How do you feel about Big Brother telling you what you can eat? The Center for Science in the Public Interest seems to be doing just that. First they did it with fast food/transfat and now they are doing it with breakfast cereals. Is this too much intrusion? Agree or disagree?

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The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. ~ Ernest Hemingway ...

Agree. If you want to live forever and eat 100% healthy, cook it your bloody self.

Leave the world to live as it chooses and shut up.

I'm a bit ambivalent about this issue; not sure why. I've struggled with weight all my life, but get tired of all the hysterical Skinny Nazi attitudes our society is plagued with. You know, people who go off their rocker and obsess over gaining 1 ounce or who fret and fret about how many walnut bits are in their Waldorf salad. Our society's attitude towards food is fundamentally unhealthy! It is not the enemy; being 5 pounds overweight is not a crime.

If food on grocery store shelves/fast-food restaurants can be made healthier (lower sodium, cutting out transfat, etc.) by the manufacturer, that's a good thing. But ultimately the message is "you're too stupid to make good food choices yourself, we have to do it for you." Perhaps some people do want that bit of mollycoddling, though. ::shrugs::

I'm not a smoker, but I always figured the anti-smoking hysteria smacked of a witch hunt. :-\ Never had a problem with restaurants separated into "Smoking/No Smoking" areas, but nope...not good enough. "Big Brother" got all those folks to quit smoking, so what did they do? Started eating! My mother quit smoking in the early 1970s, within 2 years' time she ballooned; quit smoking, began eating.

Looks like "Big Brother" ultimately encouraged people to exchange one vice for another. Basically it's just best to leave people alone.

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“I shall always be convinced that a watch proves a watchmaker, and that a universe proves a God” ~Voltaire

But you can cook up your own transfat

Just out of curiousity, do you guys agree or disagree with restaurant inspections and grades by the local board of health?
I lived through the time when cigarette smoking was very tolerated, and even smoked some. As near as I can tell, it wasn't a witch hunt but more of a reaction against some very obnoxious jerks. Why did they have to smoke in grocery stores and gas stations, when it was already posted? That's how most laws are made--someone pushes the boundaries until the lawmakers constituents can't take it any longer. A lot of "bad laws" are made that way.

I'm an only child, so I don't have a big brother to tell me what to eat.

Since people don't seem to be responsible to make healthy choices for themselves--and then complain when they become overweight, diabetic*, get heart disease, etc--I guess Ma Government will have to tell us what to do.

Personally, I'm not one for all the additives and stuff in convenience food, therefore I cook and look for "unmessed-with" ingredients. (Yes, I know there aren't many proven links between food additives and ill health, but my preference is still to avoid additives when possible)

*I'm referring to Type II lifestyle-influenced diabetes here. No offense meant to those who are diabetic due to conditions outside their control.

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"WARNING: Being launched into space is hazardous."--Lonewulf

Triplebrick is no longer birdable. It was fun while it lasted.

"N'oubliez pas: l'ours n'est pas un nounours!"--Nounours de Salmonberry

No, it isn't good enough. The smoke doesn't care which side of the imaginary line it's on. When I was in college, the designated smoking area for housing employees was right in front of a doorway (illegal for state buildings) that I took my laundry past my entire junior year. My senior year, there were smokers who stood in front of our building's door (illegal) despite the fact that one of the girls on our floor got migraines so severe she had to go to the hospital when exposed to cigarette smoke.

What I eat won't kill you. If things are known to be worse for you than other things that have the same properties (palm oil vs. canola oil, in short), sure, phase out the ones that are worse. Still, it's my right to eat three Zingers for breakfast, and while it does put an additional burden on the health care system, it doesn't put as high a burden on the system, because I'm not making other people sick with it.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

My mother is allergic to tobacco smoke, and has suffered from some pretty serious breathing problems. I'm mildly allergic. And I can tell you, unless there's two separate rooms with closed doors, separate sections won't do jack. Smoky air moves around the whole room.

And the big bad Gov never told people to stop smoking. Only to quit sharing it with the rest of us.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I agree with this agreement!

C'mon, tell us how you really feel.

But basically, yeah - I agree.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Is the Center for Science in the Public Interest a government agency, and if so how much power do they have?

Since the subject in the OP is breakfast cereal, I assume that means a lot of children would be eating it. Are the average Joes better at determining the proper nutritional needs of children than a group of (presumably) food scientists?

