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The Center for Consumer Freedom is handing out its annual Nanny Awards, and we want you to vote for the worst food cop of 2007.
The competition is fierce. Vying for the title: Overzealous state legislators pushing bans on common food ingredients; health officials prohibiting full-grown adults from eating dessert; prominent food activists caught in acts of rank hypocrisy; and animal-rights fanatics using the force of law to make food companies conform to their radical anti-meat dogmas. |
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Michael Jacobson, “No Yummies for Dummies’ Tummies ” Award — It would be quicker to list all the foods the Executive Director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) didn’t attack in 2007. Chinese take-out, margarine, quesadillas, and caffeine all made it onto his blacklist. In February, Jacobson told CBS Radio that “restaurants have every right to make these foods and you have every right to eat them.” But CSPI’s lobbying efforts suggest otherwise. The group has sued restaurants for using margarine (trans fat) and is petitioning the FDA to control how much salt you can have. |
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Pamela Anderson, “Tuna Tacos Make Merry Marriage” Award — The publicity-starved spokes-blonde for the animal rights wing nuts at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was caught yet again flouting her veggie “principles.” In June, Anderson got married (for a third time). The menu at her post-ceremony dinner? Pigs in a blanket, tuna tacos, and lobster. |
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Adria Hinkle and Andrew Cook, “Dumped Dogs Tell No Tales” Award — Let’s get this straight: PETA employees Hinkle and Cook admitted in court to picking up perfectly healthy dogs and cats from North Carolina-area shelters, killing said animals in the back of their PETA-owned van, and tossing the bodies into nearby dumpsters. Yet PETA President Ingrid Newkirk criticized them only for using the dumpster! |
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Putnam County Office for the Aging, “86-ing Octogenarians’ Food Choices” Award – Everyone knows the expression, “Like taking candy from a baby.” But health officials in this small New York county got it backwards: They tried to take donuts from the elderly. To protest the ban on donated baked goods at local retirement centers, senior citizens wore signs to remind officials that they’re “86, not 8.” |
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Meme Roth, “Real Cops Need to Arrest Food Cop” Award — This self-appointed obesity activist crammed a whole lot of crazy into the past year. She called out the Keebler Elves, Girl Scouts, and even Santa Claus as obesity culprits. Roth had to be physically restrained from vandalizing a YMCA snack table. And when asked on The Daily Show if “eating a cupcake is the same as putting a gun in your mouth,” she agreed. |
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Thomas Frieden, “Der Kommissar” Award – As commissioner of New York City’s humorously named “Department of Health and Mental Hygiene,” Frieden spearheaded a ban of trans fat, a common ingredient in crackers and pastries. In November he reintroduced complex mandatory menu labeling legislation. No word yet on the proof his version of menu labeling works any better. |
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Wayne Pacelle, “If You Can’t Beat Them, Kill Them” Award – It was a pretty rough year for the president of the $152 million Humane Society of the United States. In May, Pacelle got battered during a Congressional hearing for his claims about mad cow disease. In the wake of the Michael Vick dog fighting scandal, HSUS promised to care for the disgraced NFL star’s pit bulls. When it was later revealed that HSUS was doing nothing of the sort, Pacelle publicly recommended that government officials kill the dogs. |
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Dan Kinburn, “Suing Everything Under the Bun” Award – A lawyer for the PETA-affiliated Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has been encouraging trial lawyers to use California’s Proposition 65 (a notorious “bounty hunter” law) to sue “virtually every restaurant in the state of California that is not serving an all-vegetarian diet.” |
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Harold Goldstein, “PhD Most in Need of Summer School” Award – He heads the California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA), the food cops for the West Coast. Though Goldstein holds a doctorate in public health, he failed his own organization’s quiz on basic nutrition. CCPHA designed the test to support government-mandated calorie-posts on menus. But it really only shows the need for high academic standards for Public Health degrees. |
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