That's why it's important to have the best weapons at your disposal.
It has also been said that an army travels on its stomach. This goes back to the days of Napoleon who may or may not have coined the phrase but definitely knew the value of a good meal. That should not be surprising considering he was French and had brandy and a delicious dessert named after him.
We especially love to try new and exciting foods. And we will generally go out of our way to find and taste test a new product. That is why companies like KFC introduce things like the immensely gross 'Double Down.'
This delightful conglomerate of sodium (1380 mg); fat (32 g!!); and calories (540) is touted as, "so meaty there's no room for the bun."
Eat a couple of those with a large cola and fries and be proud to have consumed your minimum yearly requirement of yecch!
So finally we come to grips with our latest enemy; food.
This enemy is insidious.
It hides in our cupboards at home.
On the streets its enticing aromas waft our way wooing us to our doom.
The enemy is fast and it delivers, guaranteed.
The flesh is weak so we need our generals to be strong for us. We must not not always eat the meat we meet. We need new armor to help us fight back the urge to splurge. Our figures are at stake. We must draw the line at our waist and not let it go to waste.
That is why our government has started to root out the enemy and not a moment too soon.
Last year on Long Island the Democrats finally passed into law a simple yet effective way to spot the enemy. They ruled that fast food restaurants must post the nutritional value, or non-value, of their product.
Armed with knowledge an unsuspecting customer could finally decide what his poison was, literally.
But alas the enemy has allies. These friends of our foes are known as Republicans and they took control of the Nassau County legislature early this year. They immediately went after and repealed only one Democratic edict; this one.
Stating that the new Democratic law will only be in conflict with a newer Federal law that will take place some time in the future they felt is was better to allow the enemy free reign until then.
The repeal of the nutritional value edict was most likely applauded in board rooms and health insurance agencies across the island. One may assume funeral homes were not too upset either.
Thanks Nassau County GOP for saving us from all the guilt and angst we would have felt had we known how bad our food was.
We have met the enemy and we have eaten it!
2 comments:
For a person that teaches a public health course, this of course merits attention. It boils around to the cost of deviations from the public good. However, it must be considered with other measures that we as the public are burdened with because, as you say, the flesh is weak. We are not allowed to restrain dementia patients, and then watch them fall out of bed and break their hips, and then we pay 50K to try to fix them. We have alcohol and tobacco taxes, but should we also have Big Mac, Starbucks (double caffeine raises BP 15 points in many individuals), Red Bull, soda, Double Down, Dunkin Donuts, etc. Should we tax the earth mothers that don't believe in vaccinations? The burden of preventable non eradication of disease is enormous. My two uncles died of polio, maybe their son would have beaten Bush in 2000 if they had lived. Earth Mother Tax? How about the Esplinade (sic) tax. My car gets 30 miles per gallon and that ridiculous thing gets 10. We know what is best for everyone, don't we. How about retroactive checking of people who are sick, to see if their lifestyle was sufficiently preventative. If we have pictures of them in KFC five years ago, we charge them more.
KC
Well said (spelling doesn't count.)
My problem with this particular point of legislative dementia is the law, that was already in place was not a restrictive one but rather an information tool.
To repeal it took an effort and it took time and thought. All three of those could have and should have been put to better use even though as we all know the county legislature is useless.
Every problem you and others list must be looked at individually to see how they may be handled and we will as humans err from time to time. My hope is that our errors lean toward humanity more than corporations once in a while.
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