Perspective Plus discussion

I stumbled upon this little gem today on yahoo!

http://news.yahoo.com/sugar-regulated-to...

For those of you who did not click the above, there are demands being made by researchers to make sugar and all things containing sugar,to be regulated by restrictions such as alcohol and other items like drugs. They claim that this is for our health and that sugar is toxic to the body,hence the so called epidemic of obesity. (DON'T get me started on that!)
This would also include banning of sales in and near schools.

Economists are being more level headed regarding this.



This is going too far for me. I do not want or need this much interference from the government when it comes to my health to my life. Is there too much added sugars to foods? Yes. Do we need to really watch what products that have sugar in them and try not to buy them? Yes. Do we need the government legislating us healthy? No. As adults we need to make better decisions for ourselves and our kids. US not them. If we stop buying this stuff, and telling the companies WHY, then things will change.

Yes, healthy costs more, and that is more of a crime then adding sugar. There is sugar in products that do not need sugar, added or otherwise. I am sick and tired of being told that "if you [the public] won't help yourselves, we're going to force you to". I thought we lived in democracy, freedom of choice and all that?

Where is my choice? I feel that our government is playing this up to distract us from what they are really doing, wasting our tax dollars and messing up the world. I am not saying health is not important, what I am saying is you need to control it, and not congress.

We have now added a new state to our country. Please help me welcome The Nanny state, formally known as New York City. Mayor Bloomberg is trying and will probably succeed as there is not much legal standing to prevent him in a court of law, to ban any beverage over 16 oz. from being sold in the city limits. A change in the law will allow the health department to enforce the new law and fine offenders.

Bloomberg has already tried to limit and or ban the advertising of soda and is now targeting movie theaters, restaurants, stores, gas stations and more claiming, you guessed it, public health issues. I am so sick of the government telling my how I may live my life, where I can go, what I can do, what I can eat (anyone for soylent green?)and all the rest, that I could scream!

We are supposed to be a democracy, yet I feel more and more like my comrades are being sent unfairly to the badlands. I feel that this is getting out of hand. Not only are you messing with free enterprise, you are messing with free will. If we let this happen here,other states will use it as an excuse to tighten the noose they have already begun to strangle us with. As long as we let them hide behind this "health issue" crap, we will all we saluting the supreme commander and will be one with The Party.

Extreme, I thing not. This goes beyond being a large person, this is about freedom of choice, free will,and making our own decisions. If this is a democracy, then we need to treat is as such and quit letting the government wipe their bums with the constitution.

I found this today on Yahoo!, which is a follow up to the previous post.

I am so mad, I could spit.

http://news.yahoo.com/diabetes-doctor...

Well, they got the pop sale restriction passed yesterday in NYC. It will start in 6 months. No pop over 16 o.z cannot be sold by a restaurants,movie theaters or any self serve drink dispensers. For now, grocery stores are exempt.

I am so mad, that I can't type anymore.

O.K. the new law in N.Y. banning sugary drinks over a certain size will start in March. So, now Coke is getting into the discussion by creating 2 new commercials regarding the obesity debate and just how much their sodas many or may not have much to do with the problem. I have not seen the ads yet in their entirety as CNN only showed pieces.

You can read more about this here:

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/...


The CNN discussion also mentioned that there is a movement in Congress that wants to put tobacco like warning labels on sugary drinks, so Coke's new commercials may be trying to get ahead of the curve so as to speak by addressing this now and not later.

Yes, let's do put waring labels on EVERY bloody thing we can so we can save our selves from our selves! Please Big Brother, save me from my own intelligence and my own decision making because I cannot possibly know that the grease dripping sandwich I about to eat is not healthy for me, nor do I know what a carrot looks like!

This is royally getting out of hand.

Going deeper into the nanny state,the USDA is now seeking input into what should be carried in vending machines in schools. They are seeking public input as to what types of foods such as granola bars, bottled water and the like should be carried in what schools and even down to how much caffeine content. Targeted items include trans fats, saturated fats,sugar and salt content. Exemptions to this would be foods sold at events, treats brought in by parents for birthday celebrations and fund raising items such as those sold at bake sales.

Why even let schools have vending machines in the first place if you are going to do this? When I was in high school, we had a Pepsi machine in the cafeteria and a Coke machine by one of the doors. Assorted snacks were in another machine in the cafeteria and chips were sold in the kitchen for lunch. We knew full well that most of this stuff wasn't good for us and yes there were granola bars and popcorn in the snack machine.

We bought it because there the machines were there.

