Food & Beverage (page 186)

The Ottawa Citizen says Canadians are facing an obesity epidemic and places the blame squarely on "supersize pizzas and hamburgers, monster muffins, 64-oz., 800-calorie Double Gulp soft drinks and all-you-can-eat buffets." Tomorrow, the paper will continue to focus on obesity, featuring an article on what it thinks government should do to stop people from eating what they want.

Greenpeace is renewing its campaign to get local and state ordinances passed that promote organic and disparage genetically improved foods. Minneapolis, Boulder, Boston, and Austin have already fallen under the spell of these anti-choice activists.

Organic marketer Real Food Company is hosting a rally “to demand accountability from biotechnology companies” by requiring labels for all genetically improved foods. The featured speaker is none other than…

Because of potential liability over some students having food allergies, Fallingbrook Community Elementary School in Ontario has banned all snacks except fruits and vegetables. Lamenting the loss of her choice to feed her child whatever she wanted to, one mother said, "The school is going to have serious liabilities if my child chokes on a carrot because you've forced me to give her raw fruit and vegetables." ("School's snack ban sparks anger," Montreal Gazette, 8/27/00)

Chefs Collaborative is acknowledging its part in Fenton Communications' nonsensical campaign to ban swordfish. SeaWeb (a Fenton creation) says, "We picked swordfish for our campaign because we knew it appealed to a lot of consumers," and not, of course, because swordfish were ever really in danger. Expect more of your favorite restaurant fare soon to follow on these anti-choice activists "You can't eat that!" list.

The activists and organic food producers behind the fear mongering Keep Nature Natural Campaign make no bones about it: they want people to shop at their stores so they can fund an anti-genetically improved food campaign.

Minneapolis City Council Member Jim Niland, on behest of anti-choice activists from the Organic Consumers Association, is sponsoring a resolution directing the city to give preferences to organic food vendors, to encourage the Minneapolis School Board to do the same, and to urge the federal government to label genetically improved foods. The resolution follows on the heels of a similar proposal in San Francisco.

Much like the Natural Law Party's John Fagan rants against genetically improved foods to drive business to his food testing company, Dr. T. Colin Campbell, of the anti-meat Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and friends warn of the supposed dangers of dioxin in food (especially in meat) to drive business to Campbell's dioxin testing company.

New York University food studies professor Lisa Young (colleague of "fat tax" promoter Marion Nestle) continues her ongoing campaign blaming portion sizes, especially restaurant portion sizes, for Americans' obesity.

Isn’t it interesting that the people who brought you the thoroughly debunked Alar scare in 1989 are the same ones who are now attacking ABC reporter John Stossel for his…