Free Republic

In the media, the conflict is portrayed as being between Michelle Obama and the food companies. The poor customer wants to do the right thing, but the food companies make it hard. But that’s not how it really works. Sadly, the Wall Street Journal story is behind a pay wall, but a summary is posted at Newser.com: “Fast Food’s New Trend: ‘Stealth Health.’”

In a case weighing the government’s ability to require vaccination against the individual right to refuse it, a federal judge has upheld a New York City policy that bars unimmunized children from public school when another student has a vaccine-preventable disease. Citing a 109-year-old Supreme Court ruling that gives states broad power in public health matters, Judge William F. Kuntz II of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled against three families who claimed that their right to free exercise of religion was violated when their children were kept from school, sometimes for a month at a time, because of the...

The public will have more time to weigh in on a federal proposal to regulate electronic cigarettes and other tobacco products. The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that the public comment period slated to end July 9 is being extended an additional 30 days to Aug. 8 after getting lots of input on how to regulate e-cigarettes. Those are battery-powered devices that heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. The FDA also proposed extending its authority to regulate cigars, hookahs, nicotine gels and pipe tobacco.

Obama has a plan to ruin the seafood supply chain with regulations and it’s gonna cost ya. Secretary of State John Kerry has found a new cause now that he’s fresh off his mid-East failures. He is directing federal agencies to work on developing a program to combat seafood fraud upon orders from the imperial president. This follows up Mr. Obama’s proclamation that he would implement his climate change agenda using a pen and a phone. It also follows Mr. Obama’s seizure of a huge swath of the Pacific Ocean for the government, making it inaccessible for drilling and fishing....

President Obama on Friday announced plans to save endangered honey bees and other pollinators, for the first time ordering a probe into new types of pesticides that some local governments and 15 European Union nations have restricted or banned. The long-awaited plan creates a “Pollinator Health Task Force” that has 180 days to come up with a plan to save bees, butterflies and other pollinators. The goal is to rid fields of harmful pesticides while planting food for the bugs, even on military bases an along railroad tracks. Virtually every Cabinet department will be included on the task force. A...

The FDA, perhaps still smarting from the recent artisanal cheese kerfuffle, is setting its sights on a bigger target: salt.“The current level of [sodium] consumption is really higher than it should be,” said FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg. That’s why they’re preparing “voluntary guidelines” for the food industry encouraging them to stay below certain salt levels.While the guidelines will initially be voluntary, health groups are lobbying for mandatory standards — lobbying that will only grow more intense if businesses refuse to comply once the standards are released. If businesses don’t go light on the salt “then FDA should start a process...

Washington’s potato saga continues.While the House considers a bill to include the potato in the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) food nutrition program, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is echoing First Lady Michelle Obama’s claims that including the potato is an assault on science.“Republicans are even going after the nutrition for pregnant women and children, the WIC program. Mandating the WIC program include more white potatoes. You know, were talking about fruits, vegetables, whole grains and the rest, and they have an amendment that says more white potatoes than nutritionists recommend,” Pelosi said during her Thursday press conference.“These assaults...

As the U.S. House of Representatives prepared to consider the fiscal year 2015 agricultural appropriations bill, the White House threatened to veto the legislation due to opposition related to funding provisions related to school nutrition programs, potatoes in the Women, Infants and Children program and other policy issues.This is the first veto threat from the White House for fiscal year 2015 spending bills.“The bill undermines key investments in financial oversight, injects political decision-making into science-based nutrition standards, and includes objectionable language riders,” said the official Statement of Administration Policy. “If the President were presented with H.R. 4800, his senior advisors...

Two major national anti-obesity campaigns supported by first lady Michelle Obama and former President Clinton treat overweight Americans as “idiots” too dumb to figure out what's good for them, according to a new academic study.Worse, said the study from a George Washington University professor, the Obama-backed Partnership for a Healthier America and Clinton supported Alliance for a Healthier Generation blame consumers and not the makers of unhealthy food for the obesity epidemic.“I found that these organizations might more appropriately be called the ‘Partnership for a Healthier Bottom Line,' ” said associate sociologist professor Ivy Ken in the influential academic journal...

The Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Friday that it will not allow cheese makers use wooden boards to age their cheese - a ruling that would effectively wipe out artisanal cheeses.The FDA's ruling came to light after several cheese makers in New York were cited - despite state laws that allow the use of wood boards."Reports showed that the porous structure of wood made it susceptible to the colonization of bacteria on the surface and inside the wood," Monica Metz, the branch chief for the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition's Dairy and Egg Branch, wrote...

