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May 13, 2003
CSPI Infiltrates California Legislature
The California Senate has taken the unprecedented step of passing a bill that is not only inspired by the health nannies at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), but uses CSPI's own language, word for word.
The California Senate has taken the unprecedented step of passing a bill that is not only inspired by the health nannies at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), but uses CSPI's own language, word for word.
Sponsored by Senator Deborah Ortiz, who previously fought to hike taxes on soda, the bill originally required fast food restaurants to provide (for every single menu item) the amounts of fat, calories from fat, sodium, calories, sugar, etc., to anyone who requests it. An amended version, the one that passed, is not limited to fast food establishments, and instead mandates that all restaurants with 10 or more locations provide this nutritional information.
California's bill doesn't require labeling on menus and menu boards, like similar CSPI-inspired legislation in Maine, Texas, and New York. But that's only a temporary problem for CSPI's radicals. Once restaurants collect nutritional information, CSPI will soon demand that they make it as "conspicuous" (read: obnoxious) as possible. After that, they're just a few baby steps short of warning labels and taxes.
"We are going to write the future history of the American diet now," crows twinkie-taxer and CSPI advisor Kelly Brownell. If Brownell and CSPI get their way and re-invent our diets, watch out for censorship. CSPI has already attacked more than 100 foods, including apple pie, hamburgers, eggs, and milk.
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