Fighting the Food Fanatics

“Life Tastes Good…”

(*Coca-cola slogan from 2001)

——–

We’ve heard it all our lives: Don’t eat this, don’t drink that. Such-and-such food is horrible for you!! And this other food? Even worse.

Sure, burgers-&-fries are a given. But there’s TONS more: Trail mix. Canned soup. Bread. Gluten. Soda. Granola. Sugar.

…All bad. Evil, in fact.

“Evil” is more accurate, at least based on the popular rhetoric. After all, each proclamation is broadcast and echoed with a religious fervor that’d put most congregations to shame.

These various foods and ingredients are “temptations”, you see, which makes us (the consumer) the sinners in need of absolution.

Conveniently, some fare doesn’t stay evil forever. Healthy Food-ism is apparently a “living” religion and subject to constant change. I suppose this makes it loads better than those other, ‘stuffier’ religions which are always hung-up on old, boring, permanent truths.

For instance, recall the brouhaha over butter: thought to be a truly wicked comestible for ages, it now seems to be “good” again. So kindly disregard the last 50+ years of saturated fat finger-wagging and fear-mongering.

And salt (which not long ago was unquestionably bad, bad, bad) is in the middle of an image makeover, leaving the High Priests of Provender a bit confused as to its status.

But these are minor exceptions, and not to be dwelt upon. Especially when there are so many sinners to set on the path of Sustenance Salvation!

Thus we hear of schools throwing kids’ packed lunches away, or fining parents for what their children brought for lunch. Who do you parents think you are, anyway??

Woe to you who flout the laws of the Church of Healthy Eating, for you will be judged, …harshly:

(via TheHill.com) – Michelle Kwan shouldn’t be allowed to do advertisements for Coca-Cola while sitting on a presidential fitness and nutrition council, a leading healthcare nonprofit said Wednesday.

The D.C.-based Center for Science in the Public Interest lambasted the Obama administration over the former Olympic figure skater’s ad, arguing that allowing her to endorse the sugary drink undermined the integrity of President Obama’s Council on Fitness, Nutrition and Sports.

(click image for full-size display)

Kwan is holding a regular Coke — not a Diet Coke or no-calorie Coke Zero — in the website ad. The nonprofit says Kwan and at least five other athletes on the panel are current or former “endorsers of sugar drinks.”

It said it was impossible to reconcile Kwan’s efforts on the nutrition commission with her paid support for a soft drink company, “since Coca-Cola and the President’s Council communicate opposing messages when it comes to sugar drinks.”

Let it be known by one and all: the Food Magisterium does not tolerate heresy.

—

All kidding aside, the Kwan-Coke episode is just the newest front in an ongoing battle, one which has ominous financial implications for our nation. And the Healthy Food-ers are being used for much darker purposes than most of them realize.

Not long ago, the American Medical Association declared that it’ll now consider obesity a disease, implicitly granting the Food Pharisees imprimatur to go about converting the nation:

(via The CATO Institute) – “…But while obesity is a real problem, the AMA’s move is actually a way for its members to receive more federal dollars, by getting obesity treatments covered under government health plans. A bipartisan group of congressmen has already seized on the AMA declaration as they push for Medicare coverage of diet drugs.

Observers also expect an effort to expand Medicare reimbursement for bariatric surgery, a.k.a. stomach stapling. And there will almost certainly be pressure to mandate coverage for these things by private insurance carriers, under both state laws and the Affordable Care Act…”

Gee, who didn’t see THAT one coming?

Besides, personal responsibility is so passé:

“…the AMA decision shifts responsibility for weight loss from the individual to society at large, while expanded Medicare and insurance coverage socialize the cost of treating obesity, thereby inviting all manner of government mischief.

After all, if being fat is not our fault, the blame must lie with food companies, advertising, or other things that need to be regulated…” 

As was suspected all along, once you get past all the self-righteous hyperventilating and guilt-assigning, this is just another grab for money/power by the lawyers, the statist sympathizers and government power-brokers. Predictably, the movement to sue “Big Food” is already gaining momentum, and the Obama White House’s position on this is extremely well-known.

You’re shocked, I know.

—

Yet if we acquiesce and allow the Food Industry to be blamed for our health, rather than our own decision-making, what’s left? The food we consume is one of our last pure freedoms, and I doubt if most of us actually desire to start emulating countries purported to eat “healthier” than us.

But don’t bother mentioning any of that to our self-appointed Lords of Larder: piddling matters like “free will” and “individual choice” are of zero concern when there’s a nation to save from itself: