The war on drugs is bad.

The undeclared war on tobbacco is bad.

Up next from the Great Nanny State, as I've predicted before, the war on Twinkies!

Libertarian Party Press Releases

May 31, 2000

Nutrition Summit this week is the beginning of a 'War on Fatty Foods'

WASHINGTON, DC -- A National Nutrition Summit being held in Washington, DC this week could mark the beginning of an effort by the federal government to tax, regulate, or ban fatty foods like Twinkies, cheeseburgers, and ice cream, the Libertarian Party predicted today.

"It's official: The War on Fat has begun -- and the first victim of this war could be our right to choose the foods we want to eat," said Steve Dasbach, the party's national director. "If we don't stop them, politicians and bureaucrats will try to do to fatty foods what they've already done to cigarettes."

On Tuesday and Wednesday, May 30-31, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health & Human Services will sponsor a Nutrition Summit that will bring together about 1,800 anti-fat activists from around the country.

The goal of the gathering: To consider strategies to force people to change their diets to combat what some bureaucrats say is an "epidemic of obesity" in America.

Among the specific sessions scheduled for the summit are:

* A discussion of how restaurants should "modify the food environment for obesity prevention."

* A review of the influence of advertising on diet -- and a discussionof the "changes needed to create positive influences on diet and activity."

* A look at the personal "behavior changes" needed to achieve a "healthy lifestyle."

Such sessions are clear evidence that federal busybodies plan to launch a massive intervention into the food choices of adult Americans, said Dasbach.

"When bureaucrats talk about modifying the food environment at restaurants, they really mean mandatory warning labels on menus," he said. "When they talk about making sure advertisements have a positive influence, they really mean imposing federally mandated marketing restrictions. And when they talk about behavior changes, they really mean higher taxes on popular foods.

"The agenda of this summit is clear: Uncle Sam plans to turn into Uncle FatBuster, and the government plans to launch a war on the foods you love."

Federal bureaucrats have been remarkably outspoken about their desire to force Americans into "better" eating habits, noted Dasbach. Some examples, collected by the Guest Choice Network:

* "People don't have the knowledge or willpower to select the right kind of food," said Dr. Rajen Anand, Director of the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Prevention.

* "We're not doing the same kinds of things with obesity that we have done with smoking and alcohol as far as the government is concerned. It's got to be like smoking, a constant drumbeat," said Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.

* "We need a strategy to deal with obesity. We need to intervene, break [people's] eating patterns," said Eileen Kennedy, USDA Undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics.

The bottom line is that federal bureaucrats don't think you can be trusted to decide what to eat, said Dasbach.

"Consuming fatty foods may not be the smartest thing a person can do, but adult Americans have the fundamental right to choose what they want to eat -- without getting permission from a federal bureaucrat," he said. "That's why Americans need to stand up and tell the government: Don't tax my Twinkies. Don't ban my Ben & Jerry's ice cream. And don't regulate my refrigerator."

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), June 16, 2000

Answers

DON'T LET THEM FEDS MESS WITH ME! THEY'LL BE SORRY! FAT MAKES FOOD TASTE GOOD! AND SALT TOO!

-- Emeril L. (emeril@foodtv.fat), June 16, 2000.

Twinkies will eventually be sold in speak-easies? They're already synthetic, right? This reminds me of a Sliders episode:

The Java Jive

Aired: August 6, 1999 Written by: Janit Saunders & Jennifer McGinnis Production Number: E0807 Network Number: SL-508 Director: Jeff Woolnough Music: Danny Lux Editor: Casey Brown It's the Roaring Nineties and the Sliders confront Rembrandt's evil double, who is dealing in bootleg coffee. World Into: Caffiene World: A Prohibition-style United States where not only is caffiene outlawed, but red meat, alcohol and tobacco. With the passage of the Gephardt Act, even caffiene was banned here. Finally, the American government had removed a liberty that once flowed freely across the country like booze, cigarettes and beef before it. While it's unknown how massive tobacco, alcohol and coffee been PACs were looked over by Congress and Senate, the result is clear: a cleaner living America. But what about those people who crave caffiene and other items prohibited in this country? Speakeasies, throwbacks to the 1920s, have flourished by providing people with illegal hooch, tobacco and caffiene. In fact, the 1920s atmosphere is everywhere in this United States, showing that laissez faire didn't really help fedora sales. In Los Angeles, a major speakeasy is the Hippo Club, owned by lounge singer Angie Morgan. Morgan supplies her customers with synthetic caffiene mixed with sugar. While the synthetic stuff is just as good at giving people a buzz, it's also got some irritating side effects, like seizures. And, well, death.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), June 16, 2000.

Twinkies all around barkeep, theyre on the house.

DAN WHITE was a typical all-American-boy born and raised in San Francisco. He was a policeman and then a fireman and then ran for Supervisor in the heavily conservative Irish-Catholic working class neighborhood known as District 8. He promised to restore traditional values to San Francisco City government. He promised to rid San Francisco of "radicals, social deviates, and incorrigibles".

At that time, Supervisors were considered part-time employees and were paid $9,800 per year. White soon found that he could not support his family on that small salary. And in November 1978, having been in office less than a year, White submitted his resignation to the Mayor. There were 11 members of the Board of Supervisors. Six of them, including White, were conservative, and were able to block many liberal measures. The liberals, especially Harvey Milk, were elated at the news of his resignation. The mayor, a liberal, had the authority to appoint a replacement supervisor!