I'm put in mind of the couple who gave their kid scurvy by feeding him nothing but oatmeal, and all the various families profiled on Honey, We're Killing The Kids. You can do whatever you want to yourself, but sometimes kids need to be protected from the effects of their family's poor actions.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Depends on who is footing the bill. If you're eating three Zingers for breakfast puts you in the hospital, and your health care is covered by public health insurance, then the public is free to say "nuh uh, we're not paying for that anymore".

If you're paying out of pocket, or if private insurance is covering it, you could regularly dine on Mr. Clean and I wouldn't consider it an issue for government.

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"The plan does not involve mayonaise."
"... I knew there was a catch."

You can't take the sky from me.

Well, regarding the origonal question in the OP/Title:

My brother's younger than me, so that makes me the big brother. As far as the government, I am very thankful that the FDA is there to keep unsafe products off the shelf. Might they go too far in thier determination of "unsafe"? Perhaps. I very much miss the old "unhealthy" oils that they use to use for frying my food (particularly noticable in fried chicken and chinese resturants). But I'd rather be able to whine about missing a few of my favorite foods than be poisoned by an unregulated industry.
I do not having the training or resources to personally test all my foods for potential dangerous substances. So unless I somehow gain that ability, I'll gladly let the FDA do their thing.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

No, they are an NGO (non-governmental organization). As for how much power they have, it depends upon whether they get the ear of an influential Congressman or two. If that Congressman then calls up a Fed agency and complains, THEN CSPI has power. Otherwise, they have none.

Thanks, but it still pays to be an educated consumer, particularly about dietary supplements. Under DSHEA, the FDA has very little oversight of dietary supplements. Other than vitamins, buy supplements with caution. Caveat emptor!

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The dose makes the poison--Paracelsus (1493-1541) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

I don't know. That's why I'm asking--Noclevername

Intelligence may not be clearly defined, but you know stupid when you see it--Noclevername

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge--Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

Thanks, but it still pays to be an educated consumer, particularly about dietary supplements. Under DSHEA, the FDA has very little oversight of dietary supplements. Other than vitamins, buy supplements with caution. Caveat emptor!
Heh, I think the whole supplements market is a...well, I'll leave the adjectives up to you.

It pays to be as educated as possible about any subject. My point was that snakeoil salesmen still exist, and having groups around to protect the consumer is a necessary evil.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

Okay, so the OP calling them "Big Brother" was in error. They can't make anyone do anything, they're a bunch of guys making suggestions. Ooh, scary!

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I took the OP as asking about anybody with power telling you what you can and can't eat.

But technically, no one can do that. They can tell you what you can or can't sell, but if you want to make something on your own and eat it, that's not an issue. :-P

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

For every "thou shalt not sell foods made with trans fat", there's a "thou shalt not sell thy consumers food laced with melamine to boost thy gluten count".

I have the choice to eat out or make it myself. (Somewhat, anyway. When my depression takes the wheel, I'd argue that my capacity to make competent choices can be limited to some degree. But that's another argument.)

But, when I do choose to eat out, it would be nice if the businesses "catering" to me could be made to refrain from sneaking dangerous ingredients into their products, especially considering how reluctant (or misinformed) they are about their recipes. I for one won't miss trans fats. Some of the worst offenders seem to be doing fine without it.

On the subject of hidden food dangers...

Did you know Subway adds onion powder to all of their meats? That mattered to me when I was suffering actively from colitis. Nobody at the franchises knew this. I had to inquire at corporate when I kept getting sick after eating there. On "paper", Subway should have been the safest place for me because of the emphasis on choice. Too bad (for me) it wasn't informed choice.

If I could make one law, it would be that "spices" cannot be a valid notation on ingredient lists, no matter how secret KFC wants to keep their spice blend.

Do you know who turned out to be the only restaurant I'd ever found where I could be confident that the food was either safe or could be altered to be safe for me? McDonalds. McDonalds was the only restaurant I'd ever found that could guarantee me food without onion, onion powder, black pepper, or seed matter. Plenty of choices, too. Shame it wasn't remotely healthy for me.

Now? Well, I still struggle to make the right choices sometimes, but I've got a better handle on the depression issues.

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

Infomation is vital for the efficient functioning of the market system. If someone is providing infomation about food that act can help people make decisions about their lives.