- NYC health officials, in yet another federally funded food-denunciation ad campaign, Photoshop leg off obese guy to turn him into supposed diabetic amputee [my new Cato post, Radley Balko; more Caroline May/Daily Caller]
- Are White House advisors reading my posts? Probably not, but deregulation of dairy-farm “oil” spills still gave President an applause line in State of the Union speech [also at Cato]
- More on L.A. schools’ healthy-lunch debacle [WSJ edit, earlier] It’s an illustration of how promising pilot projects often don’t scale [Megan McArdle] New Penn State study finds no connection between child obesity and availability of “bad” foods at school [NYT, Philly Mag, study via Wajert]
- “Obesity plateau” of American population should offer chance for calm policy reflection, but probably won’t [Jacob Sullum] “Food Lawsuits Claiming ‘Addiction’ Coming To a Courtroom Near You?” [Lammi, Forbes]
- Despite lip service to “letting consumers make their own food choices,” Obama won’t legalize raw milk [Obama Foodarama]
- Coming in April from Tyler Cowen, “An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies” [Amazon, Freakonomics, Food and Drink category of MR, and you can follow Twitter account @AnEconomistGets;
- "2011 Brought Lots of Good News for Salt Lovers" [Greg Conko, Open Market]
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salt
Dan Charles at NPR reports on how parts of the media joined in last month to hype a report by journalist Andrew Schneider in Food Safety News raising alarms about the safety and authenticity of honey. (Similarly: Maggie Koerth-Baker, BoingBoing). “It sounded so right, plenty of people decided that it just had to be true. … But then we decided to look into it a little more closely. We talked to honey companies, academic experts, and one of the world’s top honey laboratories in Germany. The closer we looked, the more misleading the story in Food Safety News seemed.”
My Cato colleague Sallie James was among the few to take a skeptical tone about the Schneider allegations when they first hit the press. And as NPR points out, Food Safety News is part of the sprawling new media empire of Bill Marler, the very media-savvy food poisoning lawyer whose Marler Clark law firm has done much to sway press discussion of many food safety issues. On a different topic, did Marler really say the other day that raw milk farmers should count themselves lucky they’re not put to death?
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food safety,
media bias
Beyond satire: “Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month. …NHS health guidelines state clearly that drinking water helps avoid dehydration, and that Britons should drink at least 1.2 litres per day.” [Telegraph] A writer in the Guardian defends the ban.
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Europe
- Just as FDA begins laying groundwork for mandatory salt reduction in prepared food, research raises new doubts about the science [Reuters, Atlantic Wire, Alkon]
- Feds now scrutinizing “everything about kids’ food” [Star-Tribune] Top-down remake of school lunches runs into trouble in Congress [AP]
- “Christmas tree tax”: blame big growers and GOP lawmakers, not White House [Tad DeHaven, , Mark Perry]
- Living right by a USDA-designated “food desert,” she’s “never had better access to food in my life.” [Angie Schmitt, Urbanophile] “As income rises, so does fast-food consumption, study finds” [L.A. Times, Sullum] “You can eat local, or you can eat organic, but it’s very hard to do both.” [Felix Salmon]
- Bloomberg News (not Bloomberg Hizzoner) hypes food-as-addiction, child obesity figuring in more custody battles [WSJ] Michelle Obama on the role of personal responsibility, alas not in this realm of life [Andrew Coulson, Cato]
- Private bed-leasing law is finally restoring Maryland’s depleted oyster stocks [Rona Kobell, Reason] Catch shares for Alaskan king crab might even be saving human lives [Adler]
- Why bother cooking for your kids at all? Feds ramp up program that serves them dinner as well as breakfast, lunch [Stoll]
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- “Wisconsin Judge Rules No Right to Own a Cow or Drink Its Milk” [Food Freedom; related on demonstration at FDA]
- We’re from the authorities, and we’re shutting down your “farm-to-fork” dinner [Amy Alkon]
- “FTC Makes Strategic Concessions on Food/Beverage Marketing Guidelines” [Lammi, WLF]
- Given a little humility, NYT’s Mark Bittman might have noticed that his new junk food insight contradicts his old [Jacob Sullum, Reason]
- Urban myths about Halloween candy tampering [Free-Range Kids]
- New Jersey lawsuit over serving of meat to devout Hindu vegetarians [Abnormal Use; compare 1999 case]
- “First lady will achieve goal of eradicating all food deserts by 2017″ — calm down, that’s “deserts” with just the one “s” [Obama Foodorama, more, more] Premise that lack of access to fresh fruits/vegetables accounts for poor urban diet, however, is sheerest fantasy [Katherine Mangu-Ward/WaPo, earlier here and here]
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food safety,