My library now has vending machines (why I don't know) but the machines do NOT have healthy choices in them and they are conveniently located NEXT to the teen area so how is this helping? Nearby to my library is also a Dunkin Donuts which is also across the street from one school, and right by the high school/Jr. high, and the walking route for yet another 2 schools. So, if the school is only offering healthy, whats to stop them from going here first?

I don't usually like Starbucks (I call it Starsnots and other no so complimentary names) but this time I applaud them. Bloomberg needs to be stood up to as he has over stepped his bounds and is taking things WAY too far.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/bloombe...

Moot point, thankfully. A judge overturned it. Of course Mayor Dippydoo will fight it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-ca...

He only has a few months in office and new mayors rarely overturn the previous mayor's laws.......

Now Bloomberg wants all cigarette and tobacco products to be covered up and out of sight to keep younger people from being tempted. I still say that a cartoon camel did not make students at my high school smoke and seeing a tin of chew is not going to lead little Jimmy down the path. That comes from people they know who smoke, chew or what have you. Bloomberg is determined to do SOMETHING before he leaves office, and if he can't stand up to terrorists,he'll find something to stand up to, I guess.

And then we have nonsense like this new Harvard study. Who paid for this is a very good question.


http://gma.yahoo.com/25-000-us-deaths...

Now the latest nanny state measures are being carried out on our children. Since the government can't seem to shame grownups, they are now going to shame our children into becoming food neurotics.

By the start of school 2014, all vending machines must carry healthy snacks, under 200 calories and be "good for you." Schools are afraid of losing money as these changes the following changes are enforced:

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture's new "Smart Snacks in School" nutrition standards represent the first nutritional overhaul of school snacks in more than 30 years.

The regulations set limits for fat, salt and sugar sold in places such as vending machines and snack bars. School foods must contain at least 50% whole grains or have a fruit, vegetable, dairy or protein as the first ingredient. Foods that contain at least ¼ cup of fruit and/or vegetables will also be allowed.

Beverages will be under the microscope as well. Sports drinks that contain relatively high amounts of sugar are prohibited, but the low-calorie versions will be for sale. Low-fat and fat-free milk, 100% fruit and vegetable juice, and no-calorie flavored waters are permitted. Potable water must be made available to kids for free where meals are served.

Schools and food and beverage companies must meet these standards by July 1, 2014, according to the USDA. That means the rules would be in effect for the 2014-2015 school year."

There are those who feel that this is not far enough.

"Snacks now have to be nutritious. They can't just be fortified junk," said Margo Wotton, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group.

'Nothing is more important than the health and well-being of our children,' USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement. 'Parents and schools work hard to give our youngsters the opportunity to grow up healthy and strong, and providing healthy options throughout school cafeterias, vending machines, and snack bars will support their great efforts.'

Children will still be allowed to bring in any snacks from home that they choose, and parents can continue to deliver treats for birthday celebrations or holidays to the classroom. Special fund-raising events such as bake sales are also allowed.

The new rules are meant to help curb childhood obesity in the United States, which affects about 17% of children and adolescents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

(The new regulations) seem like a big step in the right direction," wrote Stacy Whitman, a mom who blogs about school nutrition. "But I fear there still will be lots of room for less-than-healthy snacks to make their way into schools. While baked chips may be a better option than Doritos, they are still junk food. Granola and cereal bars may be viewed as nutritious, but most are infused with sugar and not exactly what I would call wholesome. And sugary yogurts and flavored milks sound like dessert in disguise."

The hope is to get healthy food in them at school to counteract the junk they get at home. So cutting out gym and recess are helping?

I am not saying that junk in schools is good, but why do schools need vending machines anyway? When I was in elementary school, yes it was a private run school, but we had rules one what could and could not be in our lunches. NO pop, NO more than a sandwich bag of chips, NO more than 3 cookies, or one desert item that wasn't fruit. We were only allowed one beverage, and we were limited to one ice cream treat (for purchase after lunch) provided we did not already have a desert item. This was more likely to keep hyper activity down and to keep us acting and looking like good boys and girls to anyone who saw us.

I got to high school, and we had vending machines in the cafeteria. We had good and bad choices mixed together, so it was up to us to choose what to eat. I feel that younger kids shouldn't have access to vending machines,even with healthy choices in them. They need to learn how to eat well first, BEFORE being able to buy their choices. Too many parents allow their children to dictate the family meals at home, too many eat out as it is, so swapping out baked chips for regular is NOT going to change what they eat at home.

What happens during the Summer vacation? How do you regulate that? This is the other back door action the government is taking to get us where they want us. Not thinking for ourselves, but letting "those who know what is better for us" make the decisions. Government fear those who think for themselves. Free thought is dangerous to those in charge because it messes with the status quo and they don't like it when you mess with their business.

