- Texas legalizes sale of home-baked goods; “Mom can come out of hiding” [KLTV; @JohnWaggoner] New York regulators order Greenmarket cheese vendors to stop custom-slicing wedges for customers [Baylen Linnekin]
- Children who take school lunch more likely to be obese than those who brown bag it [Freddoso] And is there still time to save chocolate milk? [Boston Herald on proposed Massachusetts school ban]
- “Obesity policy” in theory: “High-calorie food is too cheap” argument of NYT’s Leonhardt is open to doubt [Josh Wright] “Is obesity really contagious?” [Zoë Pollock, The Dish] Knives out among scientists debating food causes of obesity [Trevor Butterworth, Forbes] Feds look to regulate food similarly to tobacco in hope of saving money on health care [Munro, Daily Caller]
- …and practice: “Calorie counts don’t change most people’s dining-out habits, experts say” [WaPo, Richer/WLF] Obama nutrition campaign: eat as we say, not as we do [The Hill] Of recent USDA “recipes for healthy kids,” 12 of 15 would not have met proposed FTC ad standards [WSJ] Nanny’s comeuppance? “States rein in anti-obesity laws” [WSJ Law Blog]
- “Food safety chief defends raw milk raids” [Carolyn Lochhead, SF Chronicle, earlier]
- “It’s Time to End the War on Salt: The zealous drive by politicians to limit our salt intake has little basis in science” [Melinda Wenner Moyer, Scientific American]
- After talking with experts, NYT’s Mark Bittman walks back some assertions about the European e. coli outbreak, now blamed on Egyptian fenugreek seeds [Science Mag; related, Kolata/NYT]
- “If anything, China’s food scandals are becoming increasingly frequent and bizarre.” [LATimes]
- Public criticism of activist food policy often calls forth a barrage of letters defending government role in diet. Ever wonder why? [Prevention Institute “rapid response” talking point campaign; how taxpayers help]
Posts Tagged ‘salt’
The “pie chart that doesn’t want you to eat pie.”
I’ve got a new opinion piece up at the Daily Caller on the USDA’s new nutritional chart. And tune in to C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” on Monday morning at 8:30 a.m. Eastern when I’m scheduled to be a guest on this subject.
More: Link to C-SPAN video here, and more at Cato at Liberty.
Official nutritional guidance: the track record
Modern American government has been dispensing nutritional advice for quite a while, and enough of it has been misguided, erroneous or even harmful that you’d think there’d be a lesson of humility to be learned. Instead, we get a bossier-than-ever crop of new regulators like Thomas Frieden et al [Steven Malanga, City Journal]
JAMA study links low-salt diet to higher risk
April 25 roundup
- 10th Circuit: deposition not a “take-home examination” [Ronald Miller]
- Class-action suit over salt in Campbell’s soup [NJ.com] Boom predicted in suits over claims of healthy food [Ken Odza]
- Roommate indicted in Tyler Clementi suicide [Scott Greenfield, Beldar]
- “Ban fraternities” screed in WSJ: were editors trying to make Caitlin Flanagan look ridiculous on purpose? [Ann Althouse, Instapundit]
- Emotional value of family dog: “Seattle should not set bad precedent in pet case” [John W. Schedler, Seattle Times, background]
- Investigating gas-price speculation and “price gouging”: “Obama tries to cap oil leak with lawyers” [Neil Munro, Daily Caller]
- Federal law protects peanuts on planes [CNN Travel]
Appeals court upholds dismissal of CSPI salt case against Denny’s
Amid much hoopla, the Center for Science in the Public Interest had filed a suit on behalf of a New Jersey man claiming Denny’s hadn’t adequately warned its meals were salty. Now an appeals court has upheld the dismissal of the suit’s consumer-fraud theory, meaning that the complainant would be able to proceed only by proving actual personal injury [Abnormal Use, Home News Tribune via NJLRA; earlier here, here, etc.]
