Recipe for Control

indyfromaz|

I took up cooking, one, because I found I really enjoy it, but also because it’s better for me to control my own food rather than trust it to a heart attack in a box (have you read the fat & sodium contents on some of those pre-prepared meals!).
But the difference between my approach and the First Lady’s Food Police cudgel approach is I’m not preaching and I’m not trying to control other people.
She is. Just like her husband.
I often wonder who’s the more elitist, her or her husband.
“Even if we give parents all the information they need and improve school meals and build brand new supermarkets on every corner, none of that matters if when families step into a restaurant, they can’t make a healthy choice,” Mrs. Obama told them.
So we have to control you at every turn so you won’t be tempted!
So, instead of speaking to parents about moderation, the first lady wants to micromanage menus, making french fries a special order item at fast-food outlets and apples the default side order of choice for kids. Butter and cream must be cut, and whole wheat pasta must replace white.
Harmless advocacy? Perhaps. But Mrs. Obama’s speeches at political rallies and conventions suggests it’s probably more. The gears of government seem to be turning to her cause.
The Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday announced a $31 million program to combat obesity (and smoking) in eight states. It comes with a plan to go coercive: “Use price to discourage consumption of tobacco and to benefit consumption of healthy food/drinks,” the press release reads. As in price controls?
The coincidences pile up as community organizers tied quite closely to the Obama campaign, including the National Council of La Raza and the NAACP, joined the cause. To aid the effort, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation chipped in a $2 million grant.
Fascinating associates don’t you think? La Raza, a racist hispanic group and the NAACP who calls Tea Partiers racists. Fascinating…
Then there’s the anti-McDonald’s TV ad campaign just launched by the Physicians Committee for Responsibility, another pressure group with a vegetarian and animal-rights agenda. In true Alinsky style, they’ve picked a target, personalized it and laid all the problems of obesity on one fast-food operator.
The advert shows a woman weeping over the body of a man in a morgue, with the man still holding a half-eaten hamburger. Toward the end of the advert, the McDonald’s logo appears along with the tag-line “I was lovin’ it”. The commercial then urges watchers to ““High cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart attacks. Tonight, make it vegetarian”.
Then you get Michael Moore who hadn’t been getting any attention lately spouting off that McDonald’s has killed more people than terrorists have.
What’s galling about all this is that Mrs. Obama’s anti-obesity campaign — like the policies pushed by her husband — presumes government has all the answers. In reality, it doesn’t.
Bu they think it does, as long as they are in control of it, that is. The Insufferably Superior Left strikes again!
Diets are a personal choice with different impacts on different people. Some children stay fit eating all the fast food they like; others can’t handle a donut. Some effective low-carbohydrate diets don’t restrict cream and butter at all, but minimize fruit. Go figure.
Micromanaging restaurant menus will only drive consumers to the junk food section at the grocery to get the goodies they crave. It won’t end childhood obesity, the causes of which are far more complex and numerous than trips to the Golden Arches.
But then you just drive the junk food purveyors out of business then and TA DA!   Instant Health! And you have Big Brother and Big Mommy to thank for it!
Like any solution imposed by big government, Mrs. Obama’s will harm business, limit choice and politicize the personal — a recipe for failure. (IBD)
You have to assume the Insufferably Superior Left actually cares. I know I don’t.
After all, her husband is frequent photographed (to look less like the elite he is) eating very unhealthy foods and he admits to being…a SMOKER!
Don’t do as I do, do as I say!
But Michelle can’t clean up her husband, oh no, she has to crusade against evil fat and salt to save you all from yourselves!
The Empress has no clothes.
She said it’s also important to change these national eating habits because they end up costing billions in additional healthcare costs.
And they want to take over your Health Care from birth to death. Hmmmm…Fascinating…
“I’m not asking any of you to make drastic changes to every single one of your recipes or to totally change the way you do business,” she said.
Not Yet, at least.
After all, when Liberals start preaching about it “being for the children” watch out!! (since they consider anyone who disagrees with them as “children” anyhow).

So how long before we “recommend” to a private business what they can serve and just force them to serve what we think is best for you?
After all, restaurants that serve crap, close. That’s business. But what if that’s all they are allowed to serve??
While suggestions that eateries serve a side of apples instead of French fries as the default side dish likely won’t go anywhere, there is another way to serve kids fewer calories. Just make the portions smaller.

