Tomorrow's Culture War Today: Oh, No, Grandma! Joe Biden Is Coming For Your Snacks!

Predictable as the dawn.

Greetings, Wonkers! We come to you with this special news report from THE FUTURE, where rightwingers are about to be losing their shit — or affecting to do so, anyway — over the Biden nanny state using critical race theory to socialize the nation's food supply and starve hardworking Americans into submission. We speak of course of proposed new FDA regulations which would deprive manufacturers of their God-given right to slap a "healthy" label on packaged shit that'll kill you sooner rather than later.

“Nutrition is key to improving our nation’s health,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said yesterday after the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health . “Healthy food can lower our risk for chronic disease. But too many people may not know what constitutes healthy food. FDA’s move will help educate more Americans to improve health outcomes, tackle health disparities and save lives.”

The proposed new rules, the first since 1994, reflect an updated understanding of diet and nutrition, where foods are evaluated based on "nutrient density" (i.e. whether they pack enough good stuff to promote health), rather than whether they contain at least some nutrients and nothing affirmatively terrible for you. Those of us who lived through the craze for SnackWells cookies, in their distinctive green-equals-healthy packaging, will intuitively understand the difference.

As the explanation for the proposed change notes:

A number of these nutrient-dense foods are not able to bear the “healthy” claim under the current regulation (e.g., salmon due to fat levels). Further, the current definition permits manufacturers to use the claim “healthy” on some foods that, based on the most up-to-date nutrition science and Federal dietary guidance, contain levels of nutrients that would not help consumers maintain healthy dietary practices (e.g., certain ready-to-eat cereals that may be high in added sugars).

Similarly, the current guidelines reflect the '90s-era obsession with cutting fat and cholesterol, which were then believed to be the main evils. Under the current system, manufacturers of olive and canola oil, which are objectively healthier than butter or lard, which contain a lot of saturated fat, can't call their products "'healthy' ... in part, because they do not contain 10 percent of the DV for vitamin A, vitamin C, protein, dietary fiber, calcium, or iron as specified by the existing rule."

All of which would seem to be totally uncontroversial, even long overdue. Except that we live in a country where hundreds of thousands of people just dosed themselves with horse dewormer after convincing themselves it was healthier than an FDA-approved vaccine. We are reintroducing polio and measles because an alarmingly high percentage of the population thinks that routine inoculations are part of a plot to harm their children. There are literally parents out there refusing to get their daughters vaxxed for HPV in hopes that fear of cervical cancer will deter them from having sex. In short, there are lot of crazy people in this country.

And there are also a fair few terrible people seeking to whip up the crazies for their own empowerment.

So we don't need a crystal ball to guess that these anodyne, scientifically based food labeling recommendations will be coopted into the never-ending culture war within 24 to 48 hours, depending on the fallout from Hurricane Ian. This is a country that flipped shit when Michelle Obama suggested that exercise was good and we should stop shoveling garbage into our kids at school. A country where conservatives boycotted Cracker Barrel for "going woke" with (optional! non-mandatory!) meatless sausage patties. A country where thousands of people believe Dr. Anthony Fauci either helped create the coronavirus, or denied them lifesaving treatment on purpose. There is zero chance that this public health regulation by a Democratic administration will escape notice by the craven leaders who maintain their hold on power by fanning the flames of an endless, meaningless, and most of all toxic battle against their supposed enemies.

We've lived through Klan hoods on cartoon trains, palpitations over Dr. Suess's sacred right to make fun of Asian people's eyes, tantrums about Black Santas, and an absolute shitstorm because Mr. Potato Head's penis is too small. (Was that it? Who the hell even remembers?)

So get ready for screeching from the usual suspects that the Deep State is trying to do communisms to your children by denying them the recommended daily allowance of corn syrup. HOW VERY DARE JOE AND KAMALA tell Real Americans what not to eat? And who's to say what's healthy? Isn't that a personal choice between a man and the good folks at Frito Lay? Those so-called experts are always changing their minds anyway. One week they're saying to eat kale, the next week it's bacon-Dorito smoothies, amirite? Probably best to just defund the FDA. What have those government bureaucrats ever done for America anyway?

 That train is never late. 

OPEN THREAD!

[ Proposed Regs ]

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