Welcome to the Nanny State

[sandorski]

I'm also with most other supporters of the slippery slope argument. Same reason I'm against almost any gun control. It's not that individual measures wouldn't be good on their own IMO (ie: Gun licensing, in the sense that you have to have a certain amount of training before being allowed to own a certain class of firearm, although IMO exactly what firearm you own should never be recorded) but that these measures will lead to further measures that preach to the lowest common denominator. Once we hit that level, the government; or at least the majority; has all the power, which defies the purpose of the US Constitution.

If we socialize too much, we cease to be the US. But most people couldn't care less about our national identity for the moment, and those rational people that do are almost never heard about. Saying "I'm an American" or displaying the flag has almost become synonymous with "Cowboy" or "Redneck". Or at the very least "old fashioned". Only soldiers and immigrants who just said the pledge of allegiance gain universal acceptance in that regard. It's a sad state of affairs, and it'll take a hell of a jolt to bring us out if it goes on for much longer.

The US you fear will be lost never existed. It has always been in a state of Change.

 

[shiner]

What they need to do is mandate excerise. My dad is 72, smoked till 40, eats bacon and eggs everyday for breakfast at jimmysegg with lots of salt and fats before going golfing then on his 7 miles run. Worst problem he had was a broken tooth grinding while bench pressing last year and blew out patella tendon playing volleyball at about 65.

Mmmm....Jimmy's Egg. Dammit now I'm hungry!

 

[Amused]

The US you fear will be lost never existed. It has always been in a state of Change.

Fail.

 

[irishScott]

The US you fear will be lost never existed. It has always been in a state of Change.

True, and it looks like we're slowly changing into an overseas extension of Western Europe, and a lot of people seem just fine with it, because when they think Western Europe they think "classy" and "Paris" and *insert vacation add here*. Me no like. Not that Western Europe is a hellhole, but they've got some of the most phenomenally stupid laws that infringe on individual rights in the name of vague "public welfare". Hell IIRC it's even in the Italian Constitution under their free speech "protections".

http://www.servat.unibe.ch/icl/it00000_.html

Article 21 [Freedom of Communication]
(1) Everyone has the right to freely express thoughts in speech, writing, and by other communication.6242
(2) The press may not be controlled by authorization or submitted to censorship.
(3) Seizure is permitted only by judicial order stating the reason and only for offences expressly determined by the press law or for violation of the obligation to identify the persons responsible for such offences.
(4) In cases of absolute urgency where immediate judicial intervention is impossible, periodicals may be seized by the judicial police, who must immediately and in no case later than 24 hours report the matter to the judiciary. If the measure is not validated by the judiciary within another 24 hours, it is considered revoked and has no effect.
(5) The law may, by general provision, order the disclosure of financial sources of periodical publications.
(6) Publications, performances, and other exhibits offensive to public morality are prohibited. Measures of prevention and repression against violations are provided by law.

If the 1st amendment is ever changed to include some backhanded bullshit like the bolded, I'll run for public office lol (I generally hate politics for politics sake).

 

[jman19]

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine......

What did you dream?
It's all right, we told you what to dream.

 

[jman19]

"Welcome" to the nanny state? No need, we've been here for a long time.

 

[Amused]

My GAWD that was FAST!!!

It has already begun, folks...

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/23/health.reform.consumer.impact/index.html?iref=allsearch

Health care reform also touches tanning beds, restaurant menus
By Madison Park, CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
*Health care law requires restaurants with 20 or more locations to post calories
*Also included is a 10 percent tax for use of tanning beds
*Flexible spending accounts will have limits and no longer allow over-the-counter purchases

(CNN) -- The health care bill signed into law Tuesday by President Obama is the nation's most sweeping social legislation in four decades. But it also includes some smaller changes that will directly affect consumers.

These include taxes on indoor tanning services, requirements for restaurants to post calorie information and changes to flexible spending accounts.

Restaurants

There are 540 calories in a Big Mac and 670 calories in a Whopper. Nutritional information will be unavoidable when customers step up to the counter to order.

The health care law requires chain restaurants that have more than 20 locations to display calorie information next to the food item on the standard menu.

The Food and Drug Administration has the task of establishing more specific regulations and determining when these changes go into effect.

