elfs | Get A Life!

So, the Akron Beacon Journal in Ohio runs a picture of some local guy who's a marine in Iraq, and the picture shows his grimed and weary face with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. And the idiots in the public start going apeshit about how this picture "glorifies smoking" and "teaches young people that it's okay to smoke."

Excuse me? This guy is in Iraq! Bullets are flying overhead! He has more important things to worry about than lung fucking cancer! Give "young people" the facts and let them make informed and rational decisions about whether or not to have a cigarette, okay? Since when have we been such a nation of ninnies?

As if that weren't enough, the British Health System is considering banning buy-one, get-one-free offers for fatty junk foods. Apparently, the average citizen is too stupid to realize that overeating fatty foods is bad for you, and so the government must send agents, some of them armed, to wrestle those potato chips and snack cakes out of your irresponsible hands. As Gastroblog puts it:

Food ought to be banned, or at least rationed by trained medical staff in public service centres, since people are not rational enough to use it properly. At the very least food should be labelled "Food can be bad for you". Those who make billions of pounds growing and distributing food should not be allowed to give people what they want. It turns my stomach to think of all those multinationals making money out of producing delicious food. There ought to be a march against it. Think of the children! In a modern society politicians have a democratic mandate that decide what we should have for tea each day. I vote for the party that raises taxes in order to pay for more regulators.

Yeah, I'd rather spend a lifetime eating Tofu and die at 79 rather than have the ocassional Dorito and die at 78. Just think: if Julia Child hadn't used all that butter and cream in her French cooking, she might have lived to be 92!

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From:

elfs.livejournal.com

What is he on about?

It seems pretty obvious what he's on about. The British goverment, and you yourself, seem to believe that other people are incapable of making moral and responsible decisions for themselves, and that therefore it is the responsibility of the The State-- you know, the sole institution with a monopoly on legitimate use of deadly force-- to use its power to limit the pleasures that human beings may experience.

The paper you pointed me to was even more frightening. The elimination of "happy hours," and an American-style "threat" system with color codes for how fast foods will kill you?

Do you really believe that people are so stupid they can't decide for themselves what they want? Or that they lack free will such that they cannot make decisions for themselves? Why should your desires-- or anyone's desires-- trump those of individuals who'd like to buy one, get one free?

The UK electorate is rapidly empowering the only freely elected totalitarian state in the history of the world. Because the UK has a socialized health service, it has rapidly-- more rapidly than I would have thought possible-- headed for the absurd. To prevent UK taxpayers from having to bear the costs of skin cancer, the health care system recommends not going out unless it's cloudy. To prevent UK taxpayers from having to bear the costs of lung cancer, the force of law is used to prevent it.

Next thing you know, to prevent the UK taxpayer from bearing the costs of presbyopia, reading will be banned.

From: (Anonymous)

I don’t believe people are stupid, I do think that a lot of people are ignorant as to the amounts of fat, salt and sugar that are in processed food, and the effects of these on their bodies. By offering two for one deals on these foods, it makes families on low incomes more likely to buy them. The government are saying to the food industry make you’re labelling clearer, so that people know what their buying, or we will force you to do so.

The UK, has unfortunately a strong binge drinking culture that is steadily getting worse. A great deal of that is to do with the ridiculous licensing laws but not wholly. Unfortunately 'happy hours' usually just mean, that people consume more, in a short period of time, causing more problems on the streets when everyone get thrown out of the pubs at the same time.

Whilst I have many issues with the UK government to the point where I no longer live there, I don’t think I could say that it is in anyway totalitarian. The US though I believe isn’t just heading that way, it already there.

From:

elfs.livejournal.com

I do think that a lot of people are ignorant as to the amounts of fat, salt and sugar that are in processed food...

Okay, you don't think they're stupid. You think they can't read food labels, or the newspaper, or watch the evening news. I still don't see why it's the government's business to get involved in forcing them to do so. I mean, c'mon, it's the third millenium; the adult who doesn't realize by now that if you eat more calories than you use in a day you're going to get fat simply doesn't exist.