“Whoppers with sleaze”
In today’s Washington Times: my take on the growing aggressiveness of “public health” officialdom in pushing scare campaigns about everyday consumption risks, including Mayor Bloomberg’s controversial new campaigns against sweetened drinks and (even more misleadingly) salty foods, as well as the FDA’s proposal to put corpse photos on cigarette packs. It begins:
The Puritans held that reminders of mortality had an edifying effect on the living, which is why they sometimes would illustrate even literature for young children with drawings of death’s-heads and skeletons. Something of the same spirit seems to animate our ever-advancing movement for mandatory public health. The Food and Drug Administration has just floated the idea of requiring cigarette packs to carry rotating pictures that would include corpses – yes, actual corpses – as well as close-ups of grotesque medical disorders that can afflict smokers.
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s superactivist Health Department has begun public ad campaigns about the health risks of everyday foods, including a controversial YouTube video portraying soda drinkers as pouring globs of shimmery yellow fat into their open mouths and – just out – an ad showing an innocent-looking can of chicken-with-rice soup as bursting with dangerous salt. Whether or not you live in New York, you’re likely to be seeing more of this sort of thing because the mayor’s crew tends to set the pace for activist public-health efforts nationwide; the Obama administration, for example, picked Bloomberg lieutenant Thomas R. Frieden to head the influential Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Why should government use our own tax dollars to propagandize and hector us about the risks of salted snacks, chocolate milk or the other temptations of today’s supermarket aisle? The Bloomberg-Obama camp seems to feel that government dietary advice is superior to other sources of information we might draw on because (1) it’s more objective, independent and pure of motive and (2) it can draw on better science.
Whole thing here, and more on Bloomberg’s anti-soup crusade at the New York Post, Reason, and ACSH. More: My Food My Choice.
October 21 roundup
- “Japanese landlords sue families of suicide victims” [Telegraph via Tyler Cowen]
- Best candidate you’ve never heard of: lawprof Jim Huffman runs for a U.S. Senate seat in Oregon [Weekly Standard]
- “Freedom of culinary expression: Chefs speak out on behalf of salt” [“My Food, My Choice” via Ponnuru, NRO]
- “In-House Counsel Expect More Regulatory Litigation, Survey Finds” [NLJ]
- “Oladiran’s ‘Motion of the Year’ Earns Him Sanctions” [AtL]
- Resisting a music-delivery-system claim: “Patent Trolls and Public Goods” [Julian Sanchez]
- More transparency for New Jersey lawyer/lawmakers? [Philly.com]
- “Ninth Circuit: marine mammals don’t have standing…yet” [six years ago on Overlawyered]
June 24 roundup
- “IP Lawyer Who Spotted Expired Patent on Solo Cup Lid Loses Quest for Trillions in Damages” [ABA Journal, earlier on “false markings” suits here, here, etc.]
- Like we’re surprised: Linda Greenhouse favors sentimental (“Poor Joshua!”) side in 1989 DeShaney case and hopes Elena Kagan does too [NYT Opinionator, my take a few years back]
- Why is Le Monde in financial trouble? For one thing, firing a printing plant employee costs €466,000 [Frédéric Filloux, Monday Note via MargRev]
- “Will these salt peddlers stop at nothing?” Michael Kinsley on NYT sodium-as-next-tobacco coverage [Atlantic Wire]
- “‘Victim’ Gets $4.17 Coupon, Lawyers Get $10 Million Cash”: Expedia class action settlement [John Frith, California Civil Justice Blog]
- Scruggs investigation finally over as feds drop probe of political operative P.L. Blake; several figures in Mississippi scandal are up for release soon from prison [Jackson Clarion Ledger]
- $20 billion Gulf spill fund: “Oil Gushes and Power Rushes” [Sullum, Althouse]
- “NYC Naked Cowboy to Naked Cowgirl: Stop copying me” [AP]
Salt and the taste of food
Even in the midst of a crusade by its editors and the city’s mayor to attach odium to sodium, the New York Times can’t help reporting on some of the practical complications for those trying to make food palatable.