The health care law requires "succinct statement concerning suggested daily caloric intake" that are "posted prominently on the menu and designed to enable the public to understand, in the context of a total daily diet, the significance of the caloric information that is provided on the menu."

Dr. Kelly Brownell, a Yale University psychology professor at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, conducted research that found that consumers choose lower-calorie food when their menus contained caloric information and a statement that said "an average person consumes 2,000 calories a day."

"A lot of people don't know what it means to have 600 calories," he said. "They have no context and the legislation requires that anchor statement."

Nutrition facts would also be required to be posted on vending machine products and drive-thru menus. Temporary specials appearing on the menu for less than 60 days, condiments and test market foods are exempt.

"Consumers have the right to this info whether or not it makes a difference on the diet," Brownell said. "But I believe the data will ultimately show that it does."

CNNMoney: Student loans also included in health bill

The National Restaurant Association called the passage of the provision "a win for consumers and restaurateurs." The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit health advocacy group, praised its passage, calling it a "one of dozens of things we will need to do to reduce rates of obesity and diet-related disease in this country."

In recent years, New York City and California have passed laws requiring nutritional information on menus.

Earlier this month, Panera Bread announced it voluntarily will post calorie information in all its locations by the end of 2010.

Tanning tax

Tanning enthusiasts will have to shell out more to achieve the golden shade. The health care law imposes a 10 percent tax on the service.

John Overstreet, the executive director of The Indoor Tanning Association, decried the new tax calling it, "a crummy, crummy way to make tax policy."

Lawmakers had considered taxing elective cosmetic procedures, but changed the language to tax indoor tanning services instead.

"We've been hit by the recession already," Overstreet said. "A 10 percent tax will be a body blow to the industry."

But UV-emitting tanning devices have been classified as "carcinogenic to humans" by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the World Health Organization.

Flexible spending account

The flexible spending account allows consumers to use pretax dollars for health care expenses.

Under the current rule, employers set the limit on how much their employees can set aside for FSAs. But by 2013, the law limits the accounts to $2,500.

This cap is not expected to constrain most people, because the average amount in FSAs is $1,400, said Bob Natt, the CEO of PayFlex, a company that manages employee benefit programs.

FSAs can be used to pay for doctor's bills, prescription medicine and over-the-counter items such as pain relievers, antihistamines, acne drugs and wart removers. But under the new law, these over-the-counter drugs would no longer be eligible FSA expenses after this year.

This is not expected to be a big issue for consumers as only a small percentage of FSA amounts are used to purchase over-the-counter medication, Natt said. About 70 to 80 percent of FSA payments are spent on deductibles, co-payments and prescription drugs, he said.

Since FSAs are pretax dollars, the government could be trying to raise revenue by discouraging more money from going into these accounts.

"You decide to put less dollars [into the FSA] because you can't have certain benefits like buying over-the-counters, then the federal government gets more money," Natt said.

 

[HumblePie]

It's not even the freedom issue that bugs me. What bugs me is that it's regressive taxation. People struggling to get by spend a much higher percentage of their money on food, so this is really a tax hike on the people who can't afford it.
edit: remember that "bad" food is cheaper. Healthy food is unbelievably expensive.

Got to love hyperbole.

No, healthy food is NOT more expensive. This is pure fud. When was the last time you went to the grocery store? Lettuce was still cheap. Same with radishes, beets, potatoes, carrots, and tons of other produce. I can feed myself for weeks on about $50. I can eat perfectly healthy with good produce, whole grains, and fresh meat. If I do my own cooking. If I don't buy stupid single size servings for items. If I don't go for organic or some other item in the grocery store with some "cool" packaging that gives it an increased price.

Even eating out, the healthy alternatives are not that expensive. This isn't to say that at many restaurants that the healthy choice are more expensive. Many places they are. This is a sad fact, but it is not predominate.

 

[ShawnD1]

No, healthy food is NOT more expensive. This is pure fud. When was the last time you went to the grocery store? Lettuce was still cheap.

When is the last time you looked at nutritional information? Lettuce has almost no calories. You can eat pounds of it and you'll still starve to death.

Same with radishes, beets, potatoes, carrots, and tons of other produce.

