Free Republic

So, what I’m hearing is, it’s pretty much the same as the old agenda, except perhaps ramped up another nanny-state notch. In a yet another classic case of an inefficient, meddlesome bureaucracy attacking the symptoms instead of the disease (and causing a whole host of costs, inefficiencies, and waste in the process), the federal government via First Lady Michelle Obama has made it their business to “solve the problem of obesity within a generation.” In an audacious display of utter disdain for free-market signals, part of this effort includes nineteen separate government programs that aim to eliminate “food deserts” —...

Asked by Parade magazine, "What do you hope to accomplish in your second term?” First Lady Michelle Obama said she wants to "impact the nature of food in grocery stores" with the aim of cutting sugar, fat and salt. “With 'Lets Move!,' our goal is to end the problem of childhood obesity in a generation,” Mrs. Obama said. “And while we’ve seen some very profound cultural shifts, we still have communities that don’t have access to affordable and healthy foods. We still need to find a way to impact the nature of food in grocery stores, in terms of sugar,...

New York’s attorney general is investigating whether the multibillion-dollar energy-drink industry is deceiving consumers with misstatements about the ingredients and health value of its products.

School Bans Coca-Cola at Football Games Posted in Top Stories | 22 comments School Bans Coca-Cola at Football Games Aug 20, 2012 By Todd Starnes Attention high school football fans in Maine: B.Y.O.C. – Bring your own Coke. The Portland Public School system will no longer allow soft drinks to be sold on school property – including at high school football games. School officials are also banning the sale of gridiron staples like buttered popcorn and potato chips. Instead, football fans will be encouraged to nosh on baked tortilla chips, reduced fat string cheese and hummus. The total ban on...

Milk and lemonade may seem like the staples of youthful innocence, but on Saturday a group of activists hope to turn them into the tools of protests when they take to the Capitol to demand the government stop interfering in sales of fresh milk and stop shutting down kids’ lemonade stands. The Raw Milk freedom Riders and Lemonade Freedom Day, two separate groups that each want the government out of their transactions, are unifying their voices, saying that together they can drive home a message that the government should butt out. “This issue is not just about raw milk and...

A past Washington Legal Foundation Legal Pulse post commented on the class action litigation exploits of California consumer Skye Astiana and her efforts to save Americans from “unnatural” products. One of the cases in which Ms. Astiana is a lead plaintiff, Astiana v. Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, survived a motion to dismiss recently, a development which underscores the havoc such lawsuit-by-lawsuit regulation can wreak on food packaging and marketing. The judge who authored the Astiana ruling sits on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, or as we’d like to call it, The Food Court.*

President Barack Obama, in an Iowa radio interview broadcast Wednesday, tried to set the record straight on his wife's ribbing of Gabby Douglas for eating McDonalds after her gold medal win. First lady Michelle Obama teased the Olympian during an appearance on Jay Leno on Monday, but the president said Douglas was not her target. "You know, the truth is the first lady was teasing Jay Leno, not Gabby, because Gabby can afford anything because she’s so fit," Obama said in an interview

"Since when does serving up junk food give someone a license to preach?" carped Petula Dvorak as she opened her August 14 piece, "Now featuring filet o' fracas."* Gee, I dunno, Petula, maybe 1791, when the First Amendment -- you know, that pesky little document that guarantees freedom of speech and religion among other things -- was ratified. "We've got the Papa John's pizza guys weighing in on the health-care debate, while the burger slingers out West at In-N-Out can't serve up a cheeseburger without a Bible verse," Dvorak carped. Later in her Metro section column, she essentially compared the...

JAY LENO, HOST: You trained your whole life, you win. How did you celebrate? What did you do? GABBY DOUGLAS: We didn't have time to celebrate. It was team finals and had to turn the page all-around finals and event finals after that. But, after the competition, I splurged on an Egg McMuffin at McDonald’s. LENO: Egg McMuffin. [Laughter] MICHELLE OBAMA: Yeah, Gabby, we don't, don't encourage him. [Laughter] I'm sure it was on… DOUGLAS: A salad. OBAMA: a whole wheat McMuffin. LENO: It was on a whole wheat bun. OBAMA: Yeah. LENO: So an Egg McMuffin. Very good. [Light...

