War on Nummy Treats

Who says that anti-climate-change activists are obliged to be realistic?   Via Treehugger:

A new report from the Food Climate Research Network at the University of Surrey says people will have to be rationed to four modest portions of meat and one litre of milk a week if the world is to avoid run-away climate change.

According to Juliette Jowit in the Guardian, the report says “total food consumption should be reduced, especially ‘low nutritional value’ treats such as alcohol, sweets and chocolates.”[…]

Tara Garnett, the report’s author, warned that campaigns encouraging people to change their habits voluntarily were doomed to fail and urged the government to use caps on greenhouse gas emissions and carbon pricing to ensure changes were made.  “Food is important to us in a great many cultural and symbolic ways, and our food choices are affected by cost, time, habit and other influences,” the report says.  “Study upon study has shown that awareness-raising campaigns alone are unlikely to work, particularly when it comes to more difficult changes.”

I suppose it wouldn’t be helpful to note that with enough alcohol and chocolate, people would feel less bothered by climate change.

Earlier today, I mentioned that the Dems have circulated a draft of their ’08 platform, and that I meant to comment on it if time permitted.

Well, I’ve had a chance to slightly-more-than-skim through it, and I can offer a few thoughts:

On health care and health insurance – I don’t think the Dems are planning to rely on too much in the way of contributions from the health insurance sector this cycle.  Several pages of the document seem focused on grilling health insurers.

There is, at least, one comment in the platform expressing a desire to control health costs, but the focus seems to be on addressing inefficiencies in the system (where there is indeed room for improvement), rather than the real drivers of health care inflation – Americans’ perceived entitlement to the latest and greatest (and generally very expensive) procedures and treatments, and the tendency for medical professionals to treat specific complaints, rather than undertaking thorough diagnosis, and considering the potential efficacy of less-sexy-but-still-effective treatments.  The platform buys into the notion that Americans should have access to the very best health care (and admirable goal), but does nothing about the unspoken question of “who’s going to pay for this”?

(Actually, I should take that back.  Throughout the platform there are promises to not raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000.   Above the magic $250,000 mark, the platform calls on households to pay “a bit more”.)

There are actually quite a few calls for new programs, to bolster the health and welfare of Americans.  They are all admirable goals….but the only spending cut I see mentioned in the platform involves ending our military involvement in Iraq.  I wonder if a Democratic monopoly in Washington would actually be significantly less fiscally irresponsible than the Republican monopoly was, or the lame duck / deadlocked government we have now is.

True, I didn’t expect to see a robust fiscal plan laid out in a platform…but it would be nice if a few more hints of budget-balancing could be seen in the document.

Also on the health care reform section of the platform – I can’t help but notice how many of the abuses (and perceived abuses) the Dems seek to end are targeted towards traditional health insurance providers.   Most health insurance these days comes from employer-provided plans which would likely be relatively exempt from such reforms…and/or have already been subject to such reform through amendments to ERISA.

Missing from that section – reform of ERISA itself.   While ERISA definitely provided some much-needed consumer protections in what was a then-failing pension system in the 1970’s….there are a few loopholes in the law which permit administrators of employee health plans to behave badly with minimal repercussions.   More detail can be found in an earlier post of mine…and it’s something that I’d like to see fixed.

The Social Security plank is disappointing, I think.   While it’s understandable that the Dems would slam corporations for underfunding pension plans, or walking away from promises previously made, statements like:

We recognize that Social Security is not in crisis

smell a bit like an attempt to score political points, rather than paint a constructive plan.  Yes, the platform advocates bolstering Social Security’s financing, and yes “crisis” is in the eye of the beholder…but acknowledgement that acting sooner rather than later would reduce the burden of any fix, and acknowledgement of the even-worse fiscal situation of Medicare would be refreshingly frank from a political party.

Oh well.  Democratic and Republican platforms these days seem to be mostly puff pieces anyway, so my frustration is to be expected.  I imagine this document and the forthcoming GOP platform will only reconfirm my disappointment with both major parties.

While I was tied up with work and travel, a couple of interesting stories made it into my reading pile.  Together, they convince me that the concept of personal responsibility must be virtually illegal.

