Here in New York, we've seen several attempts, some more successful than others, to ban different harmful ingredients from food available for purchase. The New York Daily News wrote of the latest, "If State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz has his way, the only salt added to your meal will come from the chef's tears."
But don't we have a certain right to eat things that are bad for us? KFC just introduced the ultimate in unhealthy--a bacon "sandwich" between two pieces of fried chicken "bread," called the Double Down, and there seems to be no shortage of appetite for such things. Will laws be able to change the way we eat? MeMe Roth of National Action Against Obesity and Jennifer Iannolo of the Culinary Media Network and My Food My Choice join us to discuss.
Is it just me, or does Roth come off anti-public healthcare. Now, I didn’t personally oppose the trans fat ban (though I shed tears for Krispy Kreme) and foie gras. But I don’t like this municipal ingredient ban kick. These cities spend more time banning food (honestly, a curtailment of liberty) than addressing homelessness, combating food deserts, preserving good jobs, maintaining schools… It’s a silly bunch of regulation that offers fodder to conservative claims about a ‘nanny state’, and will leave us with nothing but ital eateries. Oh wait, they closed one of them down because it was selling marijuana.
Los Angeles had a better tact, I think. They decided there was a heavy density of fast food restaurants in a neighborhood, and passed a moratorium on the opening of fast food restaurants in districts, with the hope that the only places that would open would be healthier options. I likewise agree, you can certainly ban certain foods in government run institutions, like schools. It’s a more spatial approach to food, though one that likewise needs to be complemented with pushing access to farmers markets, healthier (local) restaurants, and better groceries that aren’t all corn starch and corn syrup in every part of a city.
By criticiseafterdinner on April 13th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Absolutely right about the Lobbyists in Washington that get this food all over this “food pyramid” to begin with.
Nobody mentions anything about the ingredients and the Farm Bill that puts corn syrups, and all these other additives in packaged and manufactured foods. No mention here about the contents of super markets, and the oligopoly of wholesale distributors that put that food there. Lobbyists also explain why no talk in Congress about artificial food colouring. Yes, our conversation is starting at the wrong point, and junk food marketers are in schools, but nothing is going to change with Lobbyists getting those french fries and processed foods, and junk foods into schools.
Need to hear from MeMe Roth about just what numbers are those abusing medicare. This argument is always bantered around without any stats and data to back it up. We also have a health system that only treats people once they show up at an emergency room, or a doctor after the fact of being sick. Our system does nothing to change habits in doctors’ offices. That is a benefit of the UK’s health system where doctors work with patients to improve outcomes. Doctors here only get paid after someone is sick and comes in for a procedure.
Hammering on lifestyle choices, you also make no connection to household incomes for working people, food deserts, and their outlays for food, rent, everything else. The cheap corn starch, corn syrup calories that are out there in everything from Farm subsidies, and farm lobbyists.
By Planck on April 19th, 2010 at 5:30 pm