Don't tell your kids that eating their vegetables is good for them -- you might be breaking the law!
Sound absurd? Sure. But the FDA is forging ahead in cracking down on companies selling healthy foods, even claiming that telling people walnuts help reduce high cholesterol means they are "drugs" under the law and cannot be sold without a drug application. Meanwhile, the FDA lets Frito-Lay label their potato chips as "heart healthy".
Although this is the FDA and not the DEA, it really isn't so different from the "War on Drugs". In both cases, government agencies claim they must protect us from making bad choices or from people taking advantage of us by regulating what goes into our bodies. Unfortunately, it is a system that empowers government officials themselves to make bad choices and take advantage of us. Of course there's good money in it for them -- they have to find *something* to do in order to justify their budgets and salaries to Congress.
As the DEA's death grip on cannabis is pried loose, will the FDA try to muscle in with its own mechanisms of government control to claim that the herb cannot be touted as beneficial in treating various ailments unless growers or dispensaries file and receive "approved new drug applications"? Stay tuned.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
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Starchild;
I read recently that this same FDA recently (under pressure from agribusiness interests) also eased the labelling restrictions on products containing High Fructose Corn Syrup. As more and more consumers have become concerned with the health risks associated with HFCS, the FDA is winking at the ag-cartels creative new names to disguise this particular product. I recently saw a label on Pepsi-Cola which read 'sugar and/or corn syrup' Yeah, right.
Since you mentioned the Drug War; I don't drink Pepsi anyway, they were one of the major corporate advocates of the Drug War and among the first to mandate drug-testing for employees (Do you think the fact that their main competitor's formula uses a coca-leaf extract has anything to do with THAT? LOL)
Eric,
Yes, the corn syrup producers are lobbying (I think perhaps have already succeeded in lobbying) to get their product renamed "corn sugar". It's an interesting question, when producers should be allowed to make these types of changes. For instance should growers have been allowed to have "prunes" relabeled as "dried plums"? My instinctive feeling on that one is "yes" -- prunes are healthy food so far as I know, that somehow acquired a negative image through no real fault of their own. But I'm not very happy about "corn sugar".
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
Starchild;
The labelling issue is an interesting one. Probably a more efficient use of the FDA would be to relegate it to safety inspections at food/medical processing and retail establishments and get it out of the 'advertising' sector altogether. I've noticed a lot of smaller soft-drink manufactures have countered the corporate lobbying by advertising on their labels: "Contains No HFCS" or "Made With Real Sugar".
The FDA could probably also issue public warnings about recalls and potential safety hazards, instead of the absurd extremes they've gone to in 'warning labels'. Like with the walnuts, I've actually seen warnings about nut-allergies required on labels for peanut butter! LOL