First, I saw this article in the Wall Street Journal (subscriber link):

Ian Perry, a Los Angeles city-council member, is spearheading legislation that would ban new fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and KFC from opening in a 32-square-mile chunk of the city, including her district. The targeted area is already home to some 400 fast-food restaurants, she says, possibly contributing to high obesity rates there — 30% of adults, compared with about 21% in the rest of the city. Nationally, 25.6% of adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While some cities have bans on new fast-food establishments, they typically are for aesthetic reasons or to protect local businesses. Ms. Perry’s initiative seems to be a rare instance in which a major city brings health issues into restaurant zoning. The fast-food ban would last a year, although Ms. Perry hopes to make it permanent. On Tuesday, a committee will make a recommendation on the measure before sending it on to the full city council for a vote.

I have to admit that I’m not particularly opposed to the idea of fewer fast food restaurants around.  The use of zoning laws to support a public health issue is the sort of creativity I appreciate.

But then, we have this story in the New York Times:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Friday that will prohibit restaurants and other "food facilities" from using oil, margarine and shortening containing trans fats.

The intent is certainly admirable…but in the land of the free and the home of the brave, aren’t people permitted to make their own personal decisions?  Doesn’t freedom include freedom to make bad decisions, provided we accept the risk/consequences?

Well, now here’s an interesting bit of nanny-stateism arising in Mississippi. Junkfood Science Blog references a bill just introduced in Mississippi:

Any food establishment to which this section applies shall not be allowed to serve food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the State Department of Health after consultation with the Mississippi Council on Obesity Prevention and Management established under Section 41-101-1 or its successor. The State Department of Health shall prepare written materials that describe and explain the criteria for determining whether a person is obese, and shall provide those materials to all food establishments to which this section applies. A food establishment shall be entitled to rely on the criteria for obesity in those written materials when determining whether or not it is allowed to serve food to any person.

Of course, in my days working with the government relations folks, I learned very quickly that a lot of wild and wacky bills tend to get introduced into state houses at the start of state legislative sessions, and that it’s rather pointless to get too excited about them, since normally sane heads will prevail.

However, I would be amused to hear what the casinos think of such a measure.

From the AP wire:

The city Board of Health voted Tuesday to approve a new version of a law requiring fast-food outlets to display calorie counts on their menus, hoping the fat-filled truth will shock New Yorkers into eating healthier.

The regulation, which takes effect March 31, was altered slightly after a judge rejected the city’s first attempt last year.

The new regulation applies to any chain that operates at least 15 separate outlets, including those that don’t currently provide any information on calories. Major fast-food chains make up about 10 percent of the city’s restaurants.

The earlier edition of the reg was thrown out after a judge pointed out that it only required calorie information posted if the restaurant was already making it available.

The nummy treat police apparently had a goal of focusing efforts on fast food joints, where the food is standardized enough to make calorie counts consistent enough to be credible. Thus the 15-franchise threshold in the revised rule.

Seen in the Washington Post:

The Senate on Thursday night dropped an amendment to the farm bill that would have banned fatty foods and high-calorie beverages at school snack bars, stores and vending machines, dealing a blow to its chances of passage.

The National School Nutrition Standards Amendment, sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), would have been the first legislation to update the nutrition standards since 1979, a period in which scientific opinion on what foods are appropriate has drastically shifted.[...]

The amendment would have banned most candy, cakes and cookies, staples of today’s school snack bars. Sugary beverages, considered one of the main causes of teenage obesity, would also have been restricted. Serving sizes and calories for all drinks, with the exception of bottled water, were to be capped.

If we must have federal standards for school nutrition, I’ll concede that they perhaps ought to be updated more frequently than once every thirty-plus years. However, it seems to me that the extent to which this measure would go, while attractively well-intentioned, perhaps would be better handled at the local level.

Seen on the news wires:

Sunday was the start date of New York City’s first-in-the-nation ban on the fats ? and the requirement that restaurants post calorie counts. But visits to many restaurants suggested they were in no rush to comply with the second rule.

McDonald’s Corp. and Burger King Holdings Inc. were among chains that ignored the rule requiring that certain fast food restaurants list the counts next to menu items in type that is at least as large as the price.

