Overlawyered » salt

Food law roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:14:26 +0000

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]

Tags: advertising, eat drink and be merry, Michael Bloomberg, obesity, salt

Food and agriculture roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 05:16:18 +0000

Steve Chapman on FDA salt reduction initiative [Tribune/syndicated] Canada: “Health minister takes sodium-reduction plan off the table” [Calgary Herald] Flashback: FDA holds first hearing on regulating salt content in food [2007, Medical News Today] Discussion of my piece last week [Adler/Volokh, Instapundit]
More on McDonald’s sidestepping of San Francisco would-be Happy Meal ban [Fair Warning, earlier; background here, here, here, here, etc.]
“Caveat Venditor: Cottage Food Laws Great in Theory, Often Less So in Practice” [Baylen Linnekin of pro-freedom Keep Food Legal, who guestblogged at Reason last week]
Rather than get government out of way, left’s farm bill (”Local Farms, Food and Jobs Act”) would cut small/local/organic growers in on more USDA programs [Obama Foodorama, Linnekin]
Good riddance to monopoly powers of the Canadian Wheat Board [CBC]
Texas now allows home bakers to sell their wares [Austin Chronicle via @pointoflaw]
Widespread opposition to new Department of Labor proposal to ban kids from much work on farms [Nebraska Outback]

Tags: agriculture and farming, Canada, McDonald's, salt, small business

Welcome LaDona Harvey listeners

Walter Olson — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:52:22 +0000

I just joined listeners at San Diego’s KOGO to talk about the FDA/USDA initiative to regulate salt content in food, about which you can read here and here. Deadline for filing comments is tomorrow; the most direct link I know of for doing so is here (use “Individual Consumer” as category of comment unless that doesn’t apply).

Tags: FDA, on TV and radio, salt

Will the FDA get into the salt-reduction business?

Walter Olson — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:58:38 +0000

If the Food and Drug Administration continues down its current path, it could begin ordering mandatory salt reductions in processed and restaurant foods ranging from pretzels to cold cuts to take-out chicken nuggets. As I explain at Cato at Liberty, time is running out for public comment on the FDA’s plans to enter the field. Earlier here, etc.

Tags: FDA, nanny state, salt

Food and agriculture law roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 05:40:59 +0000

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]

Tags: agriculture and farming, Alaska, eat drink and be merry, Maryland, obesity, salt, schools

FDA begins laying groundwork for mandatory salt reduction in food

Walter Olson — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:56:40 +0000

With a “Request for Comments, Data, and Information” (PDF), the Food and Drug Administration has begun laying the groundwork for mandatory sodium reductions in food processing. Caleb Brown interviewed me for a Cato podcast on the subject. For more on the furor over H.J. Heinz’s unpopular reformulation of HP Sauce at the suggestion of the British government, see Telegraph and Daily Mail accounts.

Tags: FDA, salt

Happy Meals and Campbell’s Soup

Walter Olson — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:20:51 +0000

This week has brought one nudge forward and one push back for the paternalistic “food policy” crowd, or so I argue in a new opinion piece for the New York Daily News (& welcome Instapundit/Glenn Reynolds readers, Center for Consumer Freedom “Quote of the Week“).

Tags: McDonald's, nanny state, obesity, salt, WO writings

Food law roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:07:00 +0000

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]

Tags: agriculture and farming, China, eat drink and be merry, FDA, food safety, New York Times, obesity, salt

The “pie chart that doesn’t want you to eat pie.”

Walter Olson — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 21:56:26 +0000

I’ve got a new opinion piece up at the Daily Caller on the USDA’s new nutritional chart. And tune in to C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” on Monday morning at 8:30 a.m. Eastern when I’m scheduled to be a guest on this subject.

More: Link to C-SPAN video here, and more at Cato at Liberty.

Tags: eat drink and be merry, nanny state, obesity, on TV and radio, salt

Official nutritional guidance: the track record

Walter Olson — Wed, 18 May 2011 13:36:46 +0000

Modern American government has been dispensing nutritional advice for quite a while, and enough of it has been misguided, erroneous or even harmful that you’d think there’d be a lesson of humility to be learned. Instead, we get a bossier-than-ever crop of new regulators like Thomas Frieden et al [Steven Malanga, City Journal]

Tags: nanny state, NYC, obesity, salt

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