Smaller portions mean less cost for the restaurant, and can help kids slim down. Charge the same, serve less food. Talk about a win-win! (Entrepeneur.com)

Exactly. The portion sizes today are about 1/3 larger than say 50 years ago.

If you can teach people to eat less, not just control what they eat, then you can lose weight!

After all, you have to burn more calories than you take in to do it.

And I fail but not as often as I used to and I have cleaned up my diet. So a lot of it is   also because of lack of proper regular exercise to on this middle-aged frame. But that’s another story…

But I don’t want to control you.

I trust with proper education and not liberal hysterics and Alinsky scare tactics that you are capable of make reasonable decisions and understand and accept the consequences of your actions.

But I also know that that part is nearly impossible in today’s liberal entitlement and evade responsibility for everything environment.

That’s what has to change. Not the menu.

“The delusion is that we all make free choices,”- Anti-soda crusader Harold Goldstein

* Obesity lawsuit instigator John “Sue the Bastards” Banzhaf lashes out: “All these platitudes about, ‘people should eat less,’ ‘responsibility,’ all this crap!” * Marion Nestle, queen of the food scolds, thinks that “balance, moderation and exercise” have no practical importance. “I don’t support that,” she says.
* Discussing “The Politics of Food,” Skip Spitzer of the radical Pesticide Action Network maintains that “the idea of personal responsibility is a cultural construct.”
* PETA medical “expert” Neal Barnard tells tales of food addiction, arguing that “it’s high time we stopped blaming ourselves for over-eating.”
* Kelly “Big Brother” Brownell advocates “a more militant attitude about the toxic food environment, like we have about tobacco… [smoking] became so serious that society overlooked the intrusion on individual rights for the greater social good.” He also suggests that human beings have no more control over their food choices than animals in a cage.
* Margo Wootan, one of the top killjoys at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), implores: “We have got to move beyond personal responsibility.” And when the World Health Organization added a single, understated sentence referencing the “exercise of individual responsibility” to its anti-obesity strategy, CSPI raged: “Obesity is not merely a matter of individual responsibility. Such suggestions are naive and simplistic.”

Here’s how noted food critic Robert Shoffner describes their philosophy: “People are children and have to be protected by Big Brother or Big Nanny from the awful free-market predators … That’s what drives these people — a desire for control of other people’s lives.” (consumerfreedom.com)

So they aren’t the Insufferably Superior are they?

You are just children who must be led to do what is best for you.

Just like the fact that the fabulously beautiful planet Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion by ten billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete whilst on the planet is surgically removed from your bodyweight when you leave: so every time you go to the lavatory it is vitally important to get a receipt. (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)

John Stossel: For what it’s worth, here is some of the research we dug up to prepare my Michelle Obama discussion:
In his article “Egg on their Faces,” Steve Malanga points out that “Government dietary advice often proves disastrous.”
Starting in the 1970s… the American Heart Association advised people to reduce drastically their consumption of eggs as part of a goal to limit total cholesterol intake to 300 milligrams a day (a single egg can have 250 milligrams). The recommendation, seconded by government and other public-health groups, prompted a sharp drop in the consumption of eggs, a food that nutritionists praise as low in calories and high in nutrients. In 2000, the AHA revised its restrictions on eggs to one a day (from a onetime low of three a week)… To what purpose? A 2004 article in The Journal of Nutrition that looked at worldwide studies of egg consumption noted that the current restrictions on eating eggs are “unwarranted for the majority of people and are not supported by scientific data.”
Furthermore:
As a recent review of the latest research in Scientific American pointed out, ever since the first set of federal guidelines appeared in 1980, Americans heard that they had to reduce their intake of saturated fat by cutting back on meat and dairy products and replacing them with carbohydrates. Americans dutifully complied. Since then, obesity has increased sharply, and the progress that the country has made against heart disease has largely come from medical breakthroughs like statin drugs, which lower cholesterol, and more effective medications to control blood pressure.
Malanga also notes that new FDA guidelines recommend a maximum of 1500 milligrams of salt daily (down from 2300).  One hypertension expert observed  that the government’s salt war is a giant uncontrolled experiment with the public’s health.

