Free Republic

Are kids' school lunches safe? A new report from the advocacy group Mercury Policy Project finds tuna served as school lunches in some states may contain levels of mercury that the organization deems toxic. Mercury is a naturally occurring neurotoxin in the environment that can be released into the air through industrial pollution. It builds up in water and streams and turns into methylmercury, a compound which is then absorbed by fish as they feed. The report, called "Tuna Surprise" is the first to test canned tuna sold to schools, according to its authors. "Most children are already consuming only...

As one of the country’s largest health-insurance companies, Humana regularly has a say in where its members seek care. Now it wants sway over what groceries they buy. Humana announced a new partnership with Wal-Mart on Wednesday that will give the more than 1 million members of its wellness program, HumanaVitality, a 5 percent discount on healthy groceries. The program, which will launch Oct. 15, is meant to steer customers toward healthier food choices and potentially push down health-care costs — while driving people into Wal-Mart stores. The unusual partnership between a major insurer and major retailer speaks to insurers’...

Legal challenges to New York City's ban on sodas larger than 16 ounces are unlikely to be successful, and the ban could spark similar moves in other cities around the country, according to experts. Thursday, after the city's board of health formally prohibited restaurants from selling sodas larger than 16 ounces after March 12, 2013, organizations around New York City said they would consider suing the city to get the ban overturned. Laura Palantone, a spokesperson for New York City Beverage Choices, a group against the ban, says the organization will "carefully review the regulation and explore our options now...

ROTTERDAM, N.Y. (AP) — One student complains because his cafeteria no longer serves chicken nuggets. Another gripes that her school lunch just isn't filling. A third student says he's happy to eat an extra apple with his lunch, even as he's noshing on his own sub. Leaner, greener school lunches served under new federal standards are getting mixed grades from students piling more carrots, more apples and fewer fatty foods on their trays.

Sodas are about to get a lot smaller in New York City as Bloomberg's soda ban was officially approved. Several businesses will not be allowed to sell sugary beverages over 16 oz soon. On Thursday,New York City's Board of Health approved Mayor Michael Bloomber's plan to ban large sugary drinks. The proposal was approved in a 8-0 vote. One member, Dr. Sixto Caro abstained from voting. The unprecedented regulation, which was proposed in the spring, will apply to all restaurants, fast-food joints, delis, movie theaters, Broadway theaters, workplace cafeterias, sports stadium and food carts. All of these businesses will not...

In his gut, Kurt Myers knows when a student arrives at school on an empty stomach. He can see it on a cold Monday morning in the coat that remains zipped and the hat that stays pulled down, in the rush to eat school breakfast as if it's the student's first meal in days. And in the Reading School District, where 92 percent of students received free or reduced-price meals in 2011-12, Myers knows it doesn't take a food services director such as himself to realize that "when a student looks like he hasn't eaten all weekend, he probably hasn't...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Obama just said somewhere that he's going to get all misty watching Mrs. Obama tonight and that he doesn't want his daughters to see him cry. He's going to get all misty, which reminds me of a Clint Eastwood movie "Play Misty for Me." It was about the killer groupie. Eastwood was a disk jockey in Carmel, California. Jessica Walter played the groupie who tried to kill Eastwood. And Obama now says he's going to get all misty watching Mrs. Obama speak tonight. I wonder if she'll ask us: "Are you eating better today than you were...

So, what I’m hearing is, it’s pretty much the same as the old agenda, except perhaps ramped up another nanny-state notch. In a yet another classic case of an inefficient, meddlesome bureaucracy attacking the symptoms instead of the disease (and causing a whole host of costs, inefficiencies, and waste in the process), the federal government via First Lady Michelle Obama has made it their business to “solve the problem of obesity within a generation.” In an audacious display of utter disdain for free-market signals, part of this effort includes nineteen separate government programs that aim to eliminate “food deserts” —...

Asked by Parade magazine, "What do you hope to accomplish in your second term?” First Lady Michelle Obama said she wants to "impact the nature of food in grocery stores" with the aim of cutting sugar, fat and salt. “With 'Lets Move!,' our goal is to end the problem of childhood obesity in a generation,” Mrs. Obama said. “And while we’ve seen some very profound cultural shifts, we still have communities that don’t have access to affordable and healthy foods. We still need to find a way to impact the nature of food in grocery stores, in terms of sugar,...

New York’s attorney general is investigating whether the multibillion-dollar energy-drink industry is deceiving consumers with misstatements about the ingredients and health value of its products.