Theodore Darymple has a wonderful retort to those who claim that "the poor will always go for the unhealthy stuff sold two-for-one": go visit an immigrant neighborhood. Next to the squalid conditions he describes for the welfare-ridden neighborhood (http://www.city-journal.org/html/9_2_oh_to_be.html) where he works, about a kilometer from a nearby prison, is a neighborhood of Indian immigrants.

The shops the Indians frequent are piled high with all kinds of attractive fresh produce that, by supermarket standards, is astonishingly cheap. The women take immense trouble over their purchases and make subtle discriminations. There are no pre-cooked meals for them. By contrast, a shop that poor whites patronize offers a restricted choice, largely of relatively expensive prepared foods that at most require only the addition of hot water.

The UK, has unfortunately a strong binge drinking culture that is steadily getting worse.

... and? Why is it your business what people do in a private establishment?

I guess this comes down to one's principles with respect to your fellow man. If you believe that other people essentially have a right to decide for themselves how they should live, then you'll leave them alone, and never even pretend that the rule of law is an appropriate way to modify their choices-- be they shopkeeper or consumer.

From: (Anonymous)

This is taken form the British Nutrition Foundation.

Nutrition information
Manufacturers are not obliged by law to provide nutrition information, unless they make a nutrition claim. For those that do provide nutrition information, certain rules must be followed.
• The energy value of the food in kilojoules (kJ) and kilocalories (kcal) must be provided;
• The amount of protein, carbohydrate and fat in grams (g) must be provided;
• Optionally (unless a claim is made) the amounts of sugars, saturates, fibre and sodium can be provided, if the first four nutrients have been provided.

Further information can be added optionally (unless a claim is made) on the amounts of other nutrients such as polyunsaturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids or cholesterol, and some specified vitamins and minerals (if they are present in significant amounts).

Information must always be given as values per 100g or per 100ml of food. Values for a portion or serving can be given as well, provided that the number or size of portions/servings is quantified on the label.

In the UK, some prepackaged foods also provide information about guideline daily amounts (GDAs). GDAs are derived from the Estimated Average Requirements for energy for men and women aged between 19-50, of normal weight and fitness (2500kcal and 2000kcal respectively). There are currently no GDAs for children. The fat and saturates GDAs are based on the dietary reference values for these nutrients published by the Department of Health (1991). Figures for salt were added at a later stage, based on the 6g per day recommendation made by COMA in 1994 (and reaffirmed by SACN in 2003) GDAs are intended as guidance to help consumers in their understanding of their recommended daily consumption of energy (calories), fat and saturates and a base against which the content of individual foods can be compared.

On a personal note, even when manufacturers do supply some of this information, they go out of their way to make it difficult to work out the over all levels that are contained within them.

There is a huge pressure from the food industry fighting any legislation, yet it is public opinion that forcing the government to act.

As regards to alcohol I suggest that you look at the figures. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/medical_notes/3757704.stm The increased levels of inner city violence can generally been attributed to youngsters binge drinking.

From:

elfs.livejournal.com

Manufacturers are not obliged by law to provide nutrition information, unless they make a nutrition claim. For those that do provide nutrition information, certain rules must be followed.

I don't understand what the problem here is. As a lot of people point out and Darymple makes explicit in the example cited, there are groups of people who know how to eat and how not to eat. The argument that "the buy one get one free" deals unfairly targets the poor is a bogus argument, as even at BOGOF prices preprocessed foods are, calorie for calorie, still exorbitantly more expensive than a bag of rice, a bag of beans, a bag of flour, or an apple. And they certainly don't have the same vitamin, mineral, and other micronutrient value. The citation is exactly right: "And the willingness of Indians to take trouble over what they eat and to treat meals as important social occasions that impose obligations and at times require the subordination of personal desire is indicative of an entire attitude to life that often permits them, despite their current low incomes, to advance up the social scale." [Emphasis mine.]

This is really quite a frightening little scenario you've created: an entire generation, raised in schools run and regulated by the state, has somehow misplaced its capacity to discern what is and is not good to eat. A generation of regulatory oversight has failed, and the solution is more regulation. It is not that people need to make better and more moral decisions-- and make no mistake, every choice that is not frivolous is a moral choice and food choices are clearly not frivolous-- but that the government, "public opinion forcing it to act," needs to use its unique capacity for violence to ensure that people cannot make the immoral decisions.