nosh nook #83 - wednesday, july 8, 2009

USDA to oversee school snack food: senate ag chair (link)
07.07.09 - reuters - by roberta rampton/walter bagley

this just in: there's no need to worry. the government cares about you. they want to make sure that you're safe & healthy and if that requires a whole bunch of regulation, so be it. this is especially true when it comes to food & your diet. it's a good thing, because we all know that we can't be trusted to eat healthy. a few weeks back, california became the first state to require restaurants to post calorie counts on their menus, following regulation established here in nyc a few years back. every day, it seems like there's another politician with another brilliant legislative plan that'll save our nation's children from the obesity epidemic.

the government will begin dealing with school lunch legislation as early as summer's end & as reuters reports, iowa's tom harkin, the new chairman of the USDA, is a politician, so he has an obesity-combatting plan too--regulate school vending machines. brilliant! the USDA already "oversees the contents of school lunches and bars the sale of foods with minimal nutritional value," but their reach doesn't cover vending machines, so back in april, harkin introduced a bill that would extend regulation to include the evil snack dispenseries.

kevin concannon, obama's nominee for head of the USDA's food & nutrition programs, wants to work with harkin to change americans' deplorable eating habits. he's run "food stamp and public nutrition programs in iowa, maine and oregon during his career," so he should know what's best for the other forty-seven states. still, as much as he wants to regulate & improve our children's eating habits, "he's seen 'pushback' from schools that count on revenue from vending machines to pay for student activities." that's why we need vending machine legislation. without it, schools won't know what's good for them & if schools don't know what's good for them & the government is helpless to do anything about it, MeMe roth will only get louder...& we don't want that. won't someone please think of the children?