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Opening Arguments

Drop that Happy Meal, pervert!

I had cereal for breakfast this morning. Yesterday, I had eggs and bacon. Before that, I had sausage gravy and biscuits, and before that, pancakes swimming in Log Cabin syrup. (And some of you suspected I wasn't capable of having an adventurous vacation!) Alas, only today's breakfast would win approval in San Francisco:

A SCOTS health expert has warned that a US city's ban on Happy Meals is the shape of things to come.

From next month, restaurants in San Francisco cannot give away free toys with unhealthy meals.

It means McDonald's Happy Meals will no longer be able to be sold in their present form in the Californian city.

Glasgow University professor of metabolic medicine Naveed Sattar said the food industry will face further legal challenges if they do not improve the nutritional content of their products.

He said: "Excess calories is the biggest cause of obesity, rather than less exercise.

"You can educate people as much as you want but if there's tasty, accessible food that looks good, people will be seduced by it.

No toy in my Happy Meal! How much less complicated and stressful our lives will be as our Food Overlords keep us away from more and more temptations we are too eager to be seduced by. I can see a glitch or two, though. It will occur to some enterprising entrepreneur that providing toys for Happy Meals might be profitable. There will be laws to prevent them from peddling them in front of McD's -- sort of like the "no guns or sex perverts near schools" laws. Eventually, there will be arrests for trafficking in caloric paraphernalia, and Tommy Chong will weep in sympathy. As more tasty but deadliy cuisine is banned, there will be a vast underground economy devoted to supplying the needs of the gastrnomically depraved. There will be trans-fat cartels overseen by junk-food pushers, and the FDA will beomce a paramilitary outfit whose members will carry guns. Fun times!

Comments

Bob G.
Wed, 11/10/2010 - 2:05pm

Leo:
I'm sorry, but SOME foods aren't meant to be AS NUTRITIOUS as others...period.
They ARE meant to taste GOOD, though.
And I like 'em all!

But (As Ben Franklin would state), like everything else in life, this too should be taken in MODERATION.
So again, we see that it's not a "food" problem that's causing all the ruckus...it's the PEOPLE (and their abuse of food)...

Gee, it's just like the GUN "control" debate (when it's PEOPLE causing problems through misuse) all over again...such Deja Vu we have these days, isn't it?

;)

tim zank
Wed, 11/10/2010 - 8:36pm

Leo, a little vacation really does you good. It refreshes your "acerbic" wit!

littlejohn
Sat, 11/13/2010 - 4:49pm

Tim, someone should probably tell you that putting an ordinary word in quotes, as you did with "acerbic," implies you don't really mean it.
For example, I think you're very "insightful."

tim zank
Sun, 11/14/2010 - 2:15pm

Thanks for "checking" my work LJ, but quotation marks are used for more than you think.

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