You'd think that they would want us fat. Fat people are more content. Those on a diet are cranky.

This program, while it sounds good, and mostly is good, is an end run solution to make fat people the new societal pariahs. We are being forced to be something that we may not physically be able to be. Thin. Healthy yes, thin no, but even doctors still say that thin = healthy which is not true. We are creating a generation of children who will most likely have the largest span of food related disorders to date as they obsess about the food that goes in their mouths.

Eat well,be well, be you.

Changing the food available in the vending machines won't teach kids to eat more healthily. It will teach them two things:
1) Grown-ups and authority figures cannot be trusted, and are just out to make us miserable.
2) A significant profit can be earned by picking up a bag of junk food from the local convenience store and black-marketing it to your classmates for triple the cost.

Uh-huh. That is so true. We tell our kids "think for yourself" and then we do this. What we're really telling them is to "think like you were told to think." Freedom in this country really means freedom to do what you are told and not what you want. This is the first volley in the next civil war. It will be a war of words, not weapons per say, but they will hurt all the more and there will be more than two clear sides in all of this. The ultimate sacrifices will be our children's ability to think and act for themselves.

Some Harvard yutz has made a study of milk, and is now saying that "it does NOT do a body good" and that is filled with fat and sugar, even reduced fat chocolate milk. GASP! Chocolate milk contains sugar?! Why aren't the cows that produce that put a diet to help reduce that? Oh,wait, because chocolate milk is made with human help!

I read not to long ago that manufactures of milk wanted to add sugar to milk to make it taste better and there was talk of using artificial sweeteners instead. Apparently, some dairy's do add sugar to their milk and it's not on the label.

We are told to consume reduced fat milk at least 3 x's a day to get our calcium, but this Harvard yutz says to eat your leafy greens which are better for you. Yes, but there are those who cannot eat those because they can interfere with certain prescription medications.

My fear is that some wing nut anti-obesity group will use this so called study, and mind you it is only ONE person who is saying this, and will get milk banned in schools. which will help no one.

We go to extremes in this country, no matter what the issue, we are very polarized about things, or at least the media makes it sound that way. I think that people know a lot better and do do better than they are given credit for, but the media needs us afraid and cowed so that they can sell papers,follow their twaddlings and re-twaddle them,like their Faceplants, and basically keep us distracting us from what is important,which is how badly the government is screwing up and in turn, us.

Milk is like anything else, in moderation it is good for you, in excess, not so much. Too much healthy foods can have adverse effects, like too much beta carotene can turn your skin orange, too much fiber can cause you to lose too many good bacteria in your digestive tract, too much water can flush out good minerals and what not along with toxins, etc.

I say if you are that worried,swap milk for an alternative. Remember when eggs were evil and now their not? This too shall pass, but I wonder at what cost will it pass on.

The FDA is now joining the nanny state bandwagon with a proposed rule on vending machines. Vendors who operate more than 20 machines will have to post all nutrition label info for each product on the machine so you know what you are buying before you buy it. Uh-huh. So having the nutrition info in my face before I buy the bag of salt and cheese flavored powder that I already know is not good for me,but I'm going to eat it anyway,is going to stop me how?

I saw this on Fox news the other night and I finally had time to look more into it. They were speaking to a gentleman who apparently runs a vending company and he stated that this new rule may even involve technology that is simply not available at this time,let alone all the work that will have to go with it, like programing and hoping for no human errors in stocking. He did say that this should be put onto the companies like Frito-Lay or Coke to do this. Most of those products already have at-a-glance labels now, so I fail to see a problem.

The idea is that "too many people still don't know how to make healthy choices" according to the food police and others who are too concerned about what is not their business to really see what is truly the problem. We have too many noses in others business that we are losing site of more important things like "why Jimmy still can't read" and "why are big banks too big to fail, but I am allowed to lose my home"?

This nanny state is taking over the nation, and we are letting it. I do not need to be saved. I know what I should eat and what I do eat are not always the best thing,but if every once in a while I did not eat A doughnut, I will eat 6. You need to have a bad thing once in a while to appreciate the good. That is true in life and true in food, but it the food Nazi's have any say, you will lose your voice and control of your body because they know better and apparently you are too stupid to good on your own.

There was an op-ed piece in the Plain Dealer on Friday that mashed my buttons to no end. Now, I realize that it was an OPINION by a journalist who I don't think was thinking the concept all the way through,but some fool will take up the battle cry and WHAM! we will be broadsided once more by nanny state governing. CVS pharmacy stores announced that they are going to stop selling tobacco products in all their stores because they feel that since they are in the business of health, that selling death is wrong.