No calories, no calories, no calories. Potatoes are the only things that have any significant energy in them.
Radish - 19 calories per 116g. You would need to eat 13kg (a little over 26 pounds) of radishes just to meet the 2200 recommended calories in a day.
Beets - 37 calories per 85g. A little better, but it's still basically the same as eating nothing at all. Vitamins are the only reason anyone would eat this.
Carrots - 52 calories per 128g. what the fuck. Lots of vitamins, but it this won't help your blood sugar. You'll feel just as hungry after eating these.

Now let's look at what poor people eat.
Doritos - 250 calories per 50g bag. That is incredibly dense. I think I paid something like $5 for a 950g bag of Doritos and it theoretically has more than 2 days worth of calories.


The other problem is that vegetables go bad very quickly. Unhealthy canned food lasts years and can be purchased in bulk. Somewhat dry foods like Doritos can last for weeks after being opened, with no refrigeration.

 

[Thump553]

Nice stereotyping irishScott, but leftist ole me erected a flagpole outside my New England home (what a PIA that was getting it straight) and have been flying the flag there for years now. But patriotism has a lot more substance than simple surface gestures-flag lapel pins are one of my pet peeves.

But excuse me for interupting this Fox "News" circle jerk.

 

[irishScott]

Nice stereotyping irishScott, but leftist ole me erected a flagpole outside my New England home (what a PIA that was getting it straight) and have been flying the flag there for years now. But patriotism has a lot more substance than simple surface gestures-flag lapel pins are one of my pet peeves.

But excuse me for interupting this Fox "News" circle jerk.

Good for you. Glad to hear for that matter. Most lefties I know are all "we're all human so we should try to minimize (or in some cases eliminate) nationality". Or "Look at Europe! They've proven so much that just works!" (seriously, I know lefties that talk about Germany and Britain like fanboys talk about Apple) For that matter, up until now when did I ever say anything about left or right? All I mentioned was socialization which, while definitely far left, is still a good deal beyond the current mainstream left (at least the levels I'm talking about).

I'm not saying we need no socialization, hell to extrapolate on that it's just as easy to go too far to the right as it is to the left. But IMO going left is a lot more dangerous as it has a lot more appeal. It's touted as "new", "fresh", "progressive" and a lot of other positive things that can't really be attributed to the right; making the slope all the more slippery.

So in summary what we need is balanced progressiveness; and in that role you sound like the kind of lefty we need. What we have with the latest health-care reform is an increase in socialization granted by the complete and blatant political trampling of the right. Naturally a individualistic centrist like myself is more than a little concerned.

 

[Genx87]

When is the last time you looked at nutritional information? Lettuce has almost no calories. You can eat pounds of it and you'll still starve to death.


No calories, no calories, no calories. Potatoes are the only things that have any significant energy in them.
Radish - 19 calories per 116g. You would need to eat 13kg (a little over 26 pounds) of radishes just to meet the 2200 recommended calories in a day.
Beets - 37 calories per 85g. A little better, but it's still basically the same as eating nothing at all. Vitamins are the only reason anyone would eat this.
Carrots - 52 calories per 128g. what the fuck. Lots of vitamins, but it this won't help your blood sugar. You'll feel just as hungry after eating these.

Now let's look at what poor people eat.
Doritos - 250 calories per 50g bag. That is incredibly dense. I think I paid something like $5 for a 950g bag of Doritos and it theoretically has more than 2 days worth of calories.


The other problem is that vegetables go bad very quickly. Unhealthy canned food lasts years and can be purchased in bulk. Somewhat dry foods like Doritos can last for weeks after being opened, with no refrigeration.

What is wrong with eating 26 pounds of radishes?

 

[zsdersw]

When is the last time you looked at nutritional information? Lettuce has almost no calories. You can eat pounds of it and you'll still starve to death.


No calories, no calories, no calories. Potatoes are the only things that have any significant energy in them.
Radish - 19 calories per 116g. You would need to eat 13kg (a little over 26 pounds) of radishes just to meet the 2200 recommended calories in a day.
Beets - 37 calories per 85g. A little better, but it's still basically the same as eating nothing at all. Vitamins are the only reason anyone would eat this.
Carrots - 52 calories per 128g. what the fuck. Lots of vitamins, but it this won't help your blood sugar. You'll feel just as hungry after eating these.

Now let's look at what poor people eat.
Doritos - 250 calories per 50g bag. That is incredibly dense. I think I paid something like $5 for a 950g bag of Doritos and it theoretically has more than 2 days worth of calories.


