So I realize this isn't breaking news but Bloomberg is starting a war on soda. Basically the law would prohibit non-diet soda from being sold in containers larger than 16 ounces at most venues (but not markets). Focus: Should we be regulating how much/what type of food people should be eating? Even though it doesn't affect me at all, I hate this idea. I understand that obesity is a serious issue and wish people would take better care of themselves, but enforcing laws to change habits like this is a pretty serious infringement on personal freedom. The worst part is that it's pretty reasonable (seriously, who needs more than 16 ounces of soda?) and if it gets passed that will set NYC and possibly the rest of the country down the path for more restrictions.
I wonder if the soda makers were in on this law. You can still buy 2 drinks and now you will have to if you want more than 16 ounces! Except for certain brands. I guess they didn't pay their protection money on time.
Focus: Should we be regulating how much/what type of food people should be eating? Sure. You can buy the unhealthiest foods on the planet with food stamps. I've lost close to 30 pounds just by switching from fast food to eating at home. As a general rule, the people that are the fattest tend to be the ones with the least amount of money to spend. My girlfriend does the cooking and shopping and works 40 hours a week. All things being equal cost wise, there's no reason why we can't get people to cook their own food with healthy ingredients. Instead of subsidizing corn growers, how about the government subsidize local farmers to provide food that's good for you and drives down the cost? Why do people need to earn $30k a year to even think about buying organic?
I don't see how this infringes on freedom and things like heavily taxing booze and alcohol don't. The only thing is that taxing those things isn't for the sake of your health, they just say it is. They tax them because they're drugs and people will keep coming back no matter what the price is. Trying to stop people from drinking so much soda IS for the sake of your health, but some people are making a bigger stink about this than they ought to: it's not like you're not allowed to consume more the 16 oz of soda, it just means when your soda runs out you'll have to get off your fat, lazy ass and get another one. The horror! They SHOULD be running regulating food and giving hardcore deterrance against things like fast food, carbonated soda and poorly-produced meat because of a simple fact: they're insidious poisons that slowly destroy you. This has been scientifically proven, yet so many people refuse to buy it.
agreed. Sodas, HFCS, and highly processed chem foods are disgusting. Aside from the taste, there's no argument at all that they're bad for one's health. Why HFCS is even allowed to be put into food is beyond me, except for the corn subsidies. That shit is the goddamn devil.
As a society, we really need to get on the same page with this "freedoms" thing. The people that support the ban are the ones that cried foul when a state tries to pass a law restricting abortions, complaining about how it interferes with a woman's right over her body. The ones that are against it, wail against women having abortions. People really dont stop and think about things like this and tend to resign themselves along the lines of whatever group they subscribe to, liberal (ha) and conservative (ha). So whats it going to be, what kind of society do we want to have? Personally, the more freedom the better. Ive gone on and on in other threads about how the government sucks, no matter which party is running it. In terms of this case specifically, all that is really gained is a self-inflicted pat on the back. Some fat ass wants a large sugary drink that, if habitual, may or may not give him diabetes later on. Honestly, who gives a fuck? Let him be happy and have his soda. It literally affects only him. Now I guess the argument can be made that if we have socialized medicine, that were now all responsible for the unhealthy people who are going to cost the collective more money for his healthcare. This is just another argument against that colossally retarded policy. And if were going to play that game, the following should also be outlawed: -Tobacco -Alcohol -Anything with trans-fats, high fructose corn syrup, and sodium -Any drug anyone thinks should be legalized (yeah, im talking about weed) -Red meat -Butter And the list goes on until it encompasses any and every enjoyable vice. Does this sound like fun to anyone? I know this is neck deep in slippery slope territory (which I try to avoid), but in this case its perfectly relevant. The last thing we need is more and more oversight. I just dont like the idea that beyond whats absolutely necessary, the government deciding what I can and cant have. If I want to eat my fat ass into a sugar coma, then so be it. Europe and Canada can congratulate themselves into eternity for the systems they have, but in the US, personal freedom is paramount to everything else. TL;DR: Fuck the man.
The law doesn't restrict your ability to drink more than 16 oz of pop at once. It just stipulates that you need to buy more than one cup to do it in. Of course, if it were alcohol, few would argue that it were a restriction of freedom to limit the size of a bottle of liquor that could be sold in stores to a maximum of 60 oz.
See? This is just a ploy to get you to spend more money. It's the same thing when buying pitchers of beer; they won't sell it to you unless there is more than one person drinking. But they WILL sell you glass after glass at a higher price.
Anyone who thinks more government regulations on how YOU run your life or your children's lives needs to take a step back and really think about it. Freedom of choice in this country used to mean something but in today's world its slipping farther away with each stupid ass piece of legislation that gets passed. You want a 600 ounce cup of Coke? Then go buy one, it isn't the governments or anyone else's business what you do with YOUR life. What's next? Banning drive through windows at fast food joints with the idea that you can still get your 2000 calories for breakfast but only if you walk in? Wouldn't doubt that some fuckwad politican has already written the bill up. I feel like in 20 years all of us will still be having the same stupid argument about gay marriage and weed being legalized, two things that should have been taken care of years ago... but the government won't get off its ass because old religious fucks and big Pharma elect people who do their bidding. Fuck the government
As Penn Jillette so accurately put it, freedom means the right to be stupid. Hell, it even means the right to do harmful things to yourself without government stopping you. I value that freedom much higher than a nanny government telling me what's best for me. For full disclosure, I'm also in favor of abortions, gay marriage, legalized marijuana (legalized coke would also be fine by me), and anything else that constitutes greater personal freedom without significantly impacting everyone else. Ultimately, a few people above me have hit upon the truth. It's all a scam for the government to reach its hands into its citizens' pockets and extract more money by forcing them to buy two sodas instead of one.
