Frying squads aim at hot dogs – and you
Lori Borgman | Monday, Aug 03, 2009
It’s been a bad week for backyard cookouts and
anyone who enjoys food in general. First the food police put a bounty
on hot dogs.
Food vigilantes and their frying squads have targeted
more than 100 foods with their scientific studies and attacks. They
won’t relent until we’re all slurping seaweed and snacking on wheat
berries.
If having hot dogs and brats disrespected at the
peak of summer wasn’t bad enough, the Senate Finance Committee announced
they were considering taxing soda. Like a three-cent tax per can
is going to fund health care and create a stampede for broccoli
flowerets.
The crusaders are gunning for curvy people --
the ample, the plump, the generous, the Rubenesque and the outright
obese.
Now that the pool of smokers has shrunk, they
need a new target. It is essential that the movers and shakers always
have someone else to move and shake.
The only thing more annoying than a crazed anti-smoking
crusader is a smug thin person.
As a nation, we are, well, round. We know we’re
round. Every time we turn around – and give me a little space could
you? – a headline tells us we’re round. And a headline beside that
offers a recipe for rocky road double fudge brownies.
If the Feds want to control what the rest of us
eat, they may want to clean out their own'fridge first. The new
Surgeon General isn’t exactly willowy and Barney Frank would be
the first to admit that’s not an all-wheel drive Goodyear tire wrapped
around his middle.
It used to be it was a mother’s job to tell you
what to eat, not a senator’s job. It’s only a matter of time before
the president appoints a Calorie Czar. Paging Jenny Craig.
Feeding people isn’t new to the Feds. They’ve
been menu planning for our children for some time. A teacher friend
found it ironic that students who get breakfast at school had a
donut in one hand and were touching their toes with the other as
part of the school’s fitness program.
Eat. Exercise. Eat. Exercise. Bend there, done
that.
We’re not the only ones whose government is nosing
in on our eating habits. The Brits conducted a trial door-to-door
campaign in January in which officials called on households asking
residents what they were cooking, talked about portion size, dispensed
dietary advice and offered tips on what to do with leftovers.
Our roundness, like every other social problem,
is best addressed at a smaller and more intimate level like, say,
the family. Or the community. Or even our churches. Once upon a
time we solved problems ourselves without facing the Potomac and
bowing to Washington.
It is an individual and family choice to make
the time to cook at home, to make sweets, junk and eating out the
occasional treat and not a staple. It is a personal choice to get
off your duff and get outside, to bike, hike, shoot hoops, walk
not drive, take the stairs and generally get the lead out.
You can’t coerce someone into losing weight –
although that female trainer on the “Biggest Loser” sure comes close.
You can’t tax someone into losing weight. The decisions on what
to eat, when, where and if to exercise, are personal. At least they
used to be. When government gets their nose in your cupboard, the
scales are out of whack.
We may be pudgy, but we’re not stupid.
