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Your tax dollars at work: Now FDA proposes to ban a brand of cookie?

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Stoic Joker:
I'm reminded of the old children's song about "I know an old woman who swallowed a fly". Every time we try to force a correction like this, we cause other problems down the road, so that we must continually keep swallowing spiders and birds and cats, just to maintain equilibrium.-CWuestefeld (November 25, 2013, 01:22 PM)
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Which is precisely what they're trying to do with the endless chain of ever more increasingly insane legislation. The need to just stick to keeping actual poisons out of the food, and making sure it gets to the stores without being rancid....and leave the rest along.

Comfort foods aren't supposed to be good for you...that's why you're not supposed to eat 9 boxes of them a day. Moderation ... It really is that bloody simple.

40hz:
I'm not trying to make the argument that the FDA is stupid.
-CWuestefeld (November 25, 2013, 01:22 PM)
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You don't need to. They make that argument pretty convincingly for themselves at times.

There are doubtless a pile of really smart scientists there.
-CWuestefeld (November 25, 2013, 01:22 PM)
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There are. Unfortunately, the FDA is a creature of Congress and subject to all the political manipulations and misrepresentations most government agencies are guilty of subject to from time to time. Because in addition to it's dedicated scientific personnel, the FDA also has its "business" management and core bureaucracy. And any time science collides with the politically endorsed reality du jour or cause célèbre, the hard science usually loses out.

Politics and science make strange bedfellows. 8)
 

app103:
The irony here is that the overuse of trans fats is largely caused by prior FDA actions. Back in the '70s when I was a kid, we were told that it was butter that's evil. Everybody should lower their cholesterol by switching to margarine instead.
-CWuestefeld (November 25, 2013, 01:22 PM)
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I don't recall the FDA ever saying that everybody should switch to margarine. I also don't recall them ever saying that margarine would reduce anybody's cholesterol levels.

I do remember someone (might not have been the FDA though) saying we should reduce consumption of all fats, especially any that are not liquid at room temperature.

Comfort foods aren't supposed to be good for you...that's why you're not supposed to eat 9 boxes of them a day. Moderation ... It really is that bloody simple.
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I don't recall the typical child's lunch of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich being considered a comfort food. But the vegetable shortening and its transfats are in the peanut butter. And it's in and on the pancakes, french toast, scrambled eggs, "buttered" rolls, toast, bagels, etc. if you are cooking them with margarine or spreading margarine on them.

And the lower your income, the more of it you consume, as you are less likely to be able to afford real butter, or afford the ingredients to make things like macaroni & cheese from scratch (yes, it has been in the little blue box of macaroni & cheese for decades), contributing to the higher rates of heart disease among the poor. The less money you have, the more likely you are to be consuming a diet way too high in transfats, sodium, and HFCs, and it's not because you are consuming comfort foods...it's because everything cheap comes from a can, jar, or box overloaded with this crap. (What do people donate to the food drives for the poor? Have you read the ingredient labels of all that cheap non-perishable stuff?)

Why should everyone in my family die of heart disease, high blood pressure, or diabetes.... so you can have your occasional comfort foods?

rgdot:
The attitude that because I know this and that is bad (or not) means that not only everyone should know too but they should have the means and opportunity to make better choices is all too prevalent.
Goes back to the heart of my argument that people like to blame the institutions of government that provide a service without acknowledging why they exist. All the while pretending corrupt president X and congressman Y = services are bad, not needed, etc.

40hz:
It's still impossible to legislate individual responsibility in any meaningful way. :huh:

You'd think we'd have figured that much out by now. :-\

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