On hearing of his resignation, the conservative Police Officers Association and Board of Realtors urged White to change his mind and offered to help him financially. Moscone's first reaction was to allow White to change his mind, but Milk went to his friend the mayor, and reminded him of all his proposals that had been defeated because of the 6-5 conservative majority. Milk also reminded Moscone that White was the only actively anti-gay person on the board and that Moscone was up for re-election the following year. Without the Gay vote, he would have difficulty being re-elected.

Moscone promised to announce his decision on Monday morning, November 27th, but made no effort to keep his decision against White secret. However, he did not bother to contact White at any time during the weekend. By Monday morning White's rage had reached a peak and he loaded his gun and went downtown. He entered City Hall through an open basement window to avoid the metal detectors at the entrances. He went first to Moscone's office and shot him in the chest and then delivered a bullet to the head at close range as the mayor lay dying on the floor. As he walked down the corridor to the Supervisors' offices on the other end of the building, he reloaded his gun. He asked Harvey for a few minutes in private and led him into his former office where he slew him in the same manner including two bullets to the brain.

Dan White left City Hall without further incident. He then called his wife, Mary Ann, and asked her to meet him at Saint Mary's Cathedral, several blocks from City Hall. Together they walked to Northern Station, where he turned himself in.

Reportedly, when news of the murders reached the police department, the policemen in the building responded with cheers and applause. Homicide Inspector Frank Falzon conducted the interrogation of his friend Dan White and took the confession. This took about half an hour. Ex-cop White was treated like a friend and a hero by the policemen that dealt with him. Randy Shilts, author of the book "The Mayor of Castro Street", quotes White as having said to a gay newspaperman a few days earlier; "I've got a real surprise for the gay community - a real surprise." His defense was based on temporary insanity triggered by eating too much junk food combined with moral outrage. It came to be known as "The Twinkie Defense". The defense put on a show of White's good qualities and fine moral character. The prosecution offered no objections and performed in a lackluster manner. They never introduced politics or homophobia. The verdict was Voluntary Manslaughter. The sentence was 7 years.

Dan White was paroled from Soledad Prison on January 6, 1985 after serving a minimal sentence for manslaughter. He committed suicide on October 21, 1985.

Dan White and Twinkies will be forever linked in history.

-- Ra (tion@l.1), June 16, 2000.

A friend of mine's grandfather used to make sure he ate a piece of straight fat at every meal. He was hit by a car and killed at 75.

-- oh well (so much@for.that theory), June 16, 2000.

Capitalizing on the resounding success of the War on Drugs, I see.

Ignoramuses. Or worse - deliberate misinfo. Would they ever propose a "war on sugar" - not a chance. CHEAP CARBS are the bread and butter [so to speak] of the whole processed food industry and are much more implicated in degenerative disease than is FAT (except for processed fats). END OF RANT!!! Much more to say but I am biting my tongue.

I thought this was the Onion! but sadly it isn't.

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), June 16, 2000.

I wouldn't worry too much. How many people will be willing to wear a uniform that has "Twinkie Squad" written on it?

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), June 16, 2000.

A nutritionist asked to meet with our whole family after my husband had heart trouble. She explained why saturated fats aren't a good idea.

She said to melt margarine in a skillet. She said that the margarine will still have solid particles in it even when it's being heated well above human body temperature. She said we should imagine what that type of fat does in the human body, where it just won't melt all the way.

She also said that fat by itself doesn't have flavor; what most people crave is salt. She said we could salt our food as much as we wanted, since it was far less dangerous than unsaturated fat.

That said, I'm laying in a supply of Twinkies before they're banned...I hear their shelf life is 20 years.

-- helen (b@t.s), June 16, 2000.

Helen;

According to William Poundstone (author of Big Secrets, Bigger Secrets, and others), it's only a myth that the shelf life of Twinkies exceeds the shelf life of gravel.

But you might want to consider some of the scientific studies that have been done by The Twinkies Project...

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), June 16, 2000.

Margarine is a processed fat - a worse choice than other saturated fats such as butter or meat fat. Do a search on "trans-fats" to get an idea of what's most harmful in margarine.

(Margarine is an artificially-saturated polyunsaturated oil, which process creates the trans-fats.)

They really don't know what causes heart disease, but there's more to it than "artery-clogging fat" (an appealing visual image but not really accurate). Blood cholesterol levels, if already high, are hard to control with diet. When you stop eating it, your body just makes more, because you need cholesterol to make your hormones. High blood cholesterol levels are associated with heart disease but appear to be a symptom, not a cause. In other words they are a symptom of other problems in the body which give rise to the heart disease; the actual laying down of cholesterol (oxidized) in the arteries is some kind of defense mechanism. Further, many people who have heart attacks have neither high blood cholesterol nor significant blockages. Levels of homocysteine in the blood are highly correlated with heart disease, more so than blood cholesterol. Homocysteine levels can be controlled with B12, B6 and folic acid.

You can crave fat even if it has no flavor of its own, because the body needs fat (in moderation). It makes foods taste better . Some minerals require fat in order to be absorbed (such as calcium). Some fats are essential, such as the Omega-3's, found in fish and flaxseeds.

Good reading is, Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill by Udo Erasmus if a bit technical.

Debbie, who has no sense of humor today :-)

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), June 16, 2000.

Helen:

LOL...there is 'something' to the shelf life of twinkies... A woman at work had one in her desk for over a year. I was hungry, she offered it up....no mold, no nothing. Didnt even feel stale!

Scarey? Thanks Deb for the tip on margarine. I will attmpt to use butter from now on.

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), June 16, 2000.