Food police go too far

by Nicole Weston, Posted May 5th 2006 @ 12:51PM

In Scotland, new regulations are being considered that would require pub proprietors to provide "sensible eating" advice to their patrons in order to get a license to operate. Though it has not, at this point, been considered as an option, many fear that this is the first step towards banning the sales of foods deemed to be unhealthy, particularly pub favorites like meat pies and fish and chips. There has been a lot of outcry from industry members because these regulations would only affect pubs and not, for example, actual fish and chip shops. One chef said that "it all depends what you think of as unhealthy. None of our [traditional] food is unhealthy. It is all freshly prepared and cooked in our kitchen."

While most people can support regulating the foods that children have access to and encouraging them to eat healthily, telling adults what they may and may not eat is quite another matter. This very same issue has already sparked a lot of controversy in Chicago, where they recently banned the sale of foie gras. Some felt that that act, done in the name of curbing animal cruelty, was an infringement on their rights to eat whatever they want to eat, despite the fact that other meats, banned for the same reasons, meet fewer objections.

This brings up a good point: how much is too much? When there is a convincing underlying issue, such as animal rights, a sound argument can be put together in favor of regulations. But when the argument is "it's bad for you," well, that's just not convincing enough.

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Filed Under: Business, Trends, Newspapers

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

5-05-2006 @1:01PM suburban misfit said... If you get right down to it, eating animal meat of any kind is an infrigement on the animal's rights; you gotta kill the animal to eat it, and no matter how humanely you do it, it's still killing. So where should the line be drawn? I think the banning of foie gras is a misguided attempt to assuage guilt. I'm a vegetarian, but I don't force my views on anyone else.

Adults need to be able to make their own decisions regarding what they eat. Plain and simple.
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5-05-2006 @1:14PM Dmnkly said... Nicole, you're both wrong and a perfect example of EXACTLY why the horse meat and foie gras bans are a slippery slope.

Not only is it easy to construct a convincing argument in support of banning unhealthy food, it's in fact EASIER to support with real scientific and statistical evidence than EITHER the horse meat or foie gras ban. The cost to people for unhealthy eating can be calculated. The scientific evidence connecting unhealthy eating to numerous different types of human suffering is well-established.

To be clear, I don't support bans on ANY of the above. But for you to state that an argument for banning unhealthy food isn't convincing enough while suggesting that the arguments for the horse meat and foie gras bans is absolutely absurd. The arguments for the latter were emotional arguments, applied inconsistently, that had absolutely no basis in scientific fact or statistical evidence. They were simply BELIEF arguments. Do you BELIEVE that horses shouldn't be eaten because they're companion animals? Do you BELIEVE that gavage is torturous to the ducks? So, since we've established now that banning foodstuffs because of beliefs that are, at BEST, barely supportable by flimsy and easily refutable evidence, how can you stand in the face of an argument for banning certain foods for which an actual, real, supportable, demonstrable detriment can be demonstrated?

And furthermore, in California, the horse meat ban and foie gras ban were NOT for the same reasons. The foie gras ban was an anti-cruelty move, while the horse meat ban was on the basis of horses being companion animals who "helped to build the State of California" (from the voters' manual when the proposition went to the polls).
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5-05-2006 @2:21PM M-L said... Just as I can always peg Nicole's "writing" because of errors ("Though has not, at this point"), I'm also getting good at recognizing Dmnkly's sound arguments and well-made points! Awesome.

Re: the article and comments: And don't forget the mention that whichever scientific organization, was it ASPCA or the Veterinarians group? after reviewing their initial knee-jerk reaction to call gavage "cruelty," recanted and determined that the foie gras ducks are actually treated much more humanely than say, industrially farmed chickens, thus making Dmnkly's point that these bans are completely emotional and not at all science/data-based, even stronger.

PS. The real problem is not banning foods, it's that bureaucracies are doing the CYA dance in advance of the coming onslaught of backlash against all purveyors of "unhealthy" foodstuffs. We've already seen the initial volleys in the lawsuits against McDonalds. How long until someone gets a class action suit up against some multi-brand conglomerate like Frito-Lay?
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5-05-2006 @2:42PM Dmnkly said... M-L...

It's the AVMA... the American Veterinary Medical Association... here's the summary of the process their animal welfare committee went through in first promoting, then researching, then unanimously defeating their statement against foie gras production.

http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/sep05/050901q.asp
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5-05-2006 @2:47PM Dmnkly said... M-L...It's the AVMA... the American Veterinary Medical Association... here's the summary of the process their animal welfare committee went through in first promoting, then researching, then unanimously defeating the statement they had originally drafted in opposition to foie gras production.

http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/sep05/050901q.asp

Obviously, reasonable people can disagree... I'm sure there are members of the AVMA who feel it's an inhumane practice based on a purely subjective belief... but the bottom line is that this is an organization comprised of scientists who have devoted their lives to animals, and yet their committee on animal welfare couldn't even say that the foie gras fowl were distressed, much less tortured.

Why this hasn't gotten more press, I don't understand. It's the singlemost compelling piece I've seen anywhere for either side of the debate.
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