Author: ConsumerFreedom.com Headlines

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is well-known for its assaults on common decency, but its latest move in Canada may have significantly backfired. PETA took responsibility for an attack yesterday on Canadian Fisheries Minister Gail Shea, in which a protester smeared her face with a tofu “cream” pie with the accuracy of an Olympic marksman. Now, Member of Parliament Gerry Byrne is calling for PETA’s attack to be investigated as a potential act of terrorism:

When someone actually coaches or conducts criminal behavior to impose a political agenda on each and every other citizen of Canada, that does seem to me to meet the test of a terrorist organization. I am calling on the Government of Canada to actually investigate whether or not this organization, PETA, is acting as a terrorist organization under the test that exists under Canadian law.

Our friends up north can find a precedent from our own government. As we’ve pointed out, this “Facility Security Profile” questionnaire from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service describes PETA as a “Terrorist Threat,” listing it alongside notorious domestic terrorist groups like the Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front, and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty. (See Page 4. While the USDA removed the form from its website after we started spreading the word, you can find a PDF copy preserved here.)

We revealed back in 2002 that PETA gave $1,500 to the Earth Liberation Front. PETA, naturally, had a wide range of shifting explanations for this “grant.” And that’s not even getting into the group’s $70,000+ gift to convicted arsonist Rodney Coronado, along with other eyebrow-raising “donations.”

Yes, yes. We know it was “just” a tofu dessert (if there really is such a thing). But the fact that a PETA wingnut can get close enough to a Canadian cabinet official to assault her (and the PETA activist was charged with assault) should give the Mounties some serious pause.

A 2003 New Yorker  profile notes that “officially, PETA does not engage in violence, but its leaders wholeheartedly defend and encourage guerrilla groups like the Animal Liberation Front.” The sooner governments start recognizing this reality, the faster the projectiles stop flying toward government officials.

Food activist and NYU professor Marion Nestle positions herself as a defender of the little guy in her personal crusade against “Big Food” — that is, any company that dares to feed millions of Americans. But how much regard does she really hold for the average Joe? In a Sunday Chicago Tribune interview about the great mystery of what a “calorie” is, Nestle let a little bit of her elitism show: “Ordinary mortals cannot count, see, taste, smell or feel a calorie,” she sniffed.

We’ve always suspected Nestle of having a Marie Antoinette side. But claiming that the average eater can’t count calories is a new low, even for “Marion the Contrarian.” If the Neanderthal rabble of ordinary food consumers can’t add calories, we wonder why Nestle promotes mandatory menu labeling in restaurants.

But in many ways, it’s not surprising. Nestle’s anti-corporate food philosophy comes with built-in arrogance. People can’t control themselves, so the government needs to step in. Lather, rinse, repeat. Her vision of a food future includes “Twinkie taxes” and federal price controls on high-calorie foods and drinks. Food, she says, “is too cheap in this country.” As for balance, moderation, and exercise—elements of personal responsibility—Nestle supports them “only in theory.” If that sounds like something the food cops at the Center for Science in the Public Interest would say, consider that Nestle sat on the group’s board of directors for five years.

Not everybody can be so high and mighty as to occupy Marion Nestle’s exalted ivory tower. But enough people have passed second grade math to keep track of what they eat, if they want to.

We’d like to thank consumer reporter and investigative journalist John Stossel for highlighting our work fighting food fascists on his blog this morning. Stossel will air an episode of his cable news show this Thursday on the “Attack of the Food Police.” Working out of New York City, he’s on the front lines of the assault on what we eat and drink—such as the Big Apple’s assault on salt and Empire State Gov. David Paterson’s second push for a sugared drink tax.

Stossel writes that CCF “never fails to inform with its bitingly funny ads that call out the bureaucrats and busybodies who would restrict our freedom of choice.” And that he, like millions of Americans who are in good shape, “get no health benefit from the food police’s restrictions — just less choice and food that doesn’t taste as good.”

Farmers get a bad rap. They work their fingers to the bone to feed us, and most Americans have never even met one. They sink their savings into one of the riskiest investments known to man, and all most consumers can seem to do is gripe about the price of breakfast. And to add insult to injury, the wealthy animal rights industry – led by vegetarian activists at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) – wants to put most of them out of business. Because, you know, they cheerfully fill our refrigerators with meat and dairy foods.