Obesity provides a potentially informative signal about individuals' choices and preferences. Using NLSY survey data, we estimate that the loan delinquency rate among the obese is 20 percent higher than among the non-obese after controlling for numerous observable, prohibited, and - to lenders - unobservable credit risk factors. The economic significance of obesity for delinquencies is comparable to that of job displacements. Obesity is particularly informative about future delinquencies among those with low credit risk. In terms of channels, we find that the obesity effect is at least partially mediated through poor health, but is not attributable to individuals' time...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: "USDA Newsletter Encourages Employees Not to Eat Meat." This story has been unearthed by Caroline May at the Daily Caller. And, you know, she deserves a shout-out. Caroline May at the Daily Caller seems to be making a career out of exposing the information being put out on the USDA website. Caroline May is the reporter who broke all the stories about the USDA's various campaigns to enroll more people in food stamps. She's the one that found that. And in this report today, she tells us that the USDA has been telling its employees via their...

(Updated) The war on milk has shifted fronts. First it was sugar-laden chocolate milk, which parents and school administrators battled in recent years to remove from school-lunch menus. Now, it’s plain old moo that’s under fire. On Thursday, a national doctors group petitioned the U.S. government to remove milk as a required food group from the National School Lunch Program, the federally assisted program that has provided lunch to millions of public school kids since 1946. The doctors’ reasoning: milk doesn’t help protect kids’ bones. The promotion of milk to help build strong bones in kids is, “in effect, the...

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said on Wednesday that Congress ought to look at imposing a federal tax on soda pop. “We have to address the situation in the marketplace," DeLauro said at a press conference on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. "Right now, the least expensive beverages are often those with the least value to our health like regular cola or juice drinks that are only 10 percent juice. “But I will tell you that if you’re paying $3.49 for juice and 79 cents for soda, if you are in a low-income family and you have...

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg loves us. He wants us to be healthy. So he’s taken it upon himself to pass laws to stop people from eating too much salt, trans fats, and big sugary drinks. He believes these new laws will make a difference. Of course, they might, but so will passing a law that requires everybody to eat only 1800 calories per day. When Mayor Bloomberg gets a hold of the new exercise study, there’s no telling what new laws will be passed. According to the medical journal The Lancelot, “a third of the world’s adults are physically...

The list of clever end runs around California's recent ban on the sale of foie gras continues to grow. First it was the restaurant that claimed exemption from the law because it's in a national park. Now comes an eatery that says the ban doesn't stop a business from giving foie gras away to customers. The owner of Chez TJ in Mountain View, CA, says he hasn't bought any new foie gras since the ban went in to effect on July 1, but that he did stockpile it in advance of that date so that he could later include it...

‘Million Big Gulp March’ Takes Aim At Bloomberg’s Proposed Big Drink Ban July 9, 2012 11:14 AM NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A rally will be held Monday against Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban on super-sized sugary drinks. About 1,000 protesters chanting “Drink Free Or Die” are expected to take part in the “Million Big Gulp March” in City Hall Park at 4:30 p.m. Monday. Business owners, local politicians and others against the proposed ban are all expected to take part, according to NYC Liberty HQ spokesman Zach Huff. “The ‘Million Big Gulp March’ is about more than just the size...

Obama, on ice cream run, orders hot fudge sundae and offers to treat shop patronsBy Alicia M. Cohn - 06/25/12 04:36 PM ET President Obama made an ice cream run to a local shop in New Hampshire on Monday between campaign stops, recording a birthday greeting and offering to treat patrons to sweet treats. The president ordered a hot fudge sundae for himself and a banana split for White House press secretary Jay Carney, according to press pool reports. He also teased that Carney has a serious sweet tooth. "You guys are going to witness him eating the whole thing,”...

Unionized cafeteria workers in one western Pennsylvania school district have won the right to eat expired food for free - at their own risk. The Herald of Sharon, Pa., reports Monday (http://bit.ly/LDdM6d ) that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees filed a grievance against the Sharpsville Area School District last year after school officials "violated established past practice" by no longer allowing workers to eat the expired food for free. SNIP Under the agreement, food items that are past their expiration date or reheated in a way that they can no longer be served to students may...

First lady Michelle Obama tells the Associated Press that she wouldn't want a federal ban on big sugary drink, but applauds Mayor Michael Bloomberg's effort to fight obesity: Asked about Bloomberg's proposal during an interview with The Associated Press, Mrs. Obama said there's no "one-size-fits-all" solution for the country's health challenges. But she said, "We applaud anyone who's stepping up to think about what changes work in their communities. New York is one example." And asked whether the nation's obesity epidemic warrants taking a more aggressive approach, such as Bloomberg's, she said: "There are people like Mayor Bloomberg who are,...