Free Republic

The first clue that Gwyneth Paltrow didn’t know what she was talking about on Capitol Hill earlier this month came with the first words she spoke: “I’m here as a mother.” Apparently, the actress thinks that any mom can show up in Washington and hold a press conference that attracts lawmakers and the media. Memo to Ms. Paltrow: The rest of us moms don’t have that celebrity power. We haven’t won Oscar awards, assumed glamorous roles in the “Iron Man” movies, or married (let alone divorced) rock stars. But Ms. Paltrow has done all of these things so, of course,...

(CNSNews.com) - When asked if marijuana-infused food products should require federal labeling, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said consumers want accurate information “to make smart choices”. Currently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn’t enforce federal food safety standards on marijuana-infused food products that are available in the few states where marijuana has been legalized.During a conference call with lawmakers on FDA food labeling on Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked: “Given that the FDA currently doesn’t enforce any federal food safety standards on marijuana-infused foods and with a lot of states obviously changing their marijuana laws  -do you think they should require nutritional...

(CNSNews.com) – In a bipartisan bill opposing an expansion of food labeling requirements in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, 10 Republicans and four Democrats have signed onto legislation to restrict the Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to include regulation of convenient stores and take-out food outlets.The bill’s sponsors cited Section 4205 of the healthcare law, or Obamacare, that is entitled “Nutritional Labeling of Standard Menu Items at Chain Restaurants.” The regulation requires restaurants with more than 20 establishments to provide nutritional information about its offerings.The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), called the requirements “unworkable” for places...

Diners will have to wait a little longer to find calorie counts on most restaurant chain menus, in supermarkets and on vending machines. Writing a new menu labeling law "has gotten extremely thorny," says the head of the Food and Drug Administration, as the agency tries to figure out who should be covered by it. The 2010 health care law charged the FDA with requiring restaurants and other establishments that serve food to put calorie counts on menus and in vending machines.

ObamaCare’s benevolent promise to help control and curtail healthcare-related costs is already going magnificently bust; why not just extend the consequences of heightened compliance costs and pricey taxes to an entirely other but equally indispensable economic sector while they’re at it, right? As the Federal Drug Administration so munificently explains, part of ObamaCare’s overall purpose is to help provide Americans with all of the tools they need to lead healthier lives (with a universal healthcare system that requires society to absorb the costs of individuals’ daily health-related decisions, what choice do they have but to butt into those decisions?) —...

Can improved labeling on food products help consumers make healthier choices? A new study by the Food and Drug Administration shows that it can. The FDA is in the process of updating the 20-year-old nutrition facts label that appears on all food and beverage products in the U.S. The organization’s researchers believe that improved labels may assist consumers in making healthier decisions about the food they buy. The FDA commissioned the study as part of the action plan for its Obesity Working Group. The researchers' goal was to determine whether modifying the key elements of the nutrition facts label might...

The next time you shop at the grocery store, you may see something new– nutrition labels on meat. The same types of labels you already find on other foods. In 1993, the U.S. Department of Agriculture made nutrition labeling voluntary for many types of raw meats. The labeling becomes mandatory on Thursday. The new rule affects all ground meat and poultry and 40 of the most popular cuts of meat in the United States such as chicken breasts, steaks, pork chops, roasts, lamb and veal. If the nutrition facts are not on the package, as in the case of some...

According to a new report by the Institute for Medicine, the proposed “symbol system should show calories in household servings on all products.” The report goes on to recommend that “[f]oods and beverages should be evaluated using a point system for saturated and trans fats and sodium, and added sugars.” It concludes that “healthier” foods would have a higher number of points than less healthy products. The report compares the healthy-symbol plan to the EPA’s “EnergyStar” label, which dates to the early 1990s and is supposed to prod consumers to buy energy-efficient appliances and electronic devices. Although generally ignored by...

Telling consumers where their meat, fruit and vegetables came from seemed such a good idea to U.S. ranchers and farmers in competition with imports that Congress two years ago ordered the food industry to do it. But meatpackers and food processors fought the law from the start, and newly emboldened Republicans now plan to repeal it before Thanksgiving. As part of the 2002 farm bill, country-of-origin labeling was supposed to have gone into effect this fall. Congress last year postponed it until 2006. Now, House Republicans are trying to wipe it off the books as part of a spending bill...

When you see the American Heart Association's "heart healthy" label, you have some additional, helpful information about the product you're buying. That seems simple and obvious. But European bureaucrats have decided that their subjects are too stupid to handle such information. New rules governing food labels in Europe, would "put an end to endorsements by doctors or other health experts, because they might suggest that not eating the specified food could lead to health problems" (emphasis ours). Thankfully, the U.S. is going in the opposite direction. The FDA will allow "qualified health claims" on more products -- a move that,...