- Tufts doc who wants to “eliminate” sweetened drinks is senior author on flawed new study on their health effects [Gil Ross, ACSH]
- Nick Gillespie interviews celebrity chef Geoffrey Zakarian (“In Praise of Free Enterprise Food”) and Whole Foods’ John Mackey. “Despite the strength of our local food movement, Kentucky joins Delaware and Rhode Island as the three most restrictive states in the country for cottage food sales.” [LEO Weekly, Louisville]
- Fears of toast-spread homebrew in remote communities: “Australia suggests Vegemite sales limit amid ‘alcohol abuse'” [BBC] More: less-sensational followup coverage h/t reader Mark N. in comments;
- You really ought to give Iowa-defiance a try: Rand Paul is latest candidate to oppose ethanol mandate [Rare]
- “Next Time Government Gives You Dietary Advice, Consider Doing the Opposite” [David Harsanyi] Multiple topping combinations + steep penalties add up to vexation for pizza makers under FDA menu labeling mandate [Savannah Saunders, Economics21; Veronique de Rugy, Reason] “Health Canada Gets it Right, While FDA Goes Further Astray, on ‘Added Sugars’ Labeling” [Glenn Lammi, WLF]
- “Federal Judge, Referencing FDA Order on Trans Fat, Permits State-Law Class Action to Proceed” [Glenn Lammi, WLF]
- Plaintiff says he bit into someone else’s gold tooth in his biscuit [Nick Farr]
Posts Tagged ‘obesity’
“We should eliminate them from the food supply.”
That’s sugary drinks that Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the (notably activist) public health school at Tufts, is talking about banning. You didn’t really think it was going to stop with trans fats, did you? [Nicholas Bakalar, New York Times]
“The Menu Labeling Morass”
“The FDA may soon have the power to criminally charge restaurant owners who fail to publicly post calorie information on menus.” New Cato podcast with Ike Brannon, discussing his article with Sam Batkins in the Summer edition of Regulation. Earlier here, here, here, here, and here.
Puerto Rico considers bill to monitor, fine parents of obese kids
“The Puerto Rican government is proposing a new law that would label the parents of obese kids as ‘child abusers.’ …Senator Gilbert Rodriguez Valle introduced the bill that would establish a process of identifying obese children in school … If the social workers [sent to investigate] see no improvements after a year, the parents could be fined up to $800.” [The Guardian via Lenore Skenazy and Paul Best, from whom the quoted passage is excerpted]
Food roundup
- If the law was symbolic, consumers were apparently unswayed by its symbolism: L.A. zoning ban on new freestanding fast-food restaurants had no effect on obesity [The Guardian, NPR, Baylen Linnekin, earlier]
- More on draft new federal dietary guidelines: “Report lays groundwork for food ‘interventionists’ in schools, workplaces” [Sarah Westwood, Washington Examiner, earlier, public comment open through April 8]
- Opposition to GMOs is not humanitarian [Telegraph] Washington Post editorial rejects labeling on GMO foods;
- Baker fell afoul of French law by keeping his boulangerie open too often [Arbroath]
- A sentiment open to doubt: “There is a great need for lawyers to utilize their policy and litigation tools in the fight for a better food system.” [Melanie Pugh, Food Safety News]
- “Food policy” progressives “whistle same tune as large food producers on issue of food safety” [Baylen Linnekin, related on single-agency scheme, more Linnekin on competition-through-regulation among makers of wine corks]
- Why restaurant operators need to know about patent trolls [James Bickers, Fast Casual]
Federal Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee updates guidelines
571 pages of urgings from the federal Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, so much to disagree with [Elizabeth Harrington, Washington Free Beacon (obesity “interventionists” at workplaces, initiatives to limit advertising and time spent looking at screens); Glenn Lammi; Julie Gunlock; Paul C. (“Chip”) Knappenberger, Cato (environmental impacts of food production)]
More: “Strategies are needed to encourage the U.S. population to drink water when they are thirsty.” [from the report, quoted approvingly (naturally) by NYT’s Mark Bittman, via James Taranto] And Baylen Linnekin: “Consumers can also have their say through April 8. Open your mouth before the DGAC shuts it for you.”
