NYC Board of Health has approved the controversial ban on sale of sugary drinks over 16 ounces. Despite objections (including on this blog) to the measure as the latest example of regulation for the Nanny State, the board passed the ban demanded by Mayor Bloomberg. The board insists that adults and parents cannot be trusted with such decisions and that health demands a ban. You absolutely, positively not order a large sugary drink . . . unless you put alcohol in it.
Ban applies fast-food joints, movie houses, Broadway theaters, workplace cafeterias and virtually everywhere you buy a soda. Of course, this merely means that Bloomberg is going to force you to buy multiple drinks like two eight ounce cups. Then again, you can get around this by adding booze which appears to make an unhealthy drink into a healthy beverage. Both alcoholic and milk-based drinks are exempt.
Moreover, if you derive less than 50% of their revenue from prepared foods — including 7-Eleven with its Big Gulp — can claim exemption. So you can fill up on sugary drinks next door as health inspectors crackdown on your restaurant.
The unanimous vote of this board shows how far we have gone toward the reduction of personal choices in various areas of life. I happen to agree with the board except for its view that it has the authority to make such decisions for people.
Honestly, if prohibition did not work for alcohol, it is likely to be even less successful for sodas. What is unclear is why Bloomberg is not also banning french fries, onion rings, and other unhealthy foods eaten in excessive quantities. How about requiring proof that a large stuffed pizza has no fewer than four persons willing to sign for it? I think people have a right to an unhealthy lifestyle. This is not like second-hand smoke that harms others. You can be around someone with a large soda and remain perfectly healthy.
The fact that there was not a single person on this board willing to vote with individual choice is perhaps the most alarming element of the story in my view.
What do you think?
Source: NY Post
Coka-Cola bottled in Mexico still uses the original recipe. The U.S. bottlers substitute corn sweetener instead. Why? Because it’s cheaper. Why is sugar more expensive in the U.S. than Mexico and the rest of the world?
Oooh OOOOOH, ooooooh oooooh, LOOK, hilarious “Parks and Recreation” show last night, about outlawing the purchase of big sugary drinks. Serious attention to both sides of the question, everybody’s rights, health issues, even hate speech. Plenty of clips of fat people. Very exciting. Catch a re-run or purchase the DVD or something, it really shows how our popular culture sinks its teeth into the important issues of the day. Wow. Damn, Gottalovitt.
shano 1, September 16, 2012 at 12:09 pm
Hey Matt, I can get a case of Mexican Cokes at Costco, in the old glass bottle.
Also at Angels Bar-b-Que in Savannah. Many people are cutting GMO corn based HFCS out of their diet , so I imagine this will become more and more available everywhere in the US.
=============================
You’re right, it has to be imported. I can get it here. I only buy diet Coke.
More in depth discussion of the Stanford study and who is behind it, interesting it is coming out with huge media attention right before the California petition to label GMOs coming up for a vote.
shano.
That is interesting reading about the “connections” of the Stanford study author to Monsanto!
Feemeister, you have to live in Florida? Sorry! Don’t go outdoors after dark! 🙁
Hey Matt, I can get a case of Mexican Cokes at Costco, in the old glass bottle.
Also at Angels Bar-b-Que in Savannah. Many people are cutting GMO corn based HFCS out of their diet , so I imagine this will become more and more available everywhere in the US.
shano 1, September 16, 2012 at 10:56 am
If you want real cane sugar with Coca-Cola, you’re going to have to go to a Mexican store to get it. The Coca-Cola in the U.S. uses corn syrup. The Coca-Cola imported from Mexico still uses the original recipe.
The original recipe uses sugar, it doesn’t use corn syrup. If you want the real Coca-Cola, you’re going to have to go to a Mexican ethnic food store to get it.
And Mitt Romneys Bain Capital is a big Monsanto cheerleader:
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/09/romney-monsanto-bain
” Romney and Bain played crucial roles in shaping Monsanto’s strategy of selling off big chunks of its legacy chemical businesses and reinventing itself as ag-biotech firm.