O.K. I can live with that since that was their decision and not a law or government messing about. If this is what their company wants for it's image, then that is fine. The journalist who was talking about this, suggested rather forcefully, that this is NOT far enough to protect people's health and that if they truly want to safeguard our health,then all sodas, candy,chips and cookies should also be removed from shelves (no mention of alcohol though...)as these are just as bad if no worse than tobacco products. It goes on to quote a medical journal that published a recent study that we intake more sugar a day than we think and how it is a "direct cause of obesity" and other health bugaboos.

I would like to know who paid for the study. I bet you that you would find artificial sweetener companies behind it somewhere. Now, I am not saying that sugar is good for you, because too much is not, like so many other things. Yet, it is the new villain of the "you will be healthy by God!" movement and it is getting a bad rap. If sugar were banned across the board, do you realize how many food items and non would be affected?

Millions.

Everything from tooth paste to tomato sauce would go up in price, taste terrible and things would rot faster. Sugar is a preservative, a flavoring agent and filler. Yes, high fructose corn syrup was and is a problem for this as well, but with so many companies taking it out of products, you are left with public health enemy #2, sugar.

Again I go back to prohibition worked SO well in the past, that here we go trying to do it again. Yet again, we have a group of people who feel that they know better than anyone else how you should live your life and will make sure that you do as you are told. So much for a democracy.

Trans fats have been a bugaboo for quite some time and now sugar is in the sights of the food police. I say this now, just try to take my sugar away from me and you will see what this pacifist is capable of if she can no longer bake. I will learn to shoot and you will have to pry the bag from my cold dead hands, after climbing a mountain of bodies to get it. I am NOT going stand for this micromanaging nanny crap anymore in my life. I am almost 40 years old and capable of knowing what I should and shouldn't eat without you telling me or legislating me what to eat.

BACK OFF AND STEP AWAY FROM THE FANATICISM!

And not a one of these studies ever mentions "Just use common sense and moderation, and be active, and you should be fine." 'Cause that isn't melodramatic enough, and doesn't sell enough of whatever it is they're selling. Grrrrr...

It is going WAAYYYYY too far. And again, where are the demands to investigate the effects of the hormones that are fed to our feedstock to make them rapidly gain weight for the slaughterhouse?

You see, actually doing a study on the effects of man-made products would require sense! It is easier to just blame the next bugaboo you can find and since tobacco products are pretty much played out, we need a new rallying point and sugar seems to be it. I don't think that anyone who feels that sugar should be banned realizes the enormity of what they are saying. To ban sugar entirely would mean the end of the liquor industry as well as many other facets of daily life.

Thousands of people would not only lose their jobs, but the cost of regular items would go beyond affordable. This is the downside to op0ed pieces that are nationally published. Too many people will take it seriously as a good idea without thinking about the consequences.

I found this one this morning on Yahoo! Slow burn anyone?

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-...

Yes, burning is the right word. How dare they????

And the thing is, we let them get away with it....

We live in a society where 'privacy' is an illusion. Worst of all, in many cases, nobody needs to spy on us, they have us do it for them (faceplant, twaddle, foursquare; most of the population of America lowjacks themselves every day).

The most infuriating part (to me) was the guy saying that marketers already do this, so wouldn't you like your doctor to have the information too? NO! No, I would not. I would like for the aforementioned marketers to take a short step off a tall cliff and leave my information alone, thankyouverymuch.

*deep breath* Apologies for the rant. My burn was not slow.

I feel the same way. Every time you turn around, you have to sign a piece of paper that claims to protect your "privacy" but really makes it easier for others to access it and harder for you to get your own information!

I am tired of "direct" marketing to me, and I can tell usually where it comes from based on how my name is uses, i.e my full legal name,with middle initial,or if it the same misspelling I keep getting from other places. I will not listen to any sales pitches made door to door nor will I buy anything that way unless I know the person, such as the kids next door.

I do not take well to cold sales calls either. If I am interested in a service, I will call you. I am so tired of this micro-managing of my life and the "you will do this or you will punished" like I'm 5 years old. (I put up with that crap growing up. NOT anymore!) We need to be more proactive about what we share and don't want to. Say "no" the next time you are asked for your e-mail or phone # by a store clerk. Do not fill out any questions on a warranty card that do not fit the info they need. Get off of direct mailing lists, and ask why a piece of info is needed. Did you know that there is no legal reason for any doctor to use or see your social security number? Yep, you don't have to share that. Only the I.R.S., your employer, and your banking people need that to make sure all your taxes are going to where they need to go, and for your car license as well.

That's about it.

We need to stand up,as a whole, as consumers who have had enough! WE need to take back ourselves and stop Big Brothering ourselves. It may be too late for some, but not all.