Here are a few more reasons why government shouldn’t tell us what to eat:
We’re living longer than ever! 80 yrs today vs. 57 yrs  80 yrs ago
A CDC study found that more people die every year from being underweight than overweight!  And that moderately overweight people live longer than those at normal weight.
Government was once excited about BMI index. (body-mass index) Gov Mike Huckabee had all Arkansas kids tested!  But BMI is a lousy measure of health.  According to BMI: Tom Cruise and Arnold Schwarzenegger are obese; GWBush and George Clooney are “overweight”
Calorie counts on menu boards don’t work: people STILL don’t take in fewer calories! A study at McDonald’s , Burger King, Wendy’s, and Kentucky Fried Chicken found that people ordered MORE calories after the labeling law went into effect.
What’s junk food?  Chicago’s new candy tax defines sweets that contain flour as “food” – w/o flour as “candy.”  (Hershey bar? Candy. But Kit Kats, Twix, Twizzlers –are “food”) O.j. and apple juice? More calories than Coke! (97 v 120/cup)
“Protect the children?”  Children are the responsibility of their parents. When the state assumes the role of parent, it makes children of all of us.
It’s a good sign that America has food nannies – means were so rich that these are the things we’re worried about!
The food police haven’t jailed anyone yet, but who knows 20 years down the road?  MeMe Roth suggests annual obesity screenings at school; serving soft drinks to only those over 18; child abuse laws for parents with obese kids; taxes on soda and sweetened drinks.


If the government is allowed to dictate our diet, what’s next? Do they start deciding who we’ll marry, where we’ll work?

Thomas Jefferson said “A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.”

The Safety Net

“It’s very sad. I think it’s just illustrating what dire straits our federal government budget is in,” said Sheila Zedlewski, director of the Urban Institute’s Income and Benefits Center. “It’s unprecedented to raid one safety net program to feed another.”
Democrats who reluctantly slashed a food stamp program to fund a state aid bill may have to do so again to pay for a top priority of first lady Michelle Obama.
The House will soon consider an $8 billion child nutrition bill that’s at the center of the first lady’s “Let’s Move” initiative. Before leaving for the summer recess, the Senate passed a smaller version of the legislation that is paid for by trimming the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps.

The proposed cuts would come on top of a 13.6 percent food stamp reduction in the $26 billion Medicaid and education state funding bill that President Obama signed this week.
Food stamps have made multiple appearances on the fiscal chopping block because Democrats have few other places to turn to offset the cost of legislation.
Party leaders raided the budget to find off-setting tax increases and spending cuts to pay for their top legislative priorities, including the roughly $900 billion health care law.
Democrats have turned to the food stamp program because funding increases enacted in the stimulus package last year were already scheduled to phase out over time. The changes proposed in the state aid and nutrition bills would simply cut off that increase early, in March 2014. Because the cuts would not take effect for more than three years, Democratic leaders have voiced the hope that they will be able to stop them in future legislation.
But House liberals are balking now, saying that while they swallowed the food stamp cuts to pay for urgent funding for Medicaid and teachers, they will not vote for more cuts in the child nutrition bill.
A House leadership aide noted that the food stamp decrease approved in the state aid bill will not take effect right away and will leave the program at the same funding level it was at before the stimulus law was signed. “That doesn’t mean many Democrats are not concerned about the issue, but this is a process which gives us time to deal with immediate issues (like jobs) and helping the economy grow, while giving you time to deal with the food stamp issue,” the aide said. (The Hill)

In other words, the card shuffling rob Peter-to-Pay-Paul-Wimpy-I’ll Pay you tomorrow for a hamburger (or food stamp)-today economics may be running a bit thin.
The idea that you can pay for massive spending with cuts 3 years from now in the hope that everything will be fine and and you won’t have to cut them in 3 years is some how saving money now is just wrong.
And these were eliminating increases that that they’d already passed!
Sounds like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic after it’s hit the iceberg!
But when you have The Agenda, and the Agenda must be passed and the end justifies the means, you’ll do and say anything to make it happen.

