[Osx-nutters] *Big* government

[Hex Star]

On 8/29/07, David P. Henderson <dp.chaoswerks at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 29 Aug 2007, at 01:59, Hex Star wrote:
>
> > Yes the government should:
> >
> > 1) Outlaw all Wendy's, Burger King's, McDonald's, etc
> >
> Wrong. This is a matter for education not legislation.


But how can the right message be spread to kids when these corporations have
such a high ad budget? They constantly have ads on kid tv channels targeted
directly at kids. Due to the high ad budget while kids may get the positive
message from one source that message is soon overridden by the huge barrage
of ads kids are given by these corporations.


> 2) Outlaw use of sweeteners such as corn syrup as well as
> > artificial ones such as aspartame
> >
> Corn syrup is everywhere because Congress heavily subsidizes the
> production of corn


Then the Congress should stop that.


> 3) Outlaw use of artificial ingredients as a whole
> >
> Based on what? Arsenic is natural; should we consume it?


Based on the current classification of artificial ingredients. They should
all be replaced by natural edible alternatives.


> 4) Outlaw labeling ingredients as "natural ingredients" when they
> > more then likely are anything but
> >
> If you have such a product, prove your case and sue the manufacturer
> for false labelling.


The FDA currently allows food companies to list ingredients in their food
that may be trade secret as "natural ingredients" regardless of what the
ingredients actually are. I think this is outrageous, at the very least they
should be required to change it to artificial ingredients when the
ingredients are such or include in the ingredient statement "natural and
artificial ingredients" with percentage bit next to it that specifies the
percent natural and percent artificial as such (%n,%a) so that we truly know
how "natural" those ingredients are. This can easily be seen on a large
variety of food products, take Bryer's Ice Cream for example. They claim to
be all natural yet with the mint chocolate chip flavor ice cream there is no
mint listed in the ingredients, but there is "natural ingredients"
suggesting that they may be using a chemical substitute for the mint flavor
which is not actually natural at all. The FDA currently allows this however
and I think this is just wrong and must be changed....


> 5) Require companies to either use the common name of a substance
> > instead of its scientific in ingredients labels or if that's not
> > possible, to explain what the substance is next to the substance in
> > parenthesis
> >
> Yes, the solution is to make the text of the label microscopic;
> therefore, even less readable.


In addition to #5 there should be a regulation on the ingredients label font
size to ensure that it is reasonably readable based on the size of the food
container and the contents printed on the container.


> 6) Require meat packages to contain a ingredients label detailing
> > the various meat substances contained within (especially important
> > for mystery meats such as sausage and bologna)
> >
> The only goal I can see here is to gross buyers out to keep them from
> buying the product, but many people already know what goes into these
> meat products and they still buy them.


The goal here is to let people know what they are eating. People deserve to
know that their favorite chicken nuggets are actually made from chicken
scraps left over from a processed chicken in a slaughter house. We deserve
to know what processed ingredients are in our meat, I may have eaten meat
made from scraps by accident but I'd rather avoid doing that, if there were
ingredients labels specifying which meats were made of scraps I could easily
avoid them and make wiser and healthier choices by choosing real whole meat
products instead of processed ones.


Someone mentioned that we cannot stop the above because it is our "culture",
but is it not this culture that leads to the US having the most obese
people? Isn't it time to take drastic actions to stop people from eating
foods that may appear to be healthy but actually aren't? Why are we allowing
companies to continue to use aspartame in food products when it is known to
have a long list of harmful and potentially deadly side effects? Why are we
letting food corporations get away with putting potentially harmful
ingredients in our food? Most concerning, why are we OK with this going on?
How is it acceptable that we knowingly destroy our own bodies?

WE NEED TO KNOW WHAT THE ... WE ARE EATING AND FOOD CORPS NEED TO STOP BEING
PERMITTED TO USE HARMFUL INGREDIENTS!
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