Why subsidize anything at all? Let's see what an equal playing field does before we try tipping the balance in either direction.
It's not government's business to tell us what to eat, how to eat, or in what quantity. If you think different, you are anti-American. It is, however, the government's business to make sure the companies supplying us food aren't selling us products that are only ostensibly labeled as "food." Corn by-products, ammonia treated meat, pink slime, sugar substitutes, you get the idea. I'm sure I'm missing several products disastrous to our health that are being passed off as edible in the past couple decades all in the name of profit. These business practices *are* anti-American. That is the government's business. Ensure our health by restricting companies from selling their own people down the river while flat out lying about its nutritional value through overt marketing, most of which is directed at kids. If not restricting, then proscribing any kind of clever labeling that would divert from the substance's contents and/or manufacturing process. Related, can anyone tell me why there is a lobby for companies making multiple BILLIONS in revenue? We, the consumer and the American, get DP'd by these scumbags while our elected officials film it. Fantastic.
Subsidizing corn is a joke and terrible idea, the best article I have read on the subject. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2011/06/07/ethanol-subsidies-dumping-corn-in-the-ocean-would-be-a-better-idea/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller ... tter-idea/</a>
This will never have the intended effect, because the government is serving two masters. On the one hand, most government money comes from lobbyists and big corporations, so realistically speaking they're never going to legislate away things that are inherently unhealthy *cough*corn subsidies*cough*. The lobbyists and bought politicians will never let that happen. On the other hand, governments are meant to serve the people. So they must give the illusion that they are encouraging health. They do this by coming up with some stupid program like this that is in effect a tax on the poor for the gain of the wealthy. As people have said: if you want more than 16oz of Coke (WTF?), you'll just wind up buying two sixteen ounce cups, rather than one 20oz. Obesity and poor health is such a complex issue. It disproportionately affects vulnerable communities (the poor, the working poor, minorities, single mothers), because of a host of reasons. Lack of family funds to feed healthfully; lack of affordable programs for kids (so no exercise); lack of infrastructure to support a healthy lifestyle (no parks, no greenspace for play, etc.). Add to that the shocking number of poor, inner-city families that live in food deserts. How can you encourage people to "buy healthy", when they don't have access to a car and the only 'grocery' store is a bodega that sells cheap, sugar-soaked, preserved, pre-packaged foods? In principle, I agree that the government should encourage health. This will not do it. It will tax the poor, it will have unforeseen side effects (like increasing obesity when people buy that second pop), and it will give an already bloated government more power, passing the cost off to the tax payers. TL;DR: the government never legislated a single problem away. This will make things worse.
Before people jump all over my ass, let me start by saying that I'm a farmer. I grow corn and soybeans. I also eat a mostly non-organic (gasp!) paleo diet. It doesn't really make any difference whether they subsidize corn or not. If they take away corn subsidies, farmers are still going to grow it as long it makes the biggest return on their dollar. Which it will, as long as we keep exporting it to feed the world and shoving it in our own fat faces. As far as ethanol goes, there are a lot of shitty statistics out there. Also what people fail to realize is that ethanol isn't supposed to be the answer, but a step in the right direction. I'll sell my corn to the highest bidder, whether it's Cargill or an ethanol plant. I really don't give a shit. Don't eat corn products if you don't like it, and buy premium if you really need to be a twat about it.
I don't mean this question to be at all confrontational, I'm actually curious what people's thoughts are: You yourself know how much effort and education it takes to eat Paleo. You have to know how to read food labels, cook home cooked food, censor what you buy and have mental/financial discipline. On the surface, it's easy: eat only fresh real food. However, if for the last five generations you and your family have relied on processed, shelf food you wouldn't have any frame of reference to start from. Corn is fucking insidious. It's in everything. Is it realistic to ask all of America or Canada or wherever to "just not eat it," if it's been put in almost every product? If your population base is people who placidly eat what's sold off shelves and assumes the government is protecting them, is it not counter-intuitive to think that those same people are capable of turning it around without a massive movement of education and funding? I certainly don't think government legislation on pop will turn the trick; I just don't know if blaming people for not restricting their diets is the answer, either. The deck is stacked against them.
Focus: I'm pretty much never in favor of bans, but I do think a reasonable regulation to ensure that consumers have adequate choice would be a decent thing from a public health perspective. Something like: Any vendor that sells soda must offer, as an option, a size no larger than 12 oz that is priced on a pro rata basis relative to other sizes of the same soda.
That's a tough one, and I don't think there's an easy answer. People tend to call bullshit on you when you tell them that one of the worlds main food products, something that humans have been eating for at least 10,000 years, is bad for you. Especially when you're brought up to think otherwise. I still eat sweet corn, though. That shit is delicious.
To be clear I think the over-taxation and regulation of booze and tobacco infringes on freedom as well and it's shit like that which led us down a path where some people aren't shocked and appalled at a law like this. And like I said before this doesn't affect me, I don't drink soda, but how much more are they going to take away? I understand non-Americans have the "government is your friend" mentality, but as you can see in this thread many of us still believe personal freedom is paramount. I won't dispute that this could have a positive outcome for some people. I doubt most people will go back for seconds or get a second cup, I think most people opt for larges because there's barely a difference in price between those and the size below. But it's the principle of the matter, I mean think about it, some forty year old man at the movies that wants a big soda isn't allowed to have it because some guy behind a desk thinks it's bad for him.
This issue could be solved much more neatly by eliminating all the obese people. Then us skinny people could have all the soda we want, without shouldering the healthcare costs of the obese.