoronic "voluntary" guidelines from the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children (IWG). The idea is to get companies to make foods that meet healthier standards, and if they fail to meet the government's standards, they won't be allowed to market those foods to kids under 18. This would effectively make cereal mascots like Tony the Tiger and Captain Crunch into criminals. 

As Michelle D. Bernard, founder and CEO of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics & Public Policy, writes on The Hill's Congress Blog, "The strategy simply is to saddle disfavored industries with regulations disguised as 'voluntary,' and therefore not be subject to the normal rulemaking process and judicial review ... when the combined muscle of the four most important regulatory agencies of the food industry offer 'guidelines,' they’re making you an offer you can’t refuse."

Yet again, the government is putting a heavy burden on businesses with new regulations that have dubious value for the consumers they claim to protect. As BNET blogger Melanie Warner writes, "The idea that processed food manufacturers will be able to pull this off for anything more than just a small handful of their products is sheer wishful thinking." But, hey, it will make liberal politicians and the food police feel better about themselves, and how can anyone put a price on that?

Insufficiently Dictatorial

Get a load of this quote from Huffington Post blogger Stanton Peele, who finds such efforts as Let's Move and FoodCorps to be "grossly insufficient":
"Too bad government is no longer allowed to play a larger role in encouraging and regulating healthy eating.

"We -- and the black and Latino communities -- will just have to live with the consequences -- more and more lifestyle-related diseases and preventable death and suffering.

"That's just life in these United States."

Yes, Mr. Peele, in these United States, we still have some grasp of personal responsibility and think that putting some limits on government power is a good way to avoid tyranny--although we are losing those principles quickly. Peele, an addiction expert, implies in his article that people in certain urban communities are addicted to bad foods, and therefore Big Government solutions must be used to pry entire communities away from their addictions. I think it's too bad that some people really think that certain populations cannot be expected to make better lifestyle choices without government 'help'; it reminds me of that line about "the soft bigotry of low expectations" our previous President once used in a speech (miss him yet?).

Also, it makes me wonder if less-than-well-off, obese whites will get any of the government's wonderful encouragement and regulation in Peele's ideal world scenario. I hope to never find out.

(Emphasis mine)

Federal Family Ties

So the federal government wants you start thinking of it as your “federal family,” the Orwellian term that we're hearing more and more from the Obama Administration. Of course, your family can apply pressure, stop you from eating what you want, have input on where you live, and set all sorts of house rules, depending on where you rank in the family. And in a "federal family," you know the government will be either your Big Brother or the parent who only does everything for your own good.