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The promotional claims that General Mills makes about its snack product seem to be accurate enough, but the busybody Center for Science in the Public Interest says the company should be calling attention to other, less positive nutritional facts too. Stephen Richer wonders whether dating profiles are going to have to begin listing the candidate’s less appealing qualities. [WLF Legal Pulse]
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CSPI,
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obesity
Even as odd lawsuit stories go, this underexplained little account of a product liability claim in Canada stands out. Conceding that having to pick gum out of one’s dentures is not plausibly deserving of C$100,000, does the plaintiff at least deserve points for honesty in averring that her depression lasted only ten minutes? [Edmonton Sun]
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emotional distress
- Feds fund Boston campaign bashing sweetened drinks [Globe; see also on NYC] More on ObamaCare “Public Health Fund” subsidies to local paternalist initiatives on diet [WLF]
- Thanks to federal funding priorities, New York education department had 40 experts on school lunches, only one on science education [Frederick Hess via Stoll]
- Grocers hope to escape federal menu labeling mandate [FDA Law Blog] How regulations exasperate midsize restaurant operators [Philip Klein, Wash. Examiner]
- “The Eight Dumbest Restaurant Laws” [Zagat]
- Proposed federal standards on kid food ads extreme enough that many USDA “healthy” recipes would flunk [Diane Katz, Heritage] Do FTC’s guidelines violate the First Amendment? [WSJ]
- Compared with what? “Egg farm regulations still skimpy” [Stoll] Deer blamed for E. coli in pick-your-own strawberries [USA Today]
- U.K.: Your kids are too fat so we’re taking them away [Daily Mail; earlier here, here, etc.]
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Federal Trade Commission,
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New York,
obesity,
restaurants,
schools
- Texas legalizes sale of home-baked goods; “Mom can come out of hiding” [KLTV; @JohnWaggoner] New York regulators order Greenmarket cheese vendors to stop custom-slicing wedges for customers [Baylen Linnekin]
- Children who take school lunch more likely to be obese than those who brown bag it [Freddoso] And is there still time to save chocolate milk? [Boston Herald on proposed Massachusetts school ban]
- “Obesity policy” in theory: “High-calorie food is too cheap” argument of NYT’s Leonhardt is open to doubt [Josh Wright] “Is obesity really contagious?” [Zoë Pollock, The Dish] Knives out among scientists debating food causes of obesity [Trevor Butterworth, Forbes] Feds look to regulate food similarly to tobacco in hope of saving money on health care [Munro, Daily Caller]
- …and practice: “Calorie counts don’t change most people’s dining-out habits, experts say” [WaPo, Richer/WLF] Obama nutrition campaign: eat as we say, not as we do [The Hill] Of recent USDA “recipes for healthy kids,” 12 of 15 would not have met proposed FTC ad standards [WSJ] Nanny’s comeuppance? “States rein in anti-obesity laws” [WSJ Law Blog]
- “Food safety chief defends raw milk raids” [Carolyn Lochhead, SF Chronicle, earlier]
- “It’s Time to End the War on Salt: The zealous drive by politicians to limit our salt intake has little basis in science” [Melinda Wenner Moyer, Scientific American]
- After talking with experts, NYT’s Mark Bittman walks back some assertions about the European e. coli outbreak, now blamed on Egyptian fenugreek seeds [Science Mag; related, Kolata/NYT]
- “If anything, China’s food scandals are becoming increasingly frequent and bizarre.” [LATimes]
- Public criticism of activist food policy often calls forth a barrage of letters defending government role in diet. Ever wonder why? [Prevention Institute "rapid response" talking point campaign; how taxpayers help]
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China,
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FDA,
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New York Times,
obesity,
salt
Judges, the sticklers, still expect it to be done the other way round if you’re going to be the named plaintiff in a class action. This one was a claim of improper labeling filed against the Arizona iced tea company by attorney Michael Halbfish as well as the well-known New Jersey firm of Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer. [Dan Fisher, Forbes; opinion in Coyle v. Hornell Brewing, PDF, courtesy Sean Wajert]
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class actions,
eat drink and be merry
Public-spirited litigants Western Sugar Cooperative, Michigan Sugar Company and C & H Sugar Company, Inc., have filed a lawsuit charging corn refiners with false advertising in their recent campaign to relabel high-fructose corn syrup as “corn sugar.” “The sugar producers seek an injunction to end the advertising campaign and also seek damages, including compensation for corrective advertising.” [PR Newswire]
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