The deeper food stamp reductions in the Senate version would set an earlier date — in November 2013 — for eliminating the increased benefits passed last year.  A family of four would see their benefit reduced by $59 a month, or about 9 percent. The bill would also cut funding for nutrition education programs aimed at low-income neighborhoods and households.
But don’t worry, It will still be George W Bush’s fault if the cuts actually happen. Or evil rich people. Or Class warfare. It certainly won’t be there fault. And it’s just cutting an increase anyhow so no big deal (unless you’re the Bush Tax cuts where not increasing taxes is bad).
The truth is certainly not endangered.


I like this comment made on the article, it was suitably sarcastic:
No big deal. Just put a “cancel” on any payments from the treasury to cover charges for the Obama family’s entertainment amd travel budget. It would onlly take a few months of austerity in the White House to jumpstart the economy, balance the budget, and slash the deficit. If that doesn’t do it, garnish Obama’s salary, eliminate his empire of czars, and fire “Bozo” Gibbs. The first two measures would be sacrifices, and the third would be a sign of at least some intelligent life in the White House.

Now why would they want to interrupt their latest lavish vacation to do that? Gee, they are the elites and they are the ruling family why would they want to show any restraint?
They deserve it. They are better than you.
I guess we could always Eat their words…


Congress’ rationale for eliminating the 2003 Bush tax cuts is deficit reduction. This position would be more credible were congress not teeing-up additional discretionary spending programs in the form of various stimuli packages for union members and favored political allies whom Democrats need to please in order to ensure their re-election in November. The deficit can never be reduced if Congress doesn’t stop non-essential spending. (or this kind of Wimpy-I’ll-pay-tomorrow-for-what-I-spend-today economics).

Currently, it is not clear if the confiscatory tax policies proposed by Democrats are designed to reduce the deficit by increasing the government’s revenue or if they are designed to punish political opponents and those whose don’t share the flawed, Democrat, wealth-redistribution ideology. Increasingly, it’s looking as if the goal is to punish.
Low tax rates incentivize economic growth and investment. This has been proven time after time. But, Democrats prefer to focus, instead, on taxes on the “rich”, using inflammatory rhetoric that plays on our deepest fears and ego, fear that someone might be better than we are, have more than we do, rhetoric that encourages schadenfreude, a smug pleasure that those who have more than we, might be brought low by confiscatory tax policies.
The Democrat leaders in congress advocating against the Bush tax cuts are looking for a bogeyman—the rich—to be blamed for the failed Democrat fiscal and job creation policies. Punishing the “rich” is a campaign strategy that they hope will play well with voters this fall. (Townhall.com)

Let them EAT the “rich”. Meanwhile, the apparatchiks are being porked out of their minds.
And you, get to pay for it either way.


Oh, and just in case you didn’t know, their was another stimulus (aka bribe) recently also:
WASHINGTON (AP) — A check from Uncle Sam gets your attention, even if the money doesn’t help that much with the bills.
More than 750,000 Medicare recipients with high prescription costs each got a $250 government check this summer, and 3 million-plus more checks are going out to people who land in the program’s anxiety-inducing coverage gap.
Democrats, running scared in an election year, are trying to overcome older people’s mistrust of the new health care law, which expands coverage for younger generations by cutting Medicare payments to hospitals and insurers.
Will the ploy work?
“It’s like a teaser,” says Virginia Brant, 65, of Glendale, Ariz. “You go to Vegas and they give you the free spin on the wheel. We have had our teaser — the $250 — for us to say, ‘Gee, look at what we have coming.’”
Brant spent hers to help pay down a credit card she keeps for medications.
The checks arrive with a letter addressed directly to each beneficiary and signed by Kathleen Sebelius, President Barack Obama’s health secretary.
The money is “to bring you some needed relief on your prescription drug costs … the first step toward closing your coverage gap,” Sebelius says. Then comes the pitch: “Stay tuned for more information … on how this new law will help make Medicare more financially secure and provide you with higher quality and more affordable health care.”
Ooh, $250 bucks! Wow! that makes The Health Care Mandate  and the cuts in Medicare Advantage  (which is used for prescriptions mostly ) so much more palatable and makes me want to vote for a Democrat so they can continue to pork people without regard to the consequences!
I guess they could always cut food stamps again to pay for it….
So The democrats want to demagogue the rich, pay off their apparatchiks with your money and bribe people to vote for them in November.
Well at least some things haven’t changed in the swamp.