The First Amendment is Making Your Kids FAT!

Parke, over on US Food Policy, a daily read of mine, has been posting a series of entries on the problem of obese children. (Hey, I was one of those!) The latest issue, and a favorite target of left-wing politicians, is advertising aimed at children. (I guess this is Chester the Cheetah pushing trans-fats, instead of Joe Camel hooking our kids on nicotine.)

He quotes Marion Nestle who challenges the First Amendment defense of junk food advertising:

I have trouble with this first amendment argument. I imagine back to our forefathers who wrote the first amendment sitting around a table saying, “how are we going to guarantee freedom of speech for people who have diverse religious beliefs?” They were NOT sitting around that table saying, “how can we defend the right of makers of junky cereals to market their products to kids?” I think we have a real problem with this. Some lawyers should take a look at the first amendment and start using it for what it was for.

The problem with this argument, like the one that it challenges, is that it is beside the point. The point is not what the First Amendment allows, just like the fundamental issue with guns is not what the Second Amendment allows. People should have the right to bear arms because people have a fundamental need to protect themselves and few things are better protection for individuals, especially the weak, than a gun. The Constitution is not sacrosanct. It can be changed -- and rightfully has been more than a dozen times by amendment (and more than that by judicial activism).

Junk food should be allowed to be advertised, even to children, because it's not wrong for them to eat it. What's wrong -- or rather, unhealthy -- is for them to eat too much of it. And the advertising isn't doing that to them. Is there a child who doesn't know about junk food? Face it, junk food tastes good. It's all fat, sugar, salt, and MSG -- what's not to like?

Trying to shelter kids from advertising isn't going to be effective. The answer is much tougher: training kids to restrain themselves and educating palates to enjoy more than simple tastes.

Posted by extramsg at 9/15/2005 |

National Food Safety Education Month: Say that Three Times Fast

Did you know that September is National Food Safety Education Month? Yeah, me neither. A bit too much of a mouthful to make a good jingle.

The training materials would be hilarious if they didn't imply that there are people who actually need this spelled out to them in comic book form. My favorite part are the worksheets at the end. While the quiz on taking off gloves is a toughy, the employee illness true/false test had me scrolling for a third page with the answers. If those cartoons of a guy spraying vomit into a toilet don't convince restaurant workers to stay home, perhaps they can try Pepto's flash game.

Actually, I just noticed that they do have an answer sheet! What the hell is a beard restraint?

Posted by extramsg at 9/15/2005 |

Foie Gras Battle Moves to Illinois

Apparently Illinois is the next big battlefield in the foie gras wars. Oregon narrowly missed being one of the casualties after a bill passed in the Senate last spring. For those of us who enjoy foie gras, luckily it died in the House. (Interestingly, I could find no news articles about its death, only its birth.)

The movement to ban foie gras got a meaningful boost in credibility when activists, supported by celebrities, successfully nixed its production and sale in California last year. Both in California and Oregon, legal methods of removing the meat from menus were preceded by less honorable tactics, including false reservations and showing disturbing videos to diners through restaurant windows.

But the methods of some should not be evidence to the rightness of the arguments, one way or the other. The question is whether the production of foie gras is cruel, or whether it's cruel enough to justify its ban.

My answer: I'm not sure.

Those of us who ever owned a cow (or a goldfish, for that matter) know that animals will eat beyond any reasonable limit. I can remember my dad essentially having to syphon grain from the stomachs of our cow (named, ehem, Taco, btw) because someone had left the doors open to the barn where the feed was stored and he had gorged himself. So when opponents and activists emphasize "force-feeding", I'm a little suspicious.

When the issue came up on eGullet, slkinsey put it this way:

Now, of course, there always comes the question of what is acceptable treatment for any animal raised for slaughter. For this, it helps if one has an understanding of the animal's physiology and, to the extent possible, psychology. The esophagus of a duck, for example, is lined with something very similar to the material our fingernails are made of. And, of course, ducks and geese have a natural gorging instinct. One reads of ducks gathering around the feeder and standing in line to be gorged. Is this unnatural? Yea, to a certain extent. So is feeding grain to cows. Domesticating an animal and raising it for slaughter is inherrently "unnatural." But it's not clear to me that doing any of these "unnatural" things necessarily makes the animal "suffer." Could the gorging method be done in a way that was inhumane? Certainly. But that doesn't mean that the gorging method is inherrently inhumane. So I say it is a flawed premise to declare foie gras production inhumane based simply on the gorging method. This would be inhumane for humans, and probably for most mammals, but not for ducks and geese.

I, too, have no doubt that animals can be fed cruelly. Animals are treated cruelly all the time and in a myriad of ways. Instead of banning foie gras outright, I'd rather see a bill that addresses livestock cruelty in general, setting what are acceptable limits, and then viewing specific cases in light of that. Hell, there might be such laws on the books already.

As it is, the anti-foie gras movement seems like a bit of grandstanding. Politicians can bellyache about foie gras with little worry about offending their constituents, while ingratiating themselves to an increasingly powerful special interest. The numbers of people who eat foie gras -- let alone know what it is -- are few. The numbers of people who truly depend on it for their livelihood are even fewer. Without actually affecting (or effecting) much, a politician can prove that he's a good egg, a friend to animals, an enemy to all that's inhumane.

But it's just show. Bring up a bill that would severely limit Oregon dairies or chicken farms and you'd see blowhards on both sides of the aisle proving that they are friends to farmers, ranchers, restaurants, and those that depend on cheap groceries from Wal-Mart.

So while I'm torn on the state of modern animal husbandry, and even the merits of foie gras production, I see the activists' efforts as largely wasted. They're content with shallow wins for a bit of notoriety.

Posted by extramsg at 9/15/2005 |

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog. I'll be focusing on issues nearest -- not to my heart -- but to my stomach.

I'm starting this blog as a supplement to my Portland food guide, extramsg.com. This blog will be more journal-like, focusing on food politics with random musings, while extramsg.com contains entries directed at Portland food lovers. In other words, while I aim to keep extramsg.com a useful tool, this will be where I can shoot my big mouth off. ;-)

Posted by extramsg at 9/14/2005 |