Let’s start with the appointment of the Surgeon General done in the “dark of night.”
Where’s that “transparency we were promised?
Or could it be that it’s because Obama needs someone to help defend the fact that hidden deep in the “health care reform” bill is a provision for vending machines and fast food restaurants to list calories of all foods?
Buried deep in the House health care bill is a provision, likely to raise nanny-state hackles, requiring fast-food chains and vending machine owners to notify customers of calorie counts — by conspicuously posting nutritional information on menus or machines.
The provision — Section 2572 — requires retail food establishments “part of a chain with 20 or more locations” to list calorie counts “on the menu board including a drive-through board,” as is currently required in New York City and other localities.
A “vending machine operator shall provide a sign in close proximity to each article of food or the selection button” that includes similar data.
Exemptions include items that will be on the menu for less than 60 days — and limited test runs of food products.
It merges the language of Sen. Tom Carper’s LEAN Act the MEAL Act, sponsored by Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), earlier this year.
Such labeling can have a significant impact on consumption habits. NYC’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene polled 10,000 customers to assess the impact of the city’s menu labeling law, which went into effect in March 2008, and found that burger buyers ate about 106 fewer calories per purchase.
The idea is popular among progressives and public health types who think it could reduce obesity, hypertension and diabetes rates — particularly among inner-city folks whose diets are disproportionately composed of cheap, tasty, calorie-loaded Big Macs, Whoppers and Chalupas.
But conservatives and libertarians see it as a major encroachment of the nanny state that has no place in a bill that’s supposed to address affordability, insurance industry abuses and expanding coverage.
Given the new Surgeon General is herself a porker, I don’t see where she’d have credibility. But that’s never stopped the Obama administration before.
Surely, though, you can all see Obama’s promised transparency now?
It’s a pain now trying to decipher those drive through menu’s looking for what you want. Once they put calories on them, it’s going to be worse.
I’m so sick and tired of government sticking its nose in every aspect of our daily lives.
If I’m not mistaken, McDonalds at least has been voluntarily offering nutritional info for years now.
Bob, I stopped using drive-through years ago when the stupid fucks (who generally don’t speak English as a first language) kept getting confused when I asked for “milk” with my Egg McMuffin breakfast and they thought I said “Coke”. It’s actually quicker to just park and walk in. It’s easier for them to read my lips when I order Hillary Clinton style – talk very slowwwwwly…”miiiiilk”.
Frakking Illegals….