The other problem is that vegetables go bad very quickly. Unhealthy canned food lasts years and can be purchased in bulk. Somewhat dry foods like Doritos can last for weeks after being opened, with no refrigeration.

You cannot make a diet on produce alone, anyway, so your calorie listings are irrelevant.

- Eggs and other dairy are quite cheap.
- Meat doesn't have to be expensive. Ground chuck or even frozen chicken breasts are cheap.
- Bread, pasta, and rice are also very inexpensive.

I guarantee you I can make something to eat for $5 or less that is WAY better for you (and more filling) than Doritos.

- Pasta and meat sauce: around $4-5 (and it makes enough for a couple meals)

- "Eggs in a Nest" (cut a hole in a piece of bread, butter it, put in the skillet and fry an egg in the hole) $2-3.

Laziness is no excuse for not eating right, whether you're poor or not.

 

[HumblePie]

You cannot make a diet on produce alone, anyway, so your calorie listings are irrelevant.

- Eggs and other dairy are quite cheap.
- Meat doesn't have to be expensive. Ground chuck or even frozen chicken breasts are cheap.
- Bread, pasta, and rice are also very inexpensive.

I guarantee you I can make something to eat for $5 or less that is WAY better for you (and more filling) than Doritos.

> Pasta and meat sauce: around $4-5 (and it makes enough for a couple meals)

> "Eggs in a Nest" (slice of bread surrounding a fried egg) $2-3.

Laziness is no excuse for not eating right, whether you're poor or not.

Thanks for the partial reply to that idiotic posting.

And for the record.. calories do NOT equal healthy. It is true caloric intake is needed if you are burning it, but that is the biggest problem with the non healthy food. All calories and no real nutrition. No vitamins, minerals, and good amino acids. Just pure sugar and simple calories jammed packed into a bag of doritos.

You can eat more, feel fuller, get more nutritional value, and pay less if the food you eat is produce, whole grains, fresh meat on sale, and eggs. I can buy 2 dozen eggs for about a buck. With some sliced cheese, some spinach, and mushrooms, have multiple healthy meals all week long for $5 when I add up the produce. I can even splurge on some bacon if I wanted to for a couple more bucks. This is for a WEEK worth of food for one person. Not a single meal. And I guarantee you the nutritional value is much higher than several bags of doritos and a burger.

So stop spreading FUD. Eating healthy is not any more expensive than not doing so. You may have to make some of your own meals. "Oh the menial labor!" You may to make more than single serving meals and put some in the fridge or freezer for left overs as well. But to claim that this is a tax on the poor is stupid.

Now, it is a tax on the stupidly obese, be they poor or not.

 

[ShawnD1]

What is wrong with eating 26 pounds of radishes?

26 pound shits.

You cannot make a diet on produce alone, anyway, so your calorie listings are irrelevant.

Nobody is suggesting you eat only carrots, but it's important to highlight that any money spent on carrots is purely a luxury. It's not keeping your blood sugar up, it's not making you less tired (unless you have a severe vitamin problem), and it's not making you less hungry.

There's a reason students like me live on shit food like pasta and canned meat. It's cheaper. Much much cheaper. Kraft Dinner is an incredibly unbalanced meal, has ~no protein, ~no vitamins, but it has twice as many calories as a Big Mac. That's why we love KD, or in my case the slightly cheaper store brand.

Just pure sugar and simple calories jammed packed into a bag of doritos.

This couldn't be more wrong if you tried. I'll read this straight off the label for you from a bag of nacho flavor Doritos
50g total weight
32g carbohydrates
-->2g of this is fiber
-->1g is sugar
13g of fat
-->2g of this is saturated
-->0g trans
3g protein
I'm guessing water makes up the remaining mass.

Not surprising, but the main ingredient in corn chips is corn. Holy shit! Corn contains corn? No way. The fat is almost entirely cis-unsaturated vegetable oil, probably sunflower oil.


What exactly do people think is in potato chips? Is it just a name? It's not actually made from potatoes? Do they think the chips are made with lard instead of vegetable oil? That's really the only explanation I can come up with. If people praise nuts for their high cis-unsaturated fat content then rally against chips, I'm going to assume they think chips contain animal fat instead of vegetable oil.

 

[nonlnear]

Kraft Dinner

Are you Canadian?