School bake sales defended in Virginia
S’more local autonomy that way: despite federal pressure in the other direction Virginia lawmakers are moving to enable more school bake sales [Laura Vozzella, Washington Post] Columnist Petula Dvorak finds the debate “ridiculous”: “The classic school bake sale to raise cash for sports equipment, class trips or charitable causes is actually an essential part of a curriculum,” teaching lessons of “entrepreneurship, independence, self-reliance, creation of a product.” Earlier on school bake sales here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.
“Uncle Sam is a horrible nutritionist”
They’re finally letting the egg back into the good graces of government nutritionism, long after it had become clear that the cholesterol scare was unfounded [Washington Post] Again and again, health guidelines promoted by Washington have pushed Americans from safer toward less safe food choices, and from long-familiar foods that came to seem too rich or indulgent (butter, animal fat) toward alternatives about which far less is known. [Michael Brendan Dougherty, The Week] More: “Worth remembering that, if they had the power in the 1980s, the public health lobby would have forced us to eat a diet they now say is bad.” — @cjsnowdon
However bad a nutritionist Uncle Sam may be, of course, he is unlikely ever to be as bad as the science-impaired, self-proclaimed Food Babe Vani Hari [The Atlantic (“There is just no acceptable level of any chemical to ingest, ever.”), Orac/Respectful Insolence, Advertising Age, earlier] If only the public health establishment worked as hard to counteract the notions spread by Hari as it does to inscribe whatever its current set of food enthusiasms may be into coercive government policy! More: Michelle Francl, Slate.
P.S. At Scott Greenfield’s suggestion:
“Can Public Policy Stop Obesity?”
New Cato Unbound issue on the theme with Christopher Snowdon, Baylen Linnekin, Russell Saunders, and Jennifer Harris. Related: Is calorie labeling rule “unworkable”? Experience from Domino’s [Kevin Boyd, earlier including pizza]
Prohibition and the lessons of Repeal Day
Last month the Cato Institute hosted a panel celebrating Repeal Day
with me, alcohol policy expert Michelle Minton of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Stacia Cosner of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and Cato Digital Marketing Manager Kat Murti as moderator.
On December 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, supposedly ending our nation’s failed experiment with prohibitionism. Yet, 81 years later, modern-day prohibitionists continue to deny the laws of supply and demand, attempting to control what individuals can choose to put into their own bodies….
Some links related to the discussion:
- All the panelists quoted from Daniel Okrent’s excellent history of Prohibition, Last Call. You can find out more about the book at the author’s site.
- I quote from a speech by the late Christopher Hitchens delivered ten years almost to the day before our panel. It is excerpted in this David Boaz post.
- Radley Balko wrote a 2003 Cato Policy Analysis, “Back Door to Prohibition: The New War on Social Drinking“. More: The federal Centers for Disease Control, as I noted, has been an agency of choice for public health campaigners because of its legacy of scientific credibility, yet this credibility is itself put increasingly at risk as the CDC lends its name to propaganda. Jacob Sullum provides examples from the agency’s elastic application of the term “binge drinking” to the trouble it seems to have acknowledging that minor alcohol consumption does not seem to correlate with poor health outcomes;
- As I mention, the Prohibition episode was important in eroding constitutional protections against various law-enforcement tools, especially search and seizure, the law being inherently aimed at contraband goods. The same is true of the nascent Drug War undertaken following the Harrison narcotics act of 1914. You can read about one of the resulting Supreme Court cases here.
- The role of exorbitant cigarette taxes in contributing to New York’s giant black market in cigarettes came to wider public notice following the police custody death of Eric Garner on Staten Island; more here, here, etc. The New York Post reported that Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered the city law department to refrain from filing an intended press release over a would-be landmark suit filed over untaxed cigarettes the week of the Garner grand jury decision, because it interfered with City Hall’s efforts to downplay the role of the tobacco black market.