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Coming
Soon: The Federal Food Police
By Kate Burch
Former NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg’s banning of super-size sugared
soft drinks was just the camel’s nose under the tent. The new
“Dietary Guidelines for Americans” report, jointly issued by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services looks like much more than “guidelines.” We have heard
rumblings about government spying on our communications, our energy
use, our garbage recycling habits, etc. Now, this new report not
only recommends severely limiting all animal products in the American
diet (sustainability, you know), but actually says, “In order for
policy recommendations such as the Dietary Guidelines for Americans to
be fully implemented, motivating and facilitating behavioral change at
the individual level is required. These goals will require
changes at all levels of the social-ecological model through
coordinated efforts among health care and social and food systems from
the national to the local level.” These means of forcing
compliance include taxing desserts, banning advertising for certain
foods, sending trained obesity “interventionists” to your workplace
(!), and electronically monitoring how long you sit in front of the
television. Every time I start to think that there can be
no more breathtakingly outrageous examples of government arrogance and
overreach, I am made to think again.
Setting aside that this is yet another frontal assault on freedom, what
evidence exists that these people actually know what they are
doing? We have been through quite a number of dietary
recommendations that have later been found to be ineffective and even
unwise with regard to their health effects. Margarine used to be
favored over butter, and then it wasn’t. At one time, we were all
supposed to limit salt intake, then it was found that hypertension is
more a matter of genetics than diet. Ditto for
hypercholesterolemia; diet doesn’t seem to matter. The anti-fat
craze of a few years ago arguably was a major contributor to the
increase in obesity, because limiting fat in the diet makes people
hungrier. Now carbs are supposed to be bad for you. Seems
to me that good nutrition is actually pretty simple for most people:
eat a wide variety of foods; with higher levels of animal protein if
you are still growing, healing from injury or illness; pregnant or
nursing; don’t major in foods with high concentrations of fat or sugar;
enjoy seasonal fruits and vegetables, well-prepared; and above all,
enjoy it!
The other intolerable aspect of this report is that it is as much or
more about advancing the “green” agenda as it is about nutrition.
The report states, “Current evidence shows that the average U.S. diet
has a larger environmental impact in terms of increased greenhouse gas
emissions, land use, water use, and energy use, compared to (other)
dietary patterns.” I am more and more convinced that the
relentless push toward “sustainability” is not about saving the planet
at all, but more about increasing central command and control over our
lives.
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