| Freedom Apples and Fast Food Rules |
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| Written by Erika Fredrickson | |
| Tuesday, 22 July 2008 | |
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A Los Angeles city council member, Jan Perry, is shooting to ban new fast food restaurants in a 32 square mile section which includes her district. It's all with good intentions of course: combating obesity in an area that already has 400 fast food restaurants and an obesity rate at 30%, which is 11% higher than the rest of the city. As you might guess, not everyone loves the idea—especially not franchise owners—but Republican politicians and some fast food customers are freaking out, citing some kind of oppression of their freedom. Is it just me, or are we starting to cheapen the whole "freedom" thing here. Still, more and more rules isn't the answer. And certainly just quashing new fast food restaurants without a plan to implement an alternative won't work. Meanwhile, fast food restaurants are trying to convince us that they are healthy. Anyone for an apple fry? The newest Burger King gimmick (besides the creepy King mascot) is slices of apple in the shape of fries. People like to say: Oh, well at least they're trying to be healthy. No, they're just trying to get your money. Fast food isn't dead, but there's only so far you can take it. Some aspects of fast food make sense if you don't delve too deep into argument about it. But if we're going to Burger King to buy slices of apple when we could just, well, slice up an apple, then we've got some thinking to do. Source: The Wall Street Journal Comments (4)
  written by a guest, July 22, 2008
I agree with trying to remove artificial hormones from food sources.
I don't really see how banning new fast food places will help fight obese people, because preventing a new one being built just means that people will go to one of the other 400 existing ones instead. Maybe they should start putting health warnings on fast food, like they do on packets of cigarettes.
written by neil, July 29, 2008
just so you can understand the point youve made, ill post it again.
"Is it just me, or are we starting to cheapen the whole "freedom" thing here" my god when did you get the job of deciding the level of freedom anyone is entitled to???? you havefreedom or you dont and ANY limiting of it is too important to leave to some rentasuit councillor.
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It's true what our moms said...we are what we eat. In fact, it's truer than they thought. What I eat doesn't just affect me anymore, it affects all of us.
Unfortunately, the story of food can sometimes be complicated. But envirovores help each other out...which is why this blog will be bringing you news, tips, and information about food and the environment every step of the way.
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If she was serious about fighting obesity she should go to the root of the source-agribusiness food production practices.
She needs to go after companies that use certain types of hormones to fatten up our meat that are eaten by humans and thus fatten us up.