City officials were not planning to issue fines for violations of the new rules until Oct. 1. Before then, the New York Restaurant Association hopes a lawsuit in federal court will get the calorie rule thrown out.

Well, if the inspectors weren’t planning to issue fines for three months, it’s perhaps understandable that certain restaurants are slow to comply.  However, I’m at a loss to see how a lawsuit would be successful, except perhaps on the basis of a municipality overreaching its authority.

I mean, if a health department is empowered to order a class of ingredient out of the restaurant, surely it has sufficient authority to impose certain standards on information provided on the menu.

Seen in the Washington Post:

The Montgomery County Council unanimously approved a ban on partially hydrogenated oils in restaurants, supermarket bakeries and delis yesterday, becoming the first county in the nation to restrict artery-clogging trans fats.[...]

Montgomery’s measure follows similar legislation in New York and Philadelphia, which ordered trans fats removed from restaurant menus this year and next. The county’s new health regulation will take effect in January for restaurants and other establishments serving food and in January 2009 for establishments offering baked goods, other than packaged goods made outside the county.[...]

The Montgomery regulation could have a broader reach because of the county’s sweeping definition of what it means to be in the business of serving food. Religious establishments, schools and grocery store salad bars are subject to the county’s regulation.

I wish that this were a shift that would happen just as a natural evolution of the market — let folks make decisions for themselves, even if they’re bad decisions. Sadly, some elected officials seem to feel a need to protect us from ourselves.

Despite that, I’m happy to see that healthier food is becoming easier to obtain when on the road.

The Courant brings us today’s installment in the war on nummy treats:

Prince Charles suggested Tuesday on a visit to the United Arab Emirates that banning McDonald’s fast food was crucial for improving people’s diets, a British news agency reported.[...]

“Have you got anywhere with McDonald’s? Have you tried getting it banned? That’s the key,” Charles was quoted as asking one of the center’s nutritionists.

There were two greasy, artery-clogging items of interest pertaining to McDonalds in my daily reading today. First, the New York Times reports that McDonalds is rolling out a no-transfat cooking oil for its fries:

McDonald’s has selected a new trans-fat-free oil for cooking its famous French fries, the fast-food chain said Monday.

But the company is not saying when the healthier oil will be used in all 13,700 of its restaurants in the United States. It trails competitors in committing to a zero-trans-fat oil.

A spokesman, Walt Riker, said the oil was being used in more than 1,200 American restaurants after extensive testing, but declined to provide details on timing or locations.

Curiously, I recently dared to go through a McDonald’s drive thru at the franchise in Windsor Locks, CT, and noticed that the fries tasted a bit outside the norm of McDonalds’ standard.

I remember wondering whether they had made the change in oil. They didn’t taste bad; but they did seem a bit less addictive than I had been used to.

Meanwhile, yet another rebuttal of the documentary, Supersize Me has been done. Via Marginal Revolution, I came across this Bodyhack post reporting on a Sweedish researcher investigating a “Supersize Diet”:

To his great surprise, [the researcher] discovered that eating mass quantities of junk food affected each participant differently. While one volunteer gained 15 percent body weight after following the high-choleric diet for a month, several others experienced only minimal weight gain. [He] was thus forced to conclude that “some people are just more susceptible to obesity than others.”

Also:

The 12 men and six women were banned from exercising.

While all gained weight, none reported mood swings or liver damage like Spurlock did in the movie.

This jives with a rebuttal to Supersize Me made as the documentary was generating buzz, where a researcher was able to lose weight by living for a month off of selective choices from the McDonalds menu and exercising regularly.

Update: Make that three Mickey-D articles in today’s reading pile. An article in today’s Wall Street Journal (subscriber link) fuels my suspicion that the Windsor Locks McDonalds is one of the chain’s test sites:

After six months, the snack wrap has become one of the most successful new product launches in the history of the Golden Arches. Early sales have exceeded company projections by 20%. The company says that today it plans to add a version with honey-mustard sauce and make both wraps available with grilled chicken.

I should say that although the fries from my recent drive-thru experience tasted odd, the grilled honey mustard wrap was tasty.