HSUS has flexed its (unearned) reputational muscles in Maine, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, and California – tying the hands of ranchers, egg farmers, and pork producers at every turn. But in Missouri, there may be reason to be optimistic.

HSUS is currently pushing a ballot initiative in the Show-Me State that threatens to regulate dog breeding out of existence by making it illegal to own too many animals. (And guess who decides what "too many" means?) We can see the writing on the wall: HSUS will certainly leverage a November 2010 victory to target livestock farmers next. Who’s going to sink their life savings into hog farming if a group of carpet-bagging DC bunny-huggers can limit how much bacon and ham a farmer can produce?

At the Missouri Farm Bureau’s annual meeting last month, farmers got an earful about what HSUS has planned for them. Chris Chinn, a Missouri hog producer and national advocate for livestock owners, talked about a new "SWAT" program she helped develop. (SWAT stands for "Spokespersons Working for Agriculture Together.") Chinn’s goal is to help farmers and ranchers communicate reliable information to consumers about how animals are really treated before they become two-piece dinners and rump roasts. SWAT training includes classes that teach farmers how to handle media situations and stay on topic. "We don’t want to play defense, we want to be proactive," said Chinn. "We want to get out there ahead of HSUS and tell our story."

Farmers are mobilizing against HSUS in Ohio too. In November, HSUS suffered a landslide setback in the Buckeye State with the passage of Issue 2. This measure created a state livestock board to oversee animal welfare policy, while limiting the influence of out-of-state radicals like those at HSUS.

HSUS did not mount a significant campaign against Issue 2, but it’s working behind the scenes to make the measure’s voter-approved policies irrelevant. Consider Ohio House Bill 341, which HSUS is pushing hard. It would force Ohio’s new livestock board to mimic everything California voters did in 2008 when they passed the heavily HSUS-financed "Prop. 2."

Will this end-run around Ohio voters succeed? Possibly. HSUS needed four full pages to list all its lobbying activities in its 2008 tax return. The group is everything you think of when you imagine the phrase "moneyed special interest." And remember: HSUS president Wayne Pacelle boasted that California’s Prop. 2 was a blueprint for the rest of the nation.

If HSUS buys itself some power over Ohio agriculture, it will take over farm policy and regulate livestock producers to death. Which, come to think of it, is what HSUS is after in the first place. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

And as long as we’ve got your attention, take five minutes today and hug a farmer. Go on. It’s a nice gesture. And so is throwing that HSUS fundraising letter in the trash.

Do it. You heard us.

We’ve been spending a lot of time discussing the deceptive Humane Society of the United States recently. But there’s plenty of other news of note about HSUS’s philosophical ally in the animal rights industry: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

This week, PETA gave "Avatar" director James Cameron its “Outstanding Feature Film” award for having a message of animal empathy in his film. The news comes just days after Cameron told Entertainment Weekly that “I believe in ecoterrorism.” Now, we could give PETA the benefit of the doubt. But then again, NBA star Gilbert Arenas recently starred in a PETA anti-fur ad—coincidentally, a few days after he was arrested for brandishing four firearms in his team’s locker room.

PETA sure knows how to pick ‘em. (And if you think it should just stick to its bread-and-butter of scantily clad women, well, it’s already taking care of that.)

But PETA antics often drown out more important threats—such as appointed officials with PETA-inspired agendas. Today in Esquire, Harvard law professor Noah Feldman writes that Cass Sunstein, the White House regulatory “czar,” is “on everyone’s short lists” for a nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court should a vacancy arise. Sunstein, as we’ve exposed, has a history of animal rights radicalism, and believes that animals should be allowed to sue and that hunting should be banned outright.

So PETA is very tight with eco-terror cheerleaders and NBA thugs. It sure would be nice if they spent half as much energy playing with pets instead of killing them.

Empire State Governor David Paterson wasn’t bluffing when he said last fall that he wanted to bring his widely panned soft-drink tax proposal back from the grave. You might remember that in December 2008, he proposed an 18 percent tax on sugar-sweetened beverages like sports drinks, energy drinks, and soda to try to close a budget shortfall. By February, however, his proposal had lost its fizz. His new plan, announced yesterday, is a penny-per-ounce tax—so if a 20-ounce sports drink costs a dollar, it would amount to a 20 percent tax on soft drinks.

