36 thoughts on “NOT THE REAL THING…”

1. Gestapo and totalitarian allusions for better health practices is unnecessary, even if you think the government is overreaching. It trivializes the real thing.

2. The explosion in portion sizes of drinks and food here is disgusting. A large Coke at McDonalds used to be 12 oz. Now, it’s about a quart – too large to fit in an auto cup holder.

   Still, this is none of Bloomberg’s business. You want to govern with the lightest effective hand, and this is not that.

   A propaganda campaign against supersized glop, esp directed at kids? Yes.

   Making certain foods illegal? No. No new prohibition needed.

3. Obesity is a serious problem in New York City’s elementary school population, and the resulting health issues (asthma, diabetes, depression, heart disease) adversly impact the City. Sensible health laws are as important as building parks and having recreation programs.

4. Sensible health laws are as important as building parks and having recreation programs.

   Agreed. But I would prefer to approach this by compulsory food labeling. All fast food and sugary drinks should prominently display their content of fat and salt as well as calories in an easily understood way. Agreed standards for high,medium and low for fat and salt would be a big step forward. And calories would relate the total in the item to the average daily requirement for males and females, adults and children. That way, people would have the information to decide for themselves. At present they don’t, and the food manufacturers want to keep it that way.

5. Sensible health laws does not include making it illegal for an adult to waddle into McDonalds to buy a Value Meal of Lard McMuffins with a side order of Gristle Burgers.

   I want the local government to do what local governments do – run local services – and not tell people what to eat.

6. obesity in children is a parental problem, not one the government should be involved in, Bloomberg is a Nazi, and I say that with all sincerity he follows their pattern dictates from Guns to Food, he couldn’t hold elected office except in those “liberal” enclaves. The ones that no longer have industry, no longer have a population that live in them, and the population that is trapped there are a majority of single parent households with an over 50% high school drop out rate of the children…

   You just have to love the joy of liberalism… no pass the salt

7. There are enough good reasons to oppose this bad proposed law without playing the parent card.

   Many parents, maybe a good half of them, are imbeciles. Look around.

8. I refuse to comment on that comment, and will stick with my original statement….l 🙂

9. Coca Cola company released a statement that basically said “screw you” to bloomberg.

   Coke controls 70% of the fountain soda business in the country ie the drinks you get at stadiums, theaters etc. What would be really nice is if they just pulled all their business out of NY.

   Fine no soda no Coke jobs, or tax revenue.

10. Pepsi would love that move.

    Never happen

11. Bloomberg is a Nazis? Grow up.

12. Talk about mission creep!

    The NY mayor thinks his job is to tell people what size drink cup they can buy?? What utter nonsense.

    Government nanny state busy bodies are despicable.

13. I understand now why so many high income individuals – like Rush Limbaugh — are leaving or have left New York City.

14. Peter,

    But I would prefer to approach this by compulsory food labeling. All fast food and sugary drinks should prominently display their content of fat and salt as well as calories in an easily understood way.

    All well and good, but if the Noo Yoikers are anything like our lot over here, that labelling will go ignored.

    I don’t think people actually read labels. Certainly not in supermarkets. Whenever my wife ( dress size 6) and I go shopping, we’re generally speaking the only ones who bother to check calorie-count, etc. Our fellow-shoppers simply reach blindly for the biggest bang for the buck.

    And oh dear me, does it show! I haven’t been to NYC for some time but here there’s an explosion of lard-asses. And just in time for summer too, when the worst specimens insist on offending one’s sensibilities by wearing shorts and sleeveless tops. Some of these people barely look human.

    Okay, the last was a bit harsh, but there really is a problem. I feel sorry for the obese children I see more and more. For a parent to allow their child to eat so much that their body looks grotesque is akin to child abuse.

    Rant over 😉

15. Bloomberg is an obsessive micro-manager dictator.

    He doesn’t seem to get the idea that government should promote “self-responsibility”.

    Treating adults like 5 year olds and dictating the “DO’s & DON’T’s is not helping people to become independent healthy human beings.

    Go ahead and pass your silly edict.

    People will just buy TWO 8oz containers of soda, which is perfectly legal.

    Didn’t the mayor learn anything from “Prohibition”?

16. Eddie,

    “Treating adults like 5 year olds and dictating the “DO’s & DON’T’s is not helping people to become independent healthy human beings.”

    If they behave like 5-year-olds—by gobbling everything in sight and ballooning to Michelin-Man proportions—what do we do? As I said above, they don’t read labels. And they ignore health warnings.

    Do bear in mind that it’s our taxes that go towards treating these irresponsible gluttons when they need medical care for their obesity and related illnesses.

17. *Sigh*

    To anyone who thinks that government should police or in any way tell us what we should eat and drink – go bang some sense into your head.

    First of all, I see that Nanny Bloomberg will outlaw cups over 16oz, but refills remain unaffected. So a 20oz guzzle in one sitting ist verboten, but 32oz is fine if you walk five yards to the counter for a refill halfway through. Splendid work there, government.

    Second – government wants us drinking this crap.

    One of the poisons in soft drinks is high-fructose corn syrup. It literally is poison and ought to be avoided at all costs. The problem is, it’s in everything that packaged and processed. Look at a packet, tin or box of anything processed and you will see glucose/sucrose (in the UK) or high-fructose maize syrup. This is high-fructose corn syrup.

    Since the 1970s it has invaded our foods because it is a cheap and easily produced sweetener for processed foods. It alone is responsible for a great amount of obesity. Since its introduction, diabetes has also been on the up in a suspicious correlation.

    Why is it cheap, and therefore in so many foods? Because the federal government has subsidised its production, at the cost of billions of dollars, since the 1970s! As everyone should, by now know, when you subsidise something you get more of it.

