Thursday, April 29, 2010

Stop taxing / banning foods please?

As you can see from my short blog history, I am not normally one that goes into a rant about some political topic or another. In fact, you probably find me more knowledgeable about Kate & Jon Gosselin or Jesse James / Sandra Bullock’s divorce than topics in the political arena.

However now and then, certain things do break in my “Ignorance is bliss” aura such as the article that prompted this posting:

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/south_bay&id=7408403

Seriously? How on earth is the fact that the little toys being banned from certain kids meals going to stop me (or any other parent) from buying that meal for my kid (our children)? You are basically stopping the kid from getting a toy. The parents are still going to buy the food… it’s fast, it’s cheap, and let’s face it… for the most part… it is yummy. Don’t the politicians have better issues to spend their time and energy on? If not, I just might move to that particular county for I am sure it will be positively heavenly if this is the only issue affecting their citizens.

How about the proposed sugary beverage tax that my home state is dealing with? This is getting ridiculous! Personally, I stick to the diet sodas if I even find myself drinking something other than water. However, I would not think to make a “neighbor” to pay more because they like the non-diet soda. It is their choice if they want to drink that stuff. Where does it stop? Next, are they going to increase tax on white bread because wheat / whole grain is better for you?

If you want us to make better decisions about our food choices, just make sure that the information is readily available. For example, I personally like that the certain restaurants around here has the caloric information listed on their menus but how about the other information such as fat or fiber information. It doesn’t have to be on the menu but be available if a customer asks for it. Or, how about offering incentives to businesses to come up with healthier choices for their clientele... Or, help lower the costs of the healthier food in the stores such as fresh produce (without raising the cost of non healthy). Get the health information out there to the average citizen... such as the food pyramid or serving sizes… we learned that stuff back in high school health class. I, for one can tell you, had forgotten all about that information until I started with Weight Watchers a few years ago.

Give me the information and research… but don’t remove my right to choose!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm with you sweetie. Give me the info and let me choose...regrettably not everyone is as conscious as we try to be about what goes into our bodies so the govt. thinks dictation instead of education is the way to go.

Anonymous said...

I agree, the parents should choose. I think McD's and the restaurants that it will effect should give parents the option to turn anything on their menu into a kids meal so the parent can choose a salad or soup if they'd wish. As far as the calories on the menu thing, I think they made that a law, but I'm not sure if it's national or just NY....