Let Them Have Toys(?)

First come the threats to take away America’s favorite creepy clown. Now this? The poor kids can’t catch a break.

“Any fast food kids’ meal that packs more than 485 calories cannot include a toy promotion, according to a new ordinance passed this week in Santa Clara County, California. It’s the first county in the nation to approve such a ban.

Any meal that has more than more than 485 calories, more than 600 milligrams of sodium, more than 35 percent of total calories from fat or more than 10 percent of calories from added sugar, or any individual food item more than 200 calories cannot include a toy under the ordinance. Violations would be punishable by fines of as much as $1,000 for each meal sold with a toy.”

Critics’ ads have snickered “Who Made Politicians the Toy Police?” From a kid’s point of view, the Happy Meal toy is the flower on top of the icing on the cake. It totally makes the experience better, but without it, a child would be just as content scarfing down their milkshake and cheeseburger immediately followed by a dunk in the ball pit.

Officials that passed the law are hoping to break the link between unhealthy food and prizes.. fair enough. But, extenuating genetic circumstances aside, childhood obesity is 100% the fault of parents. If a parent feeds their children fast food on a regular basis, kitschy toys (more often which are haphazardly tossed and lost in the minivan abyss on the car ride home) aren’t enough to entice a child to choose the happy meal with apple slices and milk over the glamor shot of French fries and chicken nuggets staring them in the face. It’s the satiety value sugar and fat provide that kids—and adults—crave.

While this effort is noble, a more realistic step forward might be to emulate the efforts of McDonald’s franchises in the U.K. Jamie Oliver, the Naked Food Revolutionary, surprisingly praised McDonald’s to the British press last week.

“McDonald’s in the U.K. is very different compared to the U.S. model,” Oliver said at a press conference. He cited “the quality of beef, [that] they only sell free-range eggs, [that] they only sell organic milk, [and that] their ethics and recycling is being improved and improved.”

Improving the quality of ingredients instead of making children suffer for their parent’s poor dinner decisions? Maybe Santa Clara County can take a hint.

One Politician on a Mission

Although I might disagree with using his money to buy and re-write the NYC lawbooks, Mayor Bloomberg is quite the pioneer of the salt crusade. Anything Governor Patterson touches died of dysentery back in Albany (like the soda tax did last year, let’s hope it doesn’t suffer the same fate in 2010), but Bloomberg is fulfilling his healthcare platform manifest destiny and actually gaining some ground.

“Sixteen food companies plan to cut the amount of salt in bacon, flavored rice, and dozens of other products as part of a national effort to reduce Americans’ sodium consumption by 20 percent.

Mars Foods said it would cut the salt in its Uncle Ben’s rices by 25 percent over five years.

Lanette Kovachi, corporate dietitian for Subway, said the sandwich chain has cut sodium by 30 percent in its European outlets and is working on reducing salt in its US restaurants..

Heinz had announced it would reduce sodium by 15 percent in all the ketchup it sells in the United States, starting May 1. Heinz said the move is part of an ongoing commitment to sodium reduction. Heinz has cut sodium in Bagel Bites snacks 20 percent, for example.”

Salt for Thought: Diets high in sodium increase blood pressure that, in turn, increases the risks for a stroke or heart attack. This classic preservative, essential electrolyte, and craving tamer, surprisingly, occurs enough in foods naturally that any added salt, whether it’s by a food manufacturer or at the kitchen table, is superfluous.

Mayor Bloomberg: One Uber-Powerful Politician to Rule Them All

Command and you shall receive, Mayor Bloomberg. Just like you demanded (and paid for) the third and unprecedented term as mayor of our great city, your tenacity in the salt lowering crusade has convinced the FDA to plan unprecedented measures to slowly reduce sodium and eventually implement the first legal limits to the amount of salt allowed in foods.

“The government intends to work with the food industry and health experts to reduce sodium gradually over a period of years to adjust the American palate to a less salty diet, according to FDA sources..

‘This is a 10-year program,’ one source said. ‘This is not rolling off a log. We’re talking about a comprehensive phase-down of a widely used ingredient. We’re talking about embedded tastes in a whole generation of people.’

Currently, manufacturers can use as much salt as they like in products because under federal standards, it falls into the category deemed ‘generally recognized as safe.’ Foodmakers are merely required to report the amount on nutrition labels.”

GRAS seems to be the allspice of terminology for the FDA because almost every additive is listed as such including caffeine, high fructose corn syrup, tons of chemical additives and, ironically, allspice.

In other news, Reuters feels the top hit for news related to this story should be “Majority of American’s distrust the government” (see picture above). Have yee of little faith in the FDA, Reuters? Let’s hope the government can prove them wrong, never too late to start.

The FDA Best Do Better

Despite how pitiful a job the FDA has been doing in recent years, it’s a huge step up from where they were in the 90’s. After the Jack in the Box E.coli contamination that left 4 children dead and 500 others sickened in 1993, the FDA stepped up their game to monitor food manufacturers and restaurants more closely. It worked.

“Cases of six common food poisoning agents have dropped sharply since the U.S. government started to monitor them closely in the 1990s, officials reported on Thursday.

While incidence of the most feared infections are down, notably Salmonella and E. coli 0157, infections from raw shellfish have become more common, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.”

