San Jose may consider fast-food ban
Link: Click here
Three San Jose City Council members Thursday proposed a one-year
citywide moratorium on new fast-food restaurants arguing that the
prolific eateries are fattening people - especially kids - with
unhealthy fare.
The city council has no business telling me what I can or can’t eat. If
I’m overweight and have high blood pressure that’s between me and my
doctor, not between me and my city council. If my cholesterol level is
too high it’s up to me to do something about it, not my local
government. My diet - as good or as bad as it may be - is up to me.
The proposal is similar to a moratorium the Los Angeles City Council
approved last month for South Los Angeles. The San Jose proposal also
calls for an indefinite ban on new fast-food restaurants within 1,000
feet of schools.
“Won’t someone think of the children?” - Maude Flanders (The
Simpsons)
It’s always the same cry whenever activists of one stripe or another try
to limit our freedom. We can’t have this book in the library. Won’t
someone think of the children? That movie is inappropriate and should
be banned. Won’t someone think of the children? That art is offensive.
Won’t someone think of the children? We’re all too fat. Won’t someone
think of the children?
If you want to limit school aged children’s access to fast food, provide
a cafeteria with decent tasting food. And don’t permit the kids to
leave school during the day without written permission from the parents.
And provide a gym class.
A committee chaired by Mayor Chuck Reed will soon decide whether to
schedule a council vote on drafting a fast-food ban. Reed was skeptical
of the idea and said his committee would first seek a workload
assessment from the legal and planning staff.“I don’t think this is the way to solve our obesity problem,” Reed said.
“I happen to like the McDonald’s salads, and I don’t think we should be
telling our residents where they can and cannot eat.”
Well, at least the mayor is showing a little sense. I’d have preferred
that he say something like, “The city of San Jose has enough problems to
solve. We don’t need to be inventing new ones” but that would alienate
the control freaks on the council.
Chu, the council’s only former restaurateur who ran an airport
Chinese-food concession stand, said the city would work with the
restaurant industry to develop language.“My restaurant was healthy, freshly cooked Chinese food,” Chu said.
“When you talk about fast food restaurants, you’re thinking burgers and
fries and chips and pizza.”
Healthy? I’ll bet it wasn’t healthy to people limiting their sodium
intake. And rice and noodles aren’t exactly something you want to eat
all the time if you’re trying to limit your carbs to lose weight. Did
you ever serve egg rolls or wontons? Deep fried.
Councilman Pete Constant doubted the proposal would accomplish its goal.
“I think people sometimes think we have to do something to make
ourselves feel good, regardless of whether it will have any effect,” he
said.Lunching with two co-workers at Nacos Tacos, Tom Glitsch agreed.
Parents, not government, should limit their children’s food options,
said Glitsch, who questioned what difference the ordinance would make if
existing restaurants stay open.“No matter how many fast-food restaurants the city manages to keep out,
kids are going to find it somewhere,” Glitsch said.
Good, more sanity.
“This worrying trend highlights the need to provide racially diverse and
low-income communities with healthier eating options and to take steps
to curtail the increase in high-fat, low nutrition options like fast
food,” Campos said in her proposal.
Then encourage those types of businesses to open in low income
neighborhoods. Provide them with tax breaks if you must. But
realistically I don’t see that working. A place that serves fresh soups
and salads or other healthy fare is going to be more expensive than Taco
Bell or Burger King. The restaurant will fail.
As they left a Carl’s Jr. on Alum Rock Avenue, San Jose residents
Jennifer and Darryl Law said the proposed moratorium would help their
family eat better.“We’ll probably cook more at home,” Darryl Law said.
So cook more at home. It’s your choice. You don’t need a nanny telling
you how to live. Take some responsibility for your life and stopping
expecting everyone else to take care of you.
Stumble it!
Read something simple like “fast food nation” before you start bitching about consumer sovereignty. Fucking pathetic “stop limiting my freedom”. Neo-classical Economics can fucking kiss my ass (and I’m getting a dual major with it, it’s a load of bull shitte)
What you should be talking about are nutritional “islands” that really the real limiting freedoms for poor and underprivileged communities who have no “freedom” to choose healthy meals, and instead are basically forced to eat McShit.
You seem to talk like a theist who is arguing about Free Will and how it actually exists. There is no real choice outside of these ones you are presented. You don’t understand that there is a relation between having to choose between Wendy’s and Mcfuck, and having all your local farmers markets dissappear, and having real healthy food dry out of the local food chain. You aren’t arguing for freedom of choice, you are propping up the status quo, global warming and peak energy.
I’ve lived in San Jose basically every summer. It’s a great city, and should lead the country by example banning unsustainable shitte, whether it be public smoking or fast food, because the US needs to wake the fuck up.
At the end of this rant I realized that you might actually not even eat fast food, but am too lazy to go back and make the necessary changes. But if you do, you are addicted.
Fuck your way of life.
XVX for life, R.A.S.H. ’til death.
Is the fact that people eat too much high fat, high calorie, high sodium fast food a problem? Of course it is. Do I think that the answer is to ban fast food establishments? Obviously not.
The solution as I see it comes down to education and the opportunity to purchase healthy alternatives. Educate people that if they feel that McDonalds, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, etc. is something they want, then go for the salad, eliminate the fries, don’t put sour cream on the taco salad, and limit Big Macs to maybe once per week.
It is possible to eat healthier (notice I didn’t say healthy) and even lose weight by eating at one of these places. You just have to make a conscious effort. I know it can be done because just by the simple expedient of not ordering fries on the few times I go to these places I lost 10 pounds over a six month period. But you have to think about it.
Education also comes down to knowing how to prepare food at home. Just getting rid of fast food joints is a simplistic answer that in the end won’t solve anything. Many of traditional recipes from the cultures I’m familiar with involve the use of lard, sour cream, fatty cuts of meat, and carbohydrate laden foods. People need to be educated on how to change their cuisine to make it healthier. Just cooking at home won’t solve the problem.
Healthy food opportunity is an issue. Unfortunately the ability of grocery stores to stay in business in some of the poorer neighborhoods is problematic. Shoplifting and the general higher crime rate makes operating in these neighborhoods uneconomical so they move out. My answer: encourage corporations like Walmart to build Super Walmarts (complete with grocery aisles) in these areas. Not only do you create jobs (no I don’t want to debate Walmart being evil) you create the opportunity for people to buy cheaper food.
Farmer’s Markets? They’re around (see http://www.mercurynews.com/foodheadlines/ci_5852501) but they’re not necessarily less expensive or healthier than what you’d find in a grocery store. But they are available if you feel like looking for them.
But again, step 1 is education. I’d like to see the city council attacking the root of the problem instead of going for the knee-jerk busy-body reaction.