Bloomberg soda ban struck down

By Dan Brooks in inevitability of death 8 Comments

coke-makes-you-fat

Judge Milton A. Tingling, if that is his real name, has invalidated New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ban on large, sugary beverages, calling the law “arbitrary and capricious.” Capricious, yes: milkshakes were exempted; 20-ounce coffees maybe became illegal once you put sugar in them; 7-11 didn’t count because it’s a grocery store, while bodegas did. But arbitrary? Approximately one million studies have linked soft drink consumption to obesity, diabetes and a raft of other health problems afflicting Americans in increasing numbers. Sugary drinks are bad for you. We just can’t go making laws about them.

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Understand the fundamental dilemma of the United States through addictive food

By Dan Brooks in obesity 5 Comments
A scamp

A scamp

When Hostess went out of business, I immediately faced the prospect of not eating a Ho-Ho ever again. I am familiar with Swiss Cake Rolls; it’s possible I ate an entire box of them this weekend, but they are not Ho-Hos. It’s not even that I like a Ho-Ho so much. It has that flavor and that texture, though, both of which lie between chocolate and wax. A Ho-Ho is not good so much as it is particular, and the idea of never having another one makes me appreciate the alcoholic’s principle of One Day at a Time. In short, I am addicted, like the American food executives in Michael Moss’s million-page exposé want me to be.

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Fat acceptance raises some big issues, which sit next to you on the plane

By Dan Brooks in consumerism, counterculture, health care, health insurance reform, oppositional culture, widespread dumbening 9 Comments

Ronald McDonaldThe enormous pink jacket industry received a windfall this week, as representatives from the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance lobbied Congress for a public health care option that would not consider excess weight a pre-existing condition. It turns out that when a bill is going around the House, it really goes around the House. Hey-o! Seriously, though, there really is a fat acceptance community, and according to the New York Times, they really do think that fat people are being unfairly scapegoated in the national debate over health care reform. Certainly, there’s no question that fat people get used as scapegoats. Every time a diving board breaks or one end of a park bench shoots straight up in the air, we look around for the fat person. The question is whether this scapegoating is unfair.

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Corn syrup manufacturers expose global conspiracy against corn syrup

By Dan Brooks in health care, obesity, oppositional culture, representative democracy, rumormongering, Uncategorized, widespread dumbening 4 Comments
fat_kid

This picture of a fat kid demanding something comes courtesy of a Fox News story about obesity in America. Check out the lettering on the window advertisement in the upper left-hand corner. It's like they're inaccurate for sport, now.

Assuming that you get all your news directly from press releases, you’re probably already familiar with this story of the truth shining forth despite the best efforts of the sugar-industrial complex to cover it up. With the dead bodies of fat kids. “Today,” it reads, “the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) launched a new million dollar ad campaign designed to put an end to the blatant inaccuracies surrounding the much-maligned ingredient: high fructose corn syrup.” Ah, yes, the Center for Consumer Freedom—so named because “People’s Center for Consumer Freedom,” “Glorious Center for Freedom and Truth” and “Southern Poverty Law Center” were already taken. Apparently so was “Corn Refiners Association,” because that’s who sponsored the press release. They’ve also created the website Sweetscam.com, which sheds some long-overdue light on the conspiracy to make people think that eating a bunch of high-fructose corn syrup will make you fat, when in fact “Some research demonstrates that lean people actually eat more sugar (and less fat) than obese people.” That’s one of the many myths debunked on Sweetscam.com’s Myths and Facts page, along with “sugary sweeteners are bad for your teeth” (in fact, “almost any food left on your teeth for too long will lead to tooth decay over time”) and “high-fructose corn syrup is actually high in fructose.” See, that’s actually sort of a private joke among high-fructose corn syrup’s friends, like the way you call an enormous black man “Tiny.”

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