First lady asks restaurants to serve healthy foods

Yahoo ^ | 9-13-10 | MARY CLARE JALONICK/AP

[mlizzy]

WASHINGTON – First lady Michelle Obama is prodding the nation's restaurants to add more healthy options to menus, label those items more prominently and market nutritious foods to kids.

Speaking to the National Restaurant Association on Monday, Mrs. Obama pleaded with restaurants small and large to take a little butter or cream out of their dishes, use low fat milk and provide apple slices or carrots as a default side dish on the kids' menu.

Mrs. Obama said that Americans are spending half their food dollars outside the home and eating a third of meals in restaurants. She asked the restaurants to rethink the food they offer and reformulate their menus to help combat childhood obesity.

"We have to do more, we have to go farther, and we need your help to lead this effort," she told the restaurateurs and executives.

The first lady has delivered similar messages to schools and the nation's largest food companies as part of her effort to boost childhood nutrition. She told the restaurant industry that parents' choices at restaurants need to be easier, and healthy options shouldn't be buried on the menu.

[mlizzy]

"Less butter, more apples!"

[sodpoodle]

Who eats in restaurants?

Do they accept food stamps?

[CondorFlight]

I don’t want the government inspecting restaurant menus...

[ReneeLynn]

The Obama’s. They eat out. A lot. But that’s not the point for us peasants. WE need to eat apples. Not Michelle and her crew.

Yeah, is she going to give lobster cholesterol meds? I wonder what she ate in Spain?

[albie]

“take a little butter or cream out of their dishes, use low fat milk and provide apple slices or carrots as a default side dish on the kids’ menu”.

...first it was smoking, then trans fats, in NY it’s salt, now it’ll be less butter, more apples. We’ve got to win in November! This freight train of tyranny is moving too fast. As Beck said...”next it’ll be ice cream”.

[Morpheus2009]

People have a right to go to a Restaurant or not. I appreciate the statements, but that is how it is. As for me, I have learned a great deal more about making meals of my own over the years, I would encourage whomever is able to do so to try the same.

[Batman11]

How about if Moo-chelle sets an example and doesn’t feed here children ice cream 365 days a year.

[kalee]

Maybe for us the little people but not the Obamas. They seem to live for ice cream.

[muawiyah]

Since carbohydrate volume is the real problem it makes little sense to remove fats and replace them with fructose.

I'd pull the bread off the school menu and give them sugar free ice cream!

[ColdOne]

This will be an interesting thread!

[DJ Frisat]

Let me put this as politely as I can:

Piss off, Bitch! Mind your own f***ing business. I eat very healthfully at home and if I want to eat restaurant food prepared with butter and cream, it’s my decision to make, not yours.

[SaveTheChief]

I really wish these fascists would mind their own business.

[Slyfox]

Let them eat cake -- approved by the Obama Administration!

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

Kids will eat apples in a restaurant? Sure! If you deep-fry them!

[Havisham]

My inner New Yorker says, “Lady, if I wanted healthy I wouldn’t have saved up for this fancy meal in the first place!” Mrs. Obama doesn’t seem to get that the American standard of living isn’t what it used to be.

[purplelobster]

Sounds like Barry’s egghead czars have come up with a game plan for 2011. My prediction: Axelrod is having Michelle send out the initial feelers for legislation that Barry has planned for the future. Next year I expect that Barry will wage war against fast food in the same way the government went after cigarettes. Investigations will be launched and crushing financial judgements imposed against the Happy Meal. Lefty state Attorney Generals will file class action lawsuits against the International House of Pancakes.

[Question Liberal Authority]

Do you know what happens when you replace a kid's french fries with carrot sticks? They don't eat the carrot sticks. Unless you also give them a side of ranch dressing. Which has more fat, sodium and MSG than the french fries, and less potassium and fiber.

If you're going to put things on a kid's plate they aren't going to eat, you should replace the french fries with crayons or a toy, so they have something to do while the adults are finishing their meal.

[mikelets456]

First lady TELLS restaurants to serve healthy foods

There... Fixed.

[hope_dies_last]

I must assume that means no more ice cream?

...or fried beer raviolis??

[Old Retired Army Guy]

She wants America to eat what she does. A bale of hay a day.