 

[zsdersw]

but it's important to highlight that any money spent on carrots is purely a luxury. It's not keeping your blood sugar up, it's not making you less tired (unless you have a severe vitamin problem), and it's not making you less hungry.

Actually, carrots and other veggies *do* make you feel less hungry. Insoluble fiber makes you feel full quite effectively.

There's a reason students like me live on shit food like pasta and canned meat. It's cheaper. Much much cheaper. Kraft Dinner is an incredibly unbalanced meal, has ~no protein, ~no vitamins, but it has twice as many calories as a Big Mac. That's why we love KD, or in my case the slightly cheaper store brand.

A hot plate and a skillet is all you need to make something far better and cheaper (especially per meal) than KD. Try the Eggs in a Nest thing I mentioned.

You need protein, and eggs are about as inexpensive as protein gets. Beans (lentils, black/kidney, etc) are dirt cheap too. The added benefit of protein is that it fills you up like nothing else and gives you sustained energy.

 

[InflatableBuddha]

I support increased labeling and better availability of nutritional information. It will help at least some people to make informed decisions about their consumption.

However, increased "sin" taxation is not really the best approach to combating overconsumption of unhealthy food. The farming subsidies for corn are the problem - it drives down the price of many junk foods which contain HFCS. Eliminating these subsidies would erase much of the price disparity between healthier foods and junk foods.

To take it a step further, moderate farming subsidies for a variety of healthier crops (produce, whole wheat, etc.) would make healthy foods more affordable and encourage people to choose these more often.

 

[ShawnD1]

A hot plate and a skillet is all you need to make something far better and cheaper (especially per meal) than KD. Try the Eggs in a Nest thing I mentioned.

A box of Kraft Dinner costs $0.65 and it has 840 calories. I guess we could round this up a little bit to account for the milk or butter, so like $0.90 maybe? A fried egg has 90 calories. You would need to eat 9 eggs to match the calories of 1 box of KD. Arguably eggs are still fairly cheap, but there's no comparison here. The KD is still cheaper by a huge margin.

You need protein, and eggs are about as inexpensive as protein gets. Beans (lentils, black/kidney, etc) are dirt cheap too. The added benefit of protein is that it fills you up like nothing else and gives you sustained energy.

You're right. We need protein to survive, but we don't need very much of it. Eating 2 eggs per day is more than enough. The remaining calories can be attained from eating poor people food like KD.

 

[zsdersw]

A box of Kraft Dinner costs $0.65 and it has 840 calories. I guess we could round this up a little bit to account for the milk or butter, so like $0.90 maybe? A fried egg has 90 calories. You would need to eat 9 eggs to match the calories of 1 box of KD. Arguably eggs are still fairly cheap, but there's no comparison here. The KD is still cheaper by a huge margin.

Not at all. A box of KD is one, perhaps two meals tops. A dozen eggs is 6-12 meals. Each egg costs around $0.08. Bread is cheap per meal too.

I don't know about your gastrointestinal system, but KD has a tendency of going out *way* too fast to be of any nutritional value.

A fried egg with a slice of bread will fill you up better and provide more energy than a box of KD, regardless of the amount of calories. Try it.

There's more to this than the number of calories. A soda has more calories than a fried egg, but the fried egg will give you *way* more energy over a longer period of time than the soda.

 

[Hacp]

I'm tired of people touting healthy and unhealthy food. Food is food. If you eat more than 2000 calories and aren't burning the extra, you are being unhealthy. A person could eat big macs every day and still be perfectly healthy. All he has to do is exercise a little attribute that we don't value anymore, personal responsibility.

 

[3chordcharlie]

If Obama bans salt, but not fried chicken, is that because he's racist?

 

[Red Dawn]

I'm tired of people touting healthy and unhealthy food. Food is food. If you eat more than 2000 calories and aren't burning the extra, you are being unhealthy. A person could eat big macs every day and still be perfectly healthy. All he has to do is exercise a little attribute that we don't value anymore, personal responsibility.

Yeah those Big Macs have all the vitamins and minerals a health body needs..NOT. You're an idiot.

 

[Jaskalas]

And yet, you can't even see the slope we're slipping down...

They are not blind. They fully support tyranny.

 

[Red Dawn]

They are not blind. They fully support tyranny.

I don't support banning salt but I do support including nutritional values of meals on the menu so a person who is interested could make an informed decision when ordering a meal.