And one of those “higher muckety-mucks,” then-Monsanto CEO John W. Hanley, was so impressed with Romney’s work that he helped launch Bain Capital, the spin-off private-equity firm to which Romney owes his fortune, explicitly as a vehicle to keep Romney in the Bain fold, Barrett reports. Hanley even placed $1 million of his own cash in Bain Capital’s original investment fund.
There’s no mystery why Monsanto would want to distance itself from its old business lines. As we know from documents that have dribbled out from legal proceedings over the years, Monsanto had essentially been operating as a corporate criminal.”
Anyone surprised by this?
http://www.deathrattlesports.com/archives/8772/co-author-of-stanford-organic-study-has-family-ties-to-pesticide-gmo-giant-monsanto/
The trials for GMO wheat are not going well in Australia- it causes liver failure and death: http://www.naturalnews.com/037170_GM_wheat_liver_failure_GMO.html
I’ll have a grass fed burger, some sweet potato fries and a Mexican Coke with real cane sugar, please.
I’ll have a burger and fries and two 10 ounce Cokes, please.
i find it hard to get too worked up about nyc regulating the size of soft drinks. i’ve lived in too many areas that regulate alcohol sales based on nothing more than the day of the week.
And the REALLY good news is we are about to be blessed with GMO rice and wheat. YUM!!! Monsanto refuses to test anything, because they say it’s not necessary. If the stuff is so great, I don’t see what the problem is with labeling it.
I have been trying to find out if that company (Oxitec, was it?) ever dropped those modified mosquitoes over Key West back at the end of July, like they said they were going to (with FDA sanction). I wrote the governor asking him to get it stopped, and he told me that he didn’t get involved with communities like that, that they handle their own stuff. Key West had nixed it, but the company went to the FDA and got the okay and was going to do it anyway. And calling something like MOSQUITOES a small community problem sounded insane to me. SURE! We know they won’t go anywhere except where they’re let lose, don’t we! Sheeeeeeesh! So if it has happened, the whole state of Florida is going to be guinea pigs for this. (I know ya’ll don’t like Florida, but some of us have to live here!)
Bravo, this rather good phrase is necessary just by the way
P.S. Please review our icons for Windows and windows13icons.
rafflaw,
what would one expect from Donald Rumsfeld? He is a big investor in Aspertame- it made him rich rich rich- and he fast tracked this ‘artificial ‘sweetener’ for approval against FDA scientists opinions.
It is a neuro toxin.
Here is the real problem with our food. This modern day soda is made with GMO corn. This documentary movie is free to watch for a limited time, and covers all the science about GMOs and how harmful they are to mammals, including humans- the political and economic costs of those who publish their scientific research revealing problems with GMOs:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/09/15/genetic-roulette-gmo-documentary.aspx?e_cid=20120915_DNL_artNew_1
rafflaw, diet stuff is lots worse than sugar (which is bad enough, but not in the class with the diets). It increases your appetite, raises your chance for developing diabetes, in addition to all it’s horrible side effects.
I once drank several diet cokes a day, and was having small seizures everyday from it. They were like tiny 2-3 second blackouts. My doctor told me it was ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER! That I developed in my late 30s (these PEOPLE)!!! I knew that wasn’t right. I stopped drinking the diet drinks for some reason I can’t remember, a few weeks later, and noticed after a few days that the tiny seizures had stopped. Never drank another diet drink after that, and never had that happen again (that was in 1994).
Later tried Splenda. It was DELICIOUS! Ate kind of a lot of that, and my eyes started giving me fits, and I was afraid I was going to scratch them out. So that did it for Splenda. Never tried saccharin, because I knew it causes cancer.
Stevia is the only sweetener that I haven’t found anything bad about.
The worst part about all this is that they are now loading down stuff for kids with the Aspartame. So this country is now arresting parents for letting their children play outside*, but it’s fine and dandy to give them poison to eat and drink (encouraged no less).
* http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/09/07/50051.htm
SwarthmoreMom, do you have any examples of Obama doing anything to stop Monsanto at what they’re doing in any way? Because it looks to me like he’s a big Monsanto man himself, because I haven’t seen him getting in their way at all. But I could be wrong, so if you know of anything he’s tried to do to stop all their crap, please let me know. And I didn’t know Romney was one of their schills. Thanks for that info!