    So on the one hand government subsidises this crap, and on the other it pokes its nose in to combat the effects of the subsidies. As usual then, one Statist law begets another to counter the effects of the first, and so government always has a reason to extend itself further into our lives.

    If Bloomberg wants people to stop guzzling this crap he should be publicising these subsidies instead. Doing away with them is the only sustainable way of getting this crap to disappear, but there are billions at stake and corrupt politicians and bureaucrats would lose alot of bungs.

18. Richard wife dress size 6… are you starving that poor woman…lol

19. As everyone should, by now know, when you subsidise something you get more of it.

    except solar and wind power…lol than you just lose the money

20. Fructose is subsidized, while the price of cane sugar is kept artificially high, via long term restrictions on imports of cane sugar from places like Brazil, to the benefit of a politically influential Florida and Louisiana US sugar industry.

    The restrictions are in supported on a bipartisan basis, as they all receive cash from he industry, including Marco Rubio.

    —

    Memo to Mayor Bloomberg

    When the NY Times says that you’ve gone too far with this ban, you’ve really and truly gone too far. Slippery slope, and all that.

21. (NaturalNews) United States crop subsidies have long directed the course of food consumption patterns among Americans. When a crop like corn is subsidized by the government, food producers hone in on it for use in their products because it is cheap. In the case of corn, the crop is subsidized so heavily that it sells below the cost of production, leading to its excessive use as a sweetener in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

    For years the federal government has subsidized corn to the tune of several billion dollars a year. Much of America’s heartland is covered by endless swaths of corn, often genetically modified because of the huge cash incentives offered to farmers who grow it. As a result, corn-based ingredients are present in a great majority of processed food products. Ingredients like maltodextrin, corn starch (typically modified in some way), corn syrup, and HFCS can be found in virtually every processed food.

    HFCS was invented in the 1970s when scientists discovered a way to convert corn glucose into fructose, causing it to be substantially sweeter. Interestingly around the same time, the U.S. government began imposing tariffs on imported sugar and implementing sugar quotas on the amount of domestic sugar that could be grown. As a result, producers were able to obtain this new corn sweetener much more cheaply than they could sugar and they began to use it to sweeten their products.

    Fructose is not naturally present in corn syrup; the enzymatic process by which HFCS is derived puts it there artificially. Mounting evidence suggests that the replacement of sugar by HFCS in the American diet is one reason why obesity is such a problem today.

    Intake of HFCS has increased from .6 pounds per person per year in the 1970s to 73.5 pounds per person in 2007. This represents an alarming 12,250% increase in consumption over just a few decades.

    Government intervention in the free market through crop subsidies has led to a disastrous change in what Americans eat. Though many other policies would have to be changed with it, the dismantling of crop subsidies would be a healthy start to breaking up corporate agriculture conglomerates, and it would encourage diversity in American farming. Better food would lead to better health.

22. I agree with most here that this is excessive nanny-statism. If people want to be obese diabetics, let them.

    Richard makes a good point about us having to pay for them – very true. Maybe one’s health insurance costs should be linked to one’s girth? It’s only fair!

    “I understand now why so many high income individuals – like Rush Limbaugh — are leaving or have left New York City.”

    Maybe he left NY because he is fat.

23. The corn subsidies create a world of evil effect. A little known one is that cheap US corn destroyed much of the Mexican corn industry, which could not compete. The collapse of that industry caused more illegal immigration, etc.

    —

    Limbaugh made a pure economic decision. He could live in NY, where there are very high state and city income taxes, or in Florida, which has no income tax at all.

24. Bloomberg has at the very least generated attention and debate to a serious health issue. He has been an interesting Mayor, not afraid of special interests and willing to take unpopular stands rather than just go with the flow.

25. US corn subsidies blamed for the loss of up to 2 million agricultural jobs in Mexico. Beware of unanticipated consequences.

    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/02/01/107871/free-trade-us-corn-flows-south.html

26. Is it my imagination or is the Statue of Liberty starting to look – how can I put this- a little paulyporky? 🙂

27. there is a whole comedy routine I wish I could find the link. It’s my uncle gets paid NOT to grow corn

    screw the mexicans… how many lives and jobs has their second largest cash crop cost the US? (cocaine)

    Bloomberg is a nazi, plain and simple

28. starts at 1:50

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzoRZDAxPMA not the full bit, but it hits the point

29. YOU and YOUR drug war and the stupid cocaine guzzling Americans bear 99% of the blame for the flood of cocaine and the social disruption caused by it.

    If Americans didn’t want cocaine and heroin and the rest of the evil garbage, there would be no money in the trade.

    Don’t blame the Mexicans. Blame YOU and YOUR American neighbors.

30. No, don’t blame the Mexicans. I’ve said that before. Legalize and save billions. OK, you’ll have death by OD aplenty, but no deaths by drug cartel, no headless corpses hanging from bridges in Nuevo Laredo 🙁

31. now your not American Phantom?

    on that note I’m off to sell guns, see ya’s tonight.

32. You could tax it and dedicate all the proceeds to education and rehab.

    The Drug War makes me angrier every time I think about it. It deforms our society and that of our neighbors – and places the police and border enforcement people in a permanent ” no win ” position.

    We can’t do this any more.

33. Troll

    I hate drugs but I hate the War on Drugs more. It harms all of us.

34. Wow David, this is what makes you angry, not the fact that a large proportion of the world can’t even afford to eat, but the fact that you can’t get a big drink. Here’s a solution, buy two 16oz drinks.

35. tell the rest of the world to get a job… will sell them the food

36. Troll – child.

Comments are closed.