Last Splash

Thursday, 02 March 2006

Maybe I AM a Libertarian?

I've gotten quite good and enjoy "menu-planning" on my weekdays off. It's hard to go to the grocery store with J because, honestly, we love food, and the two of us together is a deadly combination. (We had to invoke the Mulligan rule...you know, stick to the list except you can each add one non-list item, and only one.) Anyway, I love having weekdays off, and I love doing my grocery shopping on a non-busy workday in the afternoon, so I sat down this morning to plan our menu until the next grocery trip I take. I got onto a website I heard about through some other Weight Watcher's people a couple of years ago, called "Dottie's Wight Loss Zone" (dwlz.com for anyone looking). It has some good recipes, and also point values for a lot of restaurants if you're into that and you can survive a kooky lady's crazy website...lots of links, but that's why it's free instead of Weight Watchers where you have to subscribe to read the recipes.

Anyway, I clicked on this link about restaurants disclosing their nutritional values, and THIS is what I found:

To: U.S. Congress

The people who have signed this petition demand that restaurants should be required to provide nutritional information to customers.

Stricter regulation by Congress is necessary to push this issue. Americans are getting fatter and fatter everyday. By forcing restaurants to provide their nutritional information, health-concious citizens can make better choices in their diets. This is not just a vanity issue; it is a health issue. Obesity is killing countless Americans. Because not all restaurants will volunteer their nutritional information for consumers, they must be forced to protect the health and well-being of their customers.

Please sign this petition in order to demand legislation to help curb the obesity problem.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Now, I'm all for restaurants letting me know the nutritional value (well, with the exception of a few places like Maggiano's or The Cheesecake Factory where I'm really not going to pay attention to them) because it's hard to go out with friends and not know if something has "hidden calories" or is cooked in butter even if it doesn't clearly state that on the menu.

But I am VEHEMENTLY AGAINST the Government forcing anyone to do anything, unless it is preventing you from harming someone else. And someone may argue that restaurants are hurting Americans and contributing to the Obesity problem, but honestly, as an overweight person, I can tell you that no restaurant made me get fat. I don't go to a restaurant and hear the waiter saying "are you sure you want the salad? you don't want the deep fried philly cheesteak with high sodium au jus?" (Except this one little European guy who used to work at the Subway in the food court...I would order salads with no cheese and just vinaigrette dressings and he would sprinkle Parmesan when I wasn't looking...)

Just the line "they must be forced to protect the health and well-being of their customers" makes me want to vomit. Honestly, are we a society of people who no longer believe WE have power over what actions we take? Do we have to rely on others to even make our FOOD decisions for us? Anyone who has read my blog knows that I am definitely not a Socialist...I think it's one step from Communism, and people who actually would sign this petition and send it to their Congressmen confirm that theory. How about this for a bright idea? How about calling the customer service department of each restaurant you dine in and asking them to post their nutritional info on a website. If they started getting 10 calls a day, eventually they would have to satisfy their customers, but it's not their job to watch out for your weight, and it's certainly not up to our already overburdened-with-ridiculous-agendas-and-catering-to-the-lobbyists government to waste my tax money to set up a "task force" to force restaurant owners into nutritional compliance (what would Paula Dean do? shut down the infamous Lady and Sons?). Next you'll be asking Congress to make restaurants adhere to what they feel is a fair price for the food.

posted by: Cannonball14 at 16:59 | link | comments (1) |
meow, political bullshit

Comments:

#1 02 March 2006 - 18:19

Amen, Sista! Well said! And, I think you've captured the libertarian values and solutions quite nicely (said the Libertarian).

In fact, this could be a competitive advantage for a restaurant to publicize health information about their food. I know places like Appleby's promotes how many Weight Watcher's points a meal is, and Subway has leveraged their "low-fat" and now "low-carb" items to draw in sales. In these cases, the market is driving the publication of the food nutritional information, not the government.

It's always refreshing to see that someone feels the way that you do about this sort of thing. So, I'm feeling a bit refreshed right now. Thanks!