Gabe Luddy, fourth-generation cheesemaker at Vella Cheese Co. in Sonoma, makes his Dry Jack the same way his grandfather and great-grandfather did - he rolls and presses curds into large wheels of cheese, then brines and coats the wheels before sliding them onto wooden racks. There they age, from seven months to several years. A U.S. Food & Drug Administration statement which became public last week puts this 83-year-old practice in doubt. In what the agency is calling a clarification, the FDA has declared that the wooden surfaces that cheesemakers around the world age cheeses on "cannot be adequately cleaned...

A new study by researchers at Stanford University is suggesting that making soda and other sugary drinks ineligible for purchase with SNAP funds could result in nearly a quarter million fewer diabetes cases in adults, and over 140,000 fewer obese children.

The title of this post sounds like the beginning of a strange joke, but it’s actually because we’re covering three issues today. Our first topic is corporate taxation. More specifically, we’re looking at a nation that seems to be learning that it’s foolish the have a punitive corporate tax system. By way of background, the United States used to have the second-highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. But then the Japanese came to their senses and reduced their tax rate on companies, leaving America with the dubious honor of having the world’s highest rate. So did the United...

Video at source. (CNSNews.com) - Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) says she’s getting ready to propose a federal soda tax, “I am working on legislation right now to tax sugar-sweetened drinks, like sodas, in a way that reflects the serious damage they are doing to our health.” DeLauro made the recorded comments for the Center For Science In The Public Interest“National Soda Summit” on June 5th. "When a two-liter cola is 99 cents and blueberries are over three dollars, something has gone very wrong," DeLauro says. “It is long past time that we pass and support policies that work to our...

Darin left his backpack at a friend's house and had to be sent to school with a backup. When he discovered the toy in the bag, knowing it was illegal, Darin turned the contraband into his teacher. "He found the toy gun on the outside pocket," Darin's father Chris Simak told local reporters. "He took it straight to the teacher and said that he wasn't allowed to have it." Darin's teacher followed protocol and brought the first grader to the principal, where he was immediately suspended pending an expulsion hearing. According to the school charter, the punishment for bringing a...

The Los Angeles Unified School District wants to disprove the old saying that there's no free lunch. The district on Thursday said it will serve free lunches through summer to children and the disabled at 317 school campuses along with 105 parks and recreation centers. District Director of Food Services David Binkle says he expects the program to dish out 4.5 million meals.

First lady Michelle Obama and school lunch ladies used to be on the same team, but now they’re locked in a political war against each other. For the first three years of Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign, the School Nutrition Association, a powerful group that represents 55,000 cafeteria professionals, was a close ally in the White House push to get kids to eat healthier. The group helped lobby for the legislation at the center of the debate: the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, a law championed by the first lady that mandates more fruits and vegetables, whole grains and less sodium...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is creating a $2 million research center to study how the government can “nudge” Americans toward making healthier eating habits.The agency is currently accepting grant applications to establish a “Center for Behavioral Economics and Healthy Food Choice Research,” which will facilitate studies such as how breaking up combo meals at fast food restaurants would influence customers.“The USDA Center will facilitate new and innovative research on the application of behavioral economics theory to healthy food choice behaviors that would contribute to enhancing the nutrition, food security, and health of American consumers,” the USDA’s grant announcement...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Cigarette smuggling costs states an estimated $5.5 billion annually. Much of that traffic takes place on the East Coast along Interstate 95, as cigarettes from lower-tax states are being smuggled to states with higher taxes in the Northeast. A new website, sponsored by RAI Services Co., a subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc., calls the I-95 corridor "The New Tobacco Road."The website draws attention to the problem to encourage states to pass stiffer penalties for smuggling and devote more resources to enforcement.The website, www.thenewtobaccoroad.com, shows how I-95 has become a key transit route for cigarette smuggling from southern...

Democratic nominee Tom Wolf has gotten quite the post-primary bounce. In the first poll released after the former Department of Revenue Secretary won the Democratic primary, Tom Wolf holds a twenty point lead over the Governor. According to Rasmussen Reports, 51% of likely voters would support Wolf while 31% would vote for Governor Tom Corbett. Only 14% of respondents were undecided. As expected, Wolf is supported by 83% of Democrats yet only 59% of Republicans favor Corbett. Wolf pulls away 25% of PA Republicans and holds a ten point lead among independents. Meanwhile, among those surveyed Governor Corbett’s job approval...