While food cop Kelly Brownell giddily called the first proposal “bold reform” and has since been throwing his weight around trying to get a penny-per-ounce fee on sugary drinks, taxpayers haven’t been so gung-ho. A Quinnipiac University poll found that only 37 percent of New Yorkers supported taxes on their sugary drinks. And those numbers likely haven’t gone anywhere but south. A (national) poll released in September by the Opinion Research Corporation found that two-thirds of Americans oppose such a tax. There’s good reason: People rightfully realize that paternalistic politicians have no business creating special fees to engineer what we put in our mouths.

As we’re telling the media today, Paterson’s soft drink tax sequel earns a review as flat as the original:

The tax code should not be a tool of social engineering against New Yorkers who choose to make food and drink choices that paternalistic officials like Governor Paterson don’t approve of. New York state is home to the Big Apple, not Big Brother.

There is no single cause of obesity, therefore singling out sugary drinks makes no sense. Paterson’s latest proposal only serves to fatten the wallets of Albany politicians, not trim New Yorkers’ waistlines.

Self-styled food guru Michael Pollan’s latest rant against modern farming, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, lists 64 rules for healthy eating. Pollan says they are meant to be taken as “Food Don’ts” — for the sake of our health and the environment. And as usual, America’s “foodies” are going ga-ga over someone whose claim to fame is repeatedly lecturing others to “Eat Food.” So let’s take a close look at what this journalism professor has to offer in his latest diatribe on what you eat.

Pollan admits he ignores nutrition science, which he derides as inexact. But perhaps the real reason he avoids citing actual research is because he knows it doesn’t support his pseudo-scientific beliefs.

Take Rule #22, “Eat mostly plants.” Pollan claims vegetarians are “notably healthier” and live longer than meat-eaters. Yet, a 2006 study by researchers at the University of Oxford found that vegetarians died of strokes and cancers of the colon, breast and prostate at the same rate as omnivores. The mortality rate, the Oxford team wrote, “appears to be similar in vegetarians and comparable non-vegetarians.” In other words, vegetarians don’t live longer than meat-eaters – though life may seem interminably long if you spend most of your time choking down Tofurky and soy-cheese lettuce wraps.

Pollan blows it again with Rule #27, which holds that meat from “wild” free-range animals eating grass is more nutritious than from grain-fed animals raised in feedlots. Before you drop half your paycheck on “artisanal” porkchops, know this: Free-range meat carries health risks that slow-food advocates like Pollan won’t tell you about.

A study published in the journal Foodborne Pathogens and Disease found significantly higher rates of salmonella in free-range pigs when compared with pigs raised on larger farms. Pigs raised in the roof-covered, environmentally-controlled surroundings of the much-maligned Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are actually less conducive to disease. And pigs that spend time outdoors are more likely to come into contact with disease-carrying animals.

And if you don’t eat for your health, how about the health of Planet Earth? Pollan’s advice may actually lead to greater environmental damage. The CAFOs that he demonizes use less land to raise more animals than the free-range method. Grass-fed cows, for instance, can require up to 10 acres of pasture per head. If today’s cattlemen exclusively used 1950s technology, they would need an additional 165 million acres of land – roughly the size of Texas — to produce the same amount of beef. And since niche-market cows don’t grow as big as their more conventional counterparts, a wholesale backpedal to old-school farming would increase levels of animal-waste pollution by nearly 30 percent.

Is this the environmental outcome Pollan seeks?

Maybe it’s not fair to criticize Pollan for his scientific illiteracy. After all, he gives himself an out in his final Rule #64, “Break the Rules Once in a While.” If there’s a sequel, we think it should begin with Rule #65: Break most of Pollan’s rules most of the time.

The earthquake that left Haiti in ruins last week is an unspeakable tragedy that calls for the support of humanitarians around the world to rescue and rebuild. But some “charities” may not have the most honest of goals. Human rights journalist Anai Rhoads writes that the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and other groups are engaging in deceptive fundraising by overstating the number of animals in need:

HSUS also claimed that there are companion animals. “…a large stray dog population, an untold number of companion animals.” This is really tough sell, in an area so poor that scanning trash for food was the norm. It would be utter suicide for the more than 80 percent of those are poor in the country to house and feed a companion animal.

Rhoads also points out that also much of the livestock and pet populations in Haiti were ravaged following strong storms in 2008. Another observer in Haiti reports that he didn’t notice any stray cats just six days before the quake. As Rhoads puts it, HSUS is raising money to help “a mass number of animals, which don’t seem to exist.”

