First Big Tobacco, now Fatty Foods

[Guest guest]

http://www.insightmag.com/news/256297.html

A couple excerpts:

>... right now what some call the professional health nannies are in high

>gear demonizing fatty and junk food the same way tobacco was demonized.

>Longtime self- styled consumer activist and former presidential candidate

>Ralph Nader asserted in the New York Times Magazine in June that

> " Mc's double cheeseburgers [are] a weapon of mass destruction. " Pop

>singer Moby recently said on HBO's Dennis Live that " all the

>lawsuits " will force fast-food restaurants to become totally vegetarian in

>25 years. In 1998 Brownell, director of Yale University's Center for

>Eating and Weight Disorders, told the Boston Herald, " There is no

>difference between Mc and Joe Camel. … We need to start

>thinking about this in a more militant way. "

>Banzhaf notes a recent case he helped initiate in which Mc's settled

>for $12.5 million with Hindu and vegetarian groups because it had

>advertised that its french fries were cooked in vegetable oil without

>saying they had been seasoned with beef flavoring. " We proved that you

>could bring the suit where Mc's didn't even lie, " Banzhaf gloats.

> " What they said was technically correct. It was what they didn't say that

>we got them on. "

>Many critics of the proposed lawsuits distinguish the Mc's lawsuit

>as one of misrepresentation. But Banzhaf sees it as just a starting point

>to force changes in the industry. He tells Insight that likely future

>targets for lawsuits will be milk and pork.

>

>Milk commercials " tell you, 'Drink this milk for health reasons,' but then

>they fail to tell you that milk has a lot of saturated fat and

>cholesterol, and that you can get all of whatever these health benefits

>are without these risks by drinking skim milk, " Banzhaf says. " That, to

>me, is very close to Mc's. "

>Noting that lack of exercise is a big part of the problem of obesity,

>Grocery Manufacturers of America spokesman Gene Grabowski joked to Insight

>that, if food is targeted in this way, perhaps " automobiles, television

>sets and office chairs should be taxed because they contribute to

>inactivity. " Grabowski may have spoken too soon. The CSPI has proposed a 5

>percent tax on new TV sets and video equipment and a new tax on cars for

>just that reason.

Big Tobacco may well have deserved everything it got and then some, but

this is getting to be ridiculous: milk, pork and beef are not addictive,

food, unlike tobacco, is a requirement of life, and lest we forget,

(properly raised) milk, pork and beef are EXTREMELY HEALTHY! But somehow I

doubt any advocates of pastured full-fat meat and dairy will be called to

testify before Congress.

-

[Guest guest]

Belinda-

>Maybe we should come when not called?

If possible, but I don't think there's any way to testify in a hearing of

that sort _without_ being called. All we could do would be to march around

outside, which would probably accomplish nothing. If we even got covered

by the media, I'm sure we'd be completely misrepresented.

-

[Guest guest]

> All we could do would be to march around outside, which would

probably accomplish nothing. If we even got covered by the media,

I'm sure we'd be completely misrepresented. <

oh. don't hit me with them negative waves so early in the morning.

--oddball