Obamunist Bureauweenies Crack Down on Food

In the name of childhood obesity hysteria, the Obama Regime is tightening its control of what we eat:

Tony the Tiger, some NASCAR drivers and cookie-selling Girl Scouts will be out of a job unless grocery manufacturers agree to reinvent a vast array of their products to satisfy the Obama administration’s food police.

Either retool the recipes to contain certain levels of sugar, sodium and fats, or no more advertising and marketing to tots and teenagers, say several federal regulatory agencies.

The same goes for restaurants.

It’s not just the usual suspected foods that are being targeted, such a thin mint cookies sold by scouts or M&Ms and Snickers, which sponsor cars in the Sprint Cup, but pretty much everything on a restaurant menu.

Although the intent of the guidelines is to combat childhood obesity, foods that are low in calories, fat, and some considered healthy foods, are also targets, including hot breakfast cereals such as oatmeal, pretzels, popcorn, nuts, yogurt, wheat bread, bagels, diet drinks, fruit juice, tea, bottled water, milk and sherbet.

Presumably the authorities will still let kids eat Frosted Flakes, so long as they are made out of bean curd and arugula.

Like literally everything imposed by the Obama Regime, this will have a broad negative effect on employment.

It’s not just the food industry that will be impacted. Hundreds of television shows that depend on the advertising revenue, such as the Nickelodeon Channel, ESPN, and programs including “American Idol” will be affected, critics of the proposal say — at a cost of $5.8 trillion in marketing expenditures that support up to 20 million American jobs.

What do we get in exchange for the lost jobs and/or having to eat tasteless, unsatisfying food? Nothing; the regulations aren’t even rational.

“The most disturbing aspect of this interagency working group is, after it imposes multibillions of dollars in restrictions on the food industry, there is no evidence of any impact on the scourge of childhood obesity,” said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers. …

Beth Johnson, a dietician for Food Directions in Maryland, said many of the foods targeted in this proposal are the same foods approved by the federal government for the WIC nutrition program for women, infants and children.

“This doesn’t make any sense whatsoever,” Johnson said. “It’s not going to do anything to help with obesity. These are decisions I want to make for my kids. These should not be government decisions.”

But the whole point is that according to the liberals who rule us, absolutely everything should be a government decision.

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Hopefully his experience with frosted flakes will allow Tony the Tiger to find new work.

On tips from J and Byron. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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