Not that such technicalities have historically mattered to HSUS. If a boatload of donations is left over when it leaves Haiti, the money can be commingled with the other tens of millions in assets HSUS already has in the bank. From there, it can be spent on anything HSUS wants, from PETA-inspired lobbying to putting farmers out of business. Just don’t expect too much of it to go to hands-on dog and cat shhelters.

This latest situation is another chapter in HSUS’s history of questionable fundraising ploys. You might recall that after Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana in 2005, HSUS head Wayne Pacelle went on national television and pledged to reunite pets with their owners. An investigation of the post-Katrina money trail by Atlanta’s WSB-TV found that public documents accounted for just $7 million of the $34 million that HSUS raised in the wake of the storm. (HSUS claims otherwise, of course.)

Louisiana’s Attorney General conducted an 18-month investigation into this fundraising, only closing it after HSUS announced its plan to contribute $600,000toward the construction of an animal shelter on the grounds of a state prison. And natural disasters aside, HSUS doesn’t exactly have a great record of caring for the animals it does rescue.

Watchdog groups have been warning readers to avoid deceptive charities trying to cash in on the disaster in Haiti. We have to wonder: Should HSUS be added to the list?

The agriculture-focused Capital Press carried a rather unsurprising story yesterday: Sugar farmers are pleased that beverage makers are replacing high fructose corn syrup with ordinary sucrose (cane and beet sugar). One example: The San Francisco school district announced that its chocolate milk will switch sweeteners beginning next month. As with most of these moves, this one is based on hearsay and pseudoscience. And for a great example of who’s spreading the sweet nothings, look no further than Sugar Association CEO Andrew Briscoe.

Briscoe told the Capital Press that sucrose is “the only sweetener that’s all natural,” has “only 15 calories per teaspoon,” and “it’s a sweetener you can pronounce.” Sound like a bunch of hooey? That’s because it is. First, the Food and Drug Administration has approved of the use of the term “natural” to describe high fructose corn syrup. Second, high fructose corn syrup has 15 calories per teaspoon, just like sucrose.

And third, you can pronounce high fructose corn syrup – and so can lots of news anchors, apparently. But whether something is two syllables long or six doesn’t mean anything.

This is really nothing more than another overly simplistic Michael Pollan “food rule.” Heard of calcium lactate? It’s found in aged cheeses and some baking powders. And it’s part of an FDA list of hundreds of sometimes hard-to-pronounce ingredients that the agency classifies as “Generally Recognized as Safe”—a classification that it also applies to high fructose corn syrup. Looks like a strikeout for Briscoe.

Even Marion Nestle, no friend of food companies, remarks that these sugar swaps don’t have much substance: “[I]t’s really just sugar and the switch to sucrose is about marketing, not health.” While it may only happen once in a blue moon, we think Marion the Contrarian is right on target. As for the boss of Big Sugar, we have to hope any marketing strategy that’s this short on substance will eventually dissolve.

Obesity activist and “Twinkie tax” creator Kelly Brownell is always complaining about what we eat and drink. Recently, Brownell has been going around the country shilling for taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages like fruit juice, soda, and sports drinks. As he told New Hampshire Public Radio last week, getting taxes on the state level is a springboard to a national tax on soft drinks. And Brownell apparently has at least one ally in New Hampshire: Beatriz Pastor, a state representative, is co-sponsoring a statewide tax on soft drinks. She told NHPR why she’s buying into the idea of a government-sponsored weight loss program:

I support the bill because the medical research shows unequivocally a link between high consumption of sugar drinks and adult onset diabetes and obesity beginning with children.

Of course, that’s a flawed premise, as we’ve documented multiple times before. No single food or drink is a unique contributor to obesity, and the medical research body is far from "unequivocal." (Also, the bill thankfully appears headed straight to nowhere.) Both the House Speaker (a Democrat) and the House Republican Leader were flat on the prospect of raising an obese tax on beverages. And the biggest newspaper in the Granite State, the New Hampshire Union Leader, rightly labeled this tax proposal an expansion of the nanny state:

This is not some science-fiction fantasy. This is happening right now. If we as Americans, as Granite Staters, don’t stand up and oppose this dramatic enlargement of the nanny state now, while we have the chance, we will find our choices narrowed year after year until we wake up one day with little control over any decision that the self-appointed experts deem a potential risk to our health or safety — which is more or less everything.