Almost 2 decades later, food technology has grown exponentially and, as it seems to happen with many bloated governmental organizations, the governing body has barely been able to keep up. While regulations to help the FDA get the power it needs to keep our food safe (and make their $3.2 billion budget go to something other than their children’s super sweet bar mitzvahs) remain stalwart in the Senate, the FDA is being proactive (I can’t believe it either) and launched FDA-TRACK.

“The Food and Drug Administration is being praised — as well as being called a risk-taker — as a result of launching its comprehensive “FDA-TRACK” online performance management reporting system that features 40 dashboards.

The 40 dashboards are clustered in nine groups matching FDA’s divisions, including food safety, biologics, drug evaluation and research, regulatory affairs, as well as cross-agency issues and the FDA commissioner’s office.

‘This Web site enables all interested external and internal visitors to view FDA’s performance data at the program office level and gain a better understanding of the breadth of FDA’s core responsibilities, as well as see progress on important projects and programs,’ the FDA said.”

Transparency and increased efficiency in a governmental organization, one that safeguards the food we eat no less. Who would have thunk it.

We’re Not Cheap, Those Eggs Are Ridiculously Expensive

Many people are complaining that the beverage tax will hurt low-income families put food on the table (because feeding your overweight and borderline diabetes child a 2 liter bottle of soda with dinner should be an American standard and not phased out like those health nuts are pushing for). Maybe they should switch their efforts from fighting a losing battle to outrage over price fixing an age-old staple food.

“A lawsuit alleging the U.S. egg industry conspired to increase consumer prices got a boost recently when a defendant turned over documents and internal memos that show an industry group called for egg producers to slow production.

The lawsuit alleges that as egg prices climbed between 2004 and 2008, industry officials who blamed rising feed costs were covering up an orchestrated hen kill-off to reduce supplies..

‘The industry insists they can’t afford a penny per egg to (switch to cage-free systems) and yet that penny pales in comparison to the profits they’ve been reaping from this alleged scheme. It proves the egg industry doesn’t care about consumers or animals,’ said Jennifer Fearing, chief economist for the animal welfare group.

Defendants in the civil case include several of the biggest producers in the egg industry: Cal-Maine Foods Inc., Land O’Lakes Inc., Moark LLC, Norco Ranch Inc., Michael Foods Inc., Rose Acre Farms Inc. and NuCal Foods Inc.”

The United Egg Producers claim the stock reduction is an effort to give caged hens more room to stretch their little legs that they probably can’t even walk on because they’ve been genetically engineered to lay the best possible eggs and moving around hinders that process.

The documents—provided by Sparboe Farms of Minnesota who, conveniently, agreed to release the documents and communications with United Egg Producers only if they would be dropped from the lawsuit—quote an economist to say that the egg industry could make a lot of money by reducing their supply of eggs.

Sounds like someone took Intro to Microeconomics. It doesn’t take an economist to understand a supply and demand curve. Yet somehow this managed to slip under everyone’s radar.

The FDA Officially Did Nothing With Our Tax Dollars

Unacceptable doesn’t begin to describe it. Not only didn’t they check all food manufacturers that boast an FDA seal of approval, some went un-inspected for years. I have no witty introduction for this one, it’s a perfect representation of how the FDA has completely failed the American people.

“The drop in inspections could make an outbreak of foodborne disease more likely, putting the public at risk, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ inspector general.

A shrinking workforce at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is responsible for much of the drop in the number of facilities inspected, including those deemed high risk by the agency, the report said.

FDA can assign a facility with the most serious food safety or regulatory infractions an official action indicated (OAI) classification, which warrants agency action to ensure the violation is fixed. But FDA took no regulatory action against 25 percent of facilities it assigned an OAI classification in fiscal 2007, the report said.

Additionally, 36 percent of facilities with an OAI classification did not receive any follow up from FDA to ensure the violations were corrected.”

Good to know our tax dollars were funding the diligent work of the few FDA officials.. who clearly spent that $2.4 billion budget they requested in 2009 (a 5.7 percent increase from fiscal 2008) on sun bathing at their vacation homes in Boca.

The Food Safety Modernization Act, which would solve all of these problems, passed in the House in November.. And the Senate continues to hit the snooze button. How many major recalls and deaths does it take for the Senate to get their act together? Too many and counting..

Ronald McDonald Might See Same Fate As Joe Camel

A famous clown that helps contribute to the obesity of 1 in 5 American children might soon get the ax.

“Nearly half of Americans polled want the kid-friendly, French-fry chomping icon to call it quits, arguing he contributes to the country’s growing obesity epidemic by luring youngsters to fast food joints..

‘It’s not acceptable to market unhealthy products to children, and I think the retirement of Ronald McDonald would be a step in the right direction,” said Nicholas Freudenberg, a public health professor at Hunter College.’”

I would think that Grimace should be the first one to go since he’s the morbidly obese reject purple Teletubby. The porcelain Ronald McDonald sitting on a bench in front of every restaurant, his arm outstretched inviting you to sit next to him while your parents snap a photo always seemed more creepy than friendly. Hamburglar was a glorified criminal. Other than the socially unacceptable cues these characters gave off, whatever helps children avoid their refined sugar and saturated fat diets sounds good to me.