School Bans Coca-Cola at Football Games Posted in Top Stories | 22 comments School Bans Coca-Cola at Football Games Aug 20, 2012 By Todd Starnes Attention high school football fans in Maine: B.Y.O.C. – Bring your own Coke. The Portland Public School system will no longer allow soft drinks to be sold on school property – including at high school football games. School officials are also banning the sale of gridiron staples like buttered popcorn and potato chips. Instead, football fans will be encouraged to nosh on baked tortilla chips, reduced fat string cheese and hummus. The total ban on...

Milk and lemonade may seem like the staples of youthful innocence, but on Saturday a group of activists hope to turn them into the tools of protests when they take to the Capitol to demand the government stop interfering in sales of fresh milk and stop shutting down kids’ lemonade stands. The Raw Milk freedom Riders and Lemonade Freedom Day, two separate groups that each want the government out of their transactions, are unifying their voices, saying that together they can drive home a message that the government should butt out. “This issue is not just about raw milk and...

A past Washington Legal Foundation Legal Pulse post commented on the class action litigation exploits of California consumer Skye Astiana and her efforts to save Americans from “unnatural” products. One of the cases in which Ms. Astiana is a lead plaintiff, Astiana v. Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, survived a motion to dismiss recently, a development which underscores the havoc such lawsuit-by-lawsuit regulation can wreak on food packaging and marketing. The judge who authored the Astiana ruling sits on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, or as we’d like to call it, The Food Court.*

President Barack Obama, in an Iowa radio interview broadcast Wednesday, tried to set the record straight on his wife's ribbing of Gabby Douglas for eating McDonalds after her gold medal win. First lady Michelle Obama teased the Olympian during an appearance on Jay Leno on Monday, but the president said Douglas was not her target. "You know, the truth is the first lady was teasing Jay Leno, not Gabby, because Gabby can afford anything because she’s so fit," Obama said in an interview

"Since when does serving up junk food give someone a license to preach?" carped Petula Dvorak as she opened her August 14 piece, "Now featuring filet o' fracas."* Gee, I dunno, Petula, maybe 1791, when the First Amendment -- you know, that pesky little document that guarantees freedom of speech and religion among other things -- was ratified. "We've got the Papa John's pizza guys weighing in on the health-care debate, while the burger slingers out West at In-N-Out can't serve up a cheeseburger without a Bible verse," Dvorak carped. Later in her Metro section column, she essentially compared the...

JAY LENO, HOST: You trained your whole life, you win. How did you celebrate? What did you do? GABBY DOUGLAS: We didn't have time to celebrate. It was team finals and had to turn the page all-around finals and event finals after that. But, after the competition, I splurged on an Egg McMuffin at McDonald’s. LENO: Egg McMuffin. [Laughter] MICHELLE OBAMA: Yeah, Gabby, we don't, don't encourage him. [Laughter] I'm sure it was on… DOUGLAS: A salad. OBAMA: a whole wheat McMuffin. LENO: It was on a whole wheat bun. OBAMA: Yeah. LENO: So an Egg McMuffin. Very good. [Light...

Obesity provides a potentially informative signal about individuals' choices and preferences. Using NLSY survey data, we estimate that the loan delinquency rate among the obese is 20 percent higher than among the non-obese after controlling for numerous observable, prohibited, and - to lenders - unobservable credit risk factors. The economic significance of obesity for delinquencies is comparable to that of job displacements. Obesity is particularly informative about future delinquencies among those with low credit risk. In terms of channels, we find that the obesity effect is at least partially mediated through poor health, but is not attributable to individuals' time...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: "USDA Newsletter Encourages Employees Not to Eat Meat." This story has been unearthed by Caroline May at the Daily Caller. And, you know, she deserves a shout-out. Caroline May at the Daily Caller seems to be making a career out of exposing the information being put out on the USDA website. Caroline May is the reporter who broke all the stories about the USDA's various campaigns to enroll more people in food stamps. She's the one that found that. And in this report today, she tells us that the USDA has been telling its employees via their...

(Updated) The war on milk has shifted fronts. First it was sugar-laden chocolate milk, which parents and school administrators battled in recent years to remove from school-lunch menus. Now, it’s plain old moo that’s under fire. On Thursday, a national doctors group petitioned the U.S. government to remove milk as a required food group from the National School Lunch Program, the federally assisted program that has provided lunch to millions of public school kids since 1946. The doctors’ reasoning: milk doesn’t help protect kids’ bones. The promotion of milk to help build strong bones in kids is, “in effect, the...

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said on Wednesday that Congress ought to look at imposing a federal tax on soda pop. “We have to address the situation in the marketplace," DeLauro said at a press conference on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. "Right now, the least expensive beverages are often those with the least value to our health like regular cola or juice drinks that are only 10 percent juice. “But I will tell you that if you’re paying $3.49 for juice and 79 cents for soda, if you are in a low-income family and you have...