Hopefully this message will get around to any another statehouse considering a soft drink tax, like Mississippi. Instead of taxing beverages, politicians would do better to follow New Hampshire’s motto: “Live free or die.”

Sometimes it’s hard to listen to the self-serving hacks at the deceptive “Humane Society” of the United States (HSUS) jabber about how pure of heart they are. Despite earmarking less than one-half of one percent of its budget for funding hands-on pet shelters, HSUS often gets a free pass in media reports and in political circles. It’s enough to make us yearn for an impartial charity-rating service to judge just how virtuously the group deploys the donations reaped in its “19 dollars a month” TV ads.

Voilà! In its December 2009 Charity Rating Guide, the American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP) gives HSUS and its Humane Society Legislative Fund (formerly the Fund for Animals) an unimpressive “C-minus” grade. Unlike other ratings services whose judgments are easily manipulated, AIP is a fiercely independent nonprofit charity watchdog.

AIP based its grade largely on the percentage of HSUS’s money that it spends actually running its programs (which can be as little as 53 percent), and the amount of money it spends on fundraising (as much as $40 spent to generate every $100 donation). It also penalized HSUS for paying exorbitant salaries to its top executives (as high as $234,000), and for sitting on enormous cash reserves ($187 million in assets at the end of 2008).

We suspect HSUS’s grade would fall to an “F” if AIP tried to measure the chasm between what HSUS donors believe they’re funding and what the group actually spends its money on. While that’s a hard thing to quantify, the question of “What is a humane society, anyway” is certainly a reasonable one to ask.

Watch this space in the coming weeks as we prepare to make a more regular effort at unmasking one of the phoniest charities in America.

European governments are resorting to an array of punitive “fat taxes” in an ill-conceived bid to stop people from putting on weight. The latest site of this authoritarian binge is Romania. Last week, Romanian Health Minister Attila Cseke (an apt first name) announced that his country will begin imposing a tax on fast food in March. When the scheduled tax goes into effect, Romania will have the dubious distinction of being the first nation to actually implement a fast-food tax. (The Taiwanese parliament plans to enact a similar law this year). And no doubt, American food-cop activists will be inspired to redouble their own efforts to save us from ourselves.

Romanian authorities insist the fast food tax is necessary because 25 percent of the population is considered obese. It’s unclear whether there’s a link between obesity and fast food in Eastern Europe, but there’s certainly none in the United States. We have noted that the prevalence of obesity is due to physical inactivity – and not to indulging in Extra Value Meals. A 2007 study published in the International Journal of Obesity concludes, “The obesity epidemic is often speculatively blamed on fast food, when the actual evidence shows very little, if any, association of fast food with weight gain.”

It’s hardly surprising that Romanian lawmakers believe they can legislative personal behavior. Such antics are par for the course in Europe. Denmark will soon begin taxing chocolates, ice cream and other sweets. These culinary tolls will join that country’s existing tax on soft drinks. Denmark has also passed a law drastically restricting trans fats while Spain is seeking to ban “excessive” trans fats—whatever that means—later this year. Austria introduced a similar law in October. And in Germany, one Green Party leader wants to make it illegal to advertise sweets to children 12 and younger.

American busybodies are not far behind. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is on an anti-salt crusade, even though our bodies naturally regulate our sodium intake. Yesterday he actually compared salt to cancer-causing asbestos, saying that “salt and asbestos, clearly are both bad for you…Modern medicine thinks you shouldn’t be eating salt, or sodium.”

This, of course, is demagogic nonsense. And if “food cops” see flavoring food as a crime against public health, it is only a matter of time before they start demanding to regulate your salt shaker.

In the meantime, New York City chefs are furious with Bloomberg. “You need salt to draw flavor out of food,” chef David Chang told the New York Post. “It’s a skill that you teach cooks. For that to be regulated by the government is just stupid and foolish.”

CCF’s Senior Research Analyst appeared on Fox & Friends this morning to tell viewers about how New York City’s latest dietary war is yet another bunch of big government hooey. Click here to watch us debate a nutritionist who thinks that government-induced recipe reformulations are a good thing.

It’s been a while since we’ve taken a hard look at emerging research regarding obesity. Today, several stories offer some needed insights.

Australian researchers report that watching lots of TV is associated with a higher risk of death. This wouldn’t seem novel—except that even regular exercisers who had a lot of tube time had a higher risk of dying. As lead author Dr. David Dunstan explains, it’s because people are losing the minor bouts of activity around the house:

It’s not the sweaty type of exercise we’re losing. It’s the incidental moving around, walking around, standing up and utilizing muscles that [doesn’t happen] when we’re plunked on a couch in front of a television.

This phenomenon of the ways in which we’re getting less activity isn’t restricted to sitting on the sofa. We detail in our book Small Choices, Big Bodies the many ways in which society has engineered physical activity out of people’s lives through the spread of labor-saving devices, among other modern conveniences. Our lives may be more convenient, but we’re also burning fewer calories.

Taking a different approach, researchers from Tulane are pointing the finger at snack food in the obesity debate. It’s worth pointing out that one of them is Tom “Dr. No” Farley—NYC’s newest nanny and Tom Frieden replacement—who yesterday promoted the city’s overzealous salt reduction initiative. As Reuters reports, Farley and coauthors report that “the widespread availability of snacks could be fuelling obesity.”

By researchers’ estimates, this availability “problem” could lead to people consuming an extra 2,600 calories per year. Doing the math, that works out to just over 7 calories a day. That’s right—the equivalent of 5 raisins. That’s hardly worth making a fuss over (unless your modus operandi is playing the blame game and creating draconian regulations). An easier option might be to ask people to take a 3-minute walk on the way to get those raisins.

And lastly, as USA TODAY details, a British study finds that having a few extra pounds isn’t even necessarily a bad thing. Researchers from Oxford report that having a little extra “cushion” in the hips, thighs, and buttocks is healthy and protects against heart and metabolic problems.

Obesity has many factors and inputs, but in the end (or hips or thighs) weight gain or loss boils down to one thing: An imbalance of “calories in” and “calories out.”

When it rains, it pours for overzealous New York City food nannies. The city announced today that it has a new front in its war on food: salt. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is asking food manufacturers and restaurants to voluntarily reduce the sodium content of foods, with the goal of slashing salt intake by 25 percent over 5 years. (If the city’s past regulatory heavy-handedness is any indication, though, it means “voluntary” in the Tony Soprano sense of the word.) As we’re telling the media today, people should take NYC’s salt proposition with a grain of you-know-what:

The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s latest assault on salt once again shows city regulators are dead set on demonizing and regulating just about every aspect of New Yorkers’ lives. These sodium guidelines are the latest example of the city’s disdainful belief that when it comes to matters of personal health, the city knows best.

Everybody needs salt to live; there’s little debate about that. But as for the city’s claim that sodium consumption is too high, it’s not so black-and-white. An October study in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology found that people naturally regulate their salt intake, meaning that for every can of anchovies people eat, their bodies go for less salty food later on. In other words, government-induced ingredient tinkering would be an exercise in futility.

And as The New York Times notes, there are other problems with NYC’s hastiness:

An elaborate clinical trial could weigh the pluses and minuses of cutting salt in a large group of people. But that would cost millions, and it has not been done.

Dr. Michael H. Alderman, a professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said the city’s initiative, if successful in reducing salt, would amount to an uncontrolled experiment with the public’s health.

“I’m always worried about unintended consequences,” he said.

One consequence may be that New Yorkers will have to pack a shaker in their pockets whenever they eat out. We’re sure that Mayor Bloomberg, who according to the Times enjoys salt as an extra topping on his pizza, will be one of them. And while Hizzoner is pouring it on, he should ask himself: Are people getting high blood pressure from eating too much salt, or from hearing too much nanny-state hysteria?

One outlandish theory about food that is consistently recycled by activists is the idea that what we eat is somehow “addictive.” In other words, people can’t control what they put in their mouths.  If you are thinking no sensible human being would honestly believe this, look no further than a commentary in last month’s Canadian Medical Association Journal. Authors Valerie Taylor, Claire Curtis, and Caroline Davis claim that “neurologic findings linked to substance abuse are shared by some individuals with weight problems.”

You read that right. According to this premise, some people who choose to overeat are neurologically the same as cocaine addicts.

See where this is going? The strategy behind this “addiction” claim is to absolve individuals of responsibility for overeating and assign it instead to food manufacturers and restaurants for making food that’s, well, irresistible. And given the deeper-pockets of companies relative to most individuals, it’s no surprise to see that this strategy has drawn the interest of trial lawyers everywhere like John “Sue the Bastards” Banzhaf. Banzhaf has gone so far as to call personal responsibility “crap” and has been a driving force behind obesity lawsuits using this bogus theory.

The trial lawyers are also opportunistically joined by animal rights activists, including the preposterously named “Physicians Committee” for Responsible Medicine and its wacky president, Neal Barnard. PCRM backed lawsuits against meat producers and retailers as far back as 1999, and later applauded litigation that “holds four fast-food chains responsible for an obese man’s health problems.” Barnard also appeared in Morgan Spurlock’s ridiculous film “Super Size Me” to shill the idea that food is addictive. Apparently, Barnard isn’t just using hyperbole when he calls cheese “dairy crack.” Bankrupting establishments that serve animal products is one way that vegan activists can push their save-the-chickens agenda.

But for trial lawyers looking for a super-sized payout, consequences be damned. If they can get their foot in the door here, then after suing food companies they’ll deal with the resulting mess with more litigation. As Banzhaf says: “We’re going to sue them and sue them and sue them.”

The British Sense About Science charity trust just released its annual report Celebrities and Science 2009 debunking the absurd health claims of celebrities who think their pop culture status gives them the right to play doctor. Sense About Science reviews celebs’ bogus advice, from special diets to miracle cures, and asks real scientists what the “stars” should have said.

Among this year’s gems, actor Roger Moore told the Daily Mail that “eating foie gras can lead to Alzheimer’s, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis.” A real shocker — except that it’s false. Dietician Lucy Jones corrects the record, noting that food is broken down into component nutrients during digestion and “it is the balance of these components that is important to our health, not the specific food that they come from.”

The PETA-endorsing model Heather Mills asserted that meat “sits in your colon for 40 years and putrefies, and gives you the illness you die of.” University of Liverpool gastroenterologist Dr. Melita Gordon, however, called Mills’ assertion flat-out clueless. Meat proteins are absorbed by the small bowel before they get to the colon, says Gordon, and any remaining indigestible material is expelled within days.

Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty — another PETA endorser, incidentally — said she avoids carbonated drinks because “they sap all the oxygen from your body and make your skin wrinkly and dehydrated.” Wrong again. Physiologist Ron Maughan replies that even “[at] rest, the body is constantly producing carbon dioxide.” Maughan adds that “the amount from a fizzy drink is trivial and there is no obvious mechanism by which the skin would be affected.”

Scientifically-ignorant celebrities can be counted on to regurgitate more and more radical propaganda from activist groups. The Humane Society of the United States is waging a campaign against the consumption of meat while “Twinkie Tax” creator Kelly Brownell and Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest have called for “soda taxes” in a wrongheaded attempt to counter obesity.

Spreading misinformation and prescribing medically spurious advice are par for the course in some activist groups, despite evidence that (for instance) there is no link between obesity and soda drinks. Megan Fox even believes she has a “miracle cure” for obesity: drinking vinegar shots, which allegedly speeds up digestion and “flushes” toxins from the body. (Turns out that it really doesn’t.) Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie still swears, however, organic apple cider vinegar makes “a difference on my stomach.”

Real experts beg to differ. “As attractive as it sounds, there’s no magic pill for a quick fix to weight loss,” counters Jones. “The body, including the liver, is a well-oiled detoxing machine, which will not be improved by vinegar.”

Our celebrity-obsessed Twenty-First Century culture will probably continue to place too much trust in people whose only credentials are their 15 minutes of fame. Before you trust someone who doesn’t even “play a doctor on TV,” check with a real physician. (And no, we don’t mean these guys.)

We told you a few months back about how TV host and author Dr. Mehmet Oz was offering his readers the silly advice to purge their pantries of, among other things, foods containing high fructose corn syrup. In doing so, the pop doc was pulling a bit of nutritional wizardry by confusing pure fructose with high fructose corn syrup. The latter is only about 55 percent fructose—roughly the same as table sugar. Apparently, ignorance is bliss in the Land of Oz. On Monday, Dr. Oz appeared on CNN’s Joy Behar Show to once again spin confusion about corn sugar:

OZ: Yes, I know it’s terrible. It’s terrible but it’s true. And of course the other big thing is high fructose corn syrup.

BEHAR: A lot of things have it.

 

OZ: Yes because it’s cheap sugar but it’s poisonous to the liver.

Dr. Oz refers to high fructose corn syrup as “poisonous” without offering any evidence. (Hint: There isn’t any.) And if he wants to be taken seriously, he might use an actual medical dictionary to pick his words, instead of relying on hyperbole.

Alas, despite Dr. Oz’s tornado of scaremongering, people are not dying every time they have a soft drink or eat baked goods. That’s because high fructose corn syrup is perfectly safe and nutritionally no different from table (cane or beet) sugar. Sugar is sugar, and it’s fine in moderation.

Oh, yes—so what’s the Man Behind the Curtain’s solution to this supposedly sugary apocalypse? Oz recommends that viewers use agave nectar (which he spells out as “aguave”) to sweeten their drinks. Ironically, agave nectar contains much more fructose than “high fructose” syrup and table sugar—as much as 92 percent.

If Dr. Oz is concerned about these studies showing the negative effects of pure fructose, why would he recommend that viewers reject lower fructose sweeteners and start using sugars that are high in fructose? It doesn’t make much sense. Of course, he is a TV personality. He’s got to drive ratings somehow. Whipping up a panic is a simple way to do it. Everybody’s looking for the easy-to-remember food rule—just ask Michael Pollan. But being easy to recall doesn’t make “advice” worthwhile.

Once again, Mehmet Oz continues to ignore scientific reality. If he only had a brain…

We took a look last week at some details of the 2008 tax return filed by the deceptive Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). The filing shows that HSUS paid out less than one-half of one percent of its $99 million budget to hands-on dog and cat shelters. Meanwhile, a large portion of the kitty – tens of millions of dollars – went to employee salaries and animal rights lobbying. And all this expensive chicken-hugging has a hidden price. To find it, try visiting your local unemployment office.

In 2008 HSUS spent more than $2.3 million on a political committee called “Californians for Humane Farms,” which campaigned for the “Proposition 2” ballot initiative in the Golden State. In 2007, it gave over $1.3 million. HSUS also made donations of $200,000 in 2007 and 2008 to the “Committee to Protect Dogs,” a Massachusetts organization that pushed for a statewide ban on greyhound racing with the “Question 3” ballot initiative.

Both ballot campaigns were successful. And both had human costs. In California, a UC Davis study estimated that Prop 2 would destroy the state’s egg industry by adding 20 percent to the cost of egg production and causing companies to move to other states or to Mexico. In real numbers, the study found, Prop 2 was expected to cost more than 3,000 jobs and take more than $615 million out of the state’s already precarious economy. In Massachusetts, 1,000 people were expected to lose their jobs after the racing ban took effect last week. We love dogs too, but when people lose their jobs, who’s going to buy them kibble and flea collars?

All told, HSUS’s leaders spent more than $4.1 million on two political battles, and put an estimated 4,000 workers out of business. And that doesn’t include similar political “committees” HSUS has bankrolled in Michigan, Colorado, and Arizona. Who knows how many jobs HSUS will kill this year in Ohio alone?

Sure, HSUS claims it does everything “for the animals.” But what about people? How many American workers and their families are left unemployed in the wake of animal rights campaigns? And why doesn’t HSUS put a serious amount of money into pet shelters, where animals can be helped and jobs created?

There are human costs to HSUS’s crusades. But when cows and pigs are all you care about, people can get lost in the shuffle. Today’s overfed animal activists are clearly willing to put Americans in the bread line. Just don’t expect any chicken soup when you get there.

Yesterday, The Sacramento Bee published a nutrition quiz on a subject we haven’t seen much in a while: acrylamide.  Acrylamide is a chemical generally produced during the process of frying, roasting, or baking vegetables. A few researchers have suggested that acrylamide could increase the human risk of cancer, which resulted in predictable activist-driven scaremongering about potato chips and coffee a few years back. All led, of course, by the ever-shrill Center for Science in the Public Interest.

But as the Bee’s quiz rightly notes, the average person could ingest six or seven times more acrylamide than he or she already typically does without much (if any) harm. Or, as we calculated previously, a person would have to eat 182 pounds of french fries every day for a lifetime in order to be in any real danger. In other words, it’s the dose that makes the poison.

For people who consume balanced diets, acrylamide isn’t likely to be a problem at all. But we have to wonder: Should groups that advocate plant-only diets that are heavy on veggies and starches (the phony-baloney PCRM comes to mind) start issuing disclaimers?