I am incredulous that so many people are allowing this insidious (perhaps even perfidious) idea that Mayor Bloomberg has about limiting the size of "sugary" drinks, i.e. soda mostly, but others too.
I am definitely on the side of making healthy CHOICES--I personally do not drink soda on a regular basis--maybe 4 or 5 in a whole year--if you make me. I would NEVER drink diet soda filled with artificial sweeteners. I have NEVER smoked...not a cigarette, and not anything else. So, I am not here to defend those products. I am here to insist that "we the people" refuse to allow elected and appointed officials--people who WORK for us--to continue to tell us (and businesses) what to do and how to do it.
They keep saying "Look how well bans worked on smoking!!" Does anyone see a link here? Smoking was made so INTOLERABLE and SO EXPENSIVE that people have found their way off of cigarettes...but have they just switched to over-eating as their new addiction?
Everyone is now on the "green" bandwagon...again...I have been on the side fighting (through education--not necessarily legislation) for ORGANIC--NATURAL--NON-GMO--PROTECT THE TREES, BEES, AND THE PLANET SIDE since I was a little girl!
So this uppity, know-it-all MAYOR--(MAYOR--not elected LEGISLATOR) decides that we are too fat...so we should be FORCED to make better decisions. He defends his plan by stating that basically in certain situations there are ways around the "law". He says if someone wants 32 oz in stead of 16 oz then they can order TWO drinks. Or they just might head off to the grocery store and buy a liter bottle on their own! So, the mayor seems to feel that either generating MORE TRASH or denying the merchant the soda sale in preference to the grocery store where there is NO LIMITATION...that is somehow better.
Empty calories, they say, are at the root of the problem, yet once again ALCOHOL is exempt. I am a teetotaler, I don't drink...once every 5 years or so I may have a sip of wine...but generally one could say I don't drink alcohol. Talk about your empty calories!! And honestly, I am not so much worried about an over-eater (even of sugary fluids) driving on the same road with me...but I am very concerned about the same over partakers of alcohol...they don't even have to be in a car to cause problems...
domestic violence, loud parties which break out into gun battles...this is where my concerns lie. Driving while under the influence of alcohol, or soda...I'll take the soda drivers.
Your body needs carbs, protein, and even fat...many vitamins and nutrients are FAT SOLUBLE or need fat to manufacture...and fat enables that satiated feeling. Alcohol on the other hand is 7 cals. per gram! And you do NOT need it at all. Certainly we can say that when you go to the ball park--you can get all the beer you want, and all the hot dogs you want...(for NOW, anyway), but that soda...well now, that is the reason that everyone is FAT. An when you go to the movie theater--it's the SODA'S that are causing you to be fat...the over-sized candies, the extra buttered popcorn...that has nothing to do with it--YET.
Perhaps alcohol was exempted because there are so many government agencies that have their fingers in the pie. We even have a Federal agency devoted to ALCOHOL (ATF). What on earth would they have to do if we got government out of the alcohol business.
Look what New York had up it's sleeves for beer producers--the smaller ones being the most affected--of course. From RT http://rt.com/usa/news/new-york-beer-state-063/
" The Brew New York website adds that for smaller breweries that handle
distribution on their own, such as Oceanside’s Barrier Brewing, they
will now have to pay not just a state tax but an additional New York
City excise tax of $3.72 for selling there swill in the Five Boroughs.
For them, the new rules will require them to pay more than $8 extra on
each barrel. These craft beer producers will be among the hardest hit
since producing only a limited supply of brew and keeping the
cost-per-bottle higher in order to conduct business on a wider scale are
necessary."
Let's not forget the Federal Excise Taxes collected on beer.
http://www.ttb.gov/beer/tax.shtml
It's kind of like the crazy reasoning of funding health care for children with special taxes collected from CIGARETTE sales. Once the sales decline, just as "they" want, then there are no funds for the account that is supposed to cover health care for children...and we can't stop funding that...so we have to take it from someone else's pocket.
So even if it is a "good idea" based on "sound principles"--there is NO JUSTIFICATION for a MAYOR to impose these limitations.
Where will this end? I guess if we go to an ice cream parlor--they will have not only limit you to a single scoop, but the size of the scoop. Maybe we can keep people in their houses if we just force them to spend their money on what we think is right? If they can pay all their bills on time, then they MUST be able to handle their finances...but if they are having problems making any payments...perhaps the government needs to step in and tell you what to spend and how to spend it. If you want to be able to keep your Fannie Mae home--you might have to have ALL your expenses and payments channeled and approved through your personal appointed accountant from the IRS.
Little by little we are being told we are too stupid to figure anything out on our own...because little by little we have allowed our governments from local to state to federal to control everything we say and do...all they have to do is say "it's for the children" in the state of AZ and they will pass the law, whether it really will benefit children or not.
There is another little thing they fail to tell you. People don't often CUT things out. They are more likely to REPLACE them with something else. I keep hearing that if you just cut that one soda a day you will lose pounds. Seriously?? Unless you drink only water...you will replace that soda with something else which may have calories. It may even be something with artificial sweeteners that has NO CALORIES...but studies demonstrate the people who partake of artificial sweeteners are more likely to crave more food...not mentioning the vast medical problems that can arise from them. (Migraines, jaw pain, weight gain--yes, weight gain)
Remember when "they" told us how bad fat was for us? I knew that was a horrible idea. We do need fat. I knew several people who drastically cut their fat intake. They blew up like a balloon!
Back in the day when I was painfully thin--so thin that I had a teacher threatening to go to the authorities thinking my parents were denying me food! She was mistaken. I happened to have an extremely active metabolism at the time. I ate a lot of organic and whole foods, but I also ate "junk foods"--just to keep my weight above 100 pounds! Cheese cake and french fries. And I was still desperate to keep my weight up. Not so today...forty years later...I am quite the opposite. I have a very under-active thyroid and metabolism. Keeping the weight OFF is the challenge for me at this point. As I said, I don't drink soda, so that NYC law wouldn't change my situation either way.
I am a proponent of eating right, but I am NOT a supporter of any government figure or body insisting that they control us by force. WE are supposed to be a limiting factor on the government!
My issue with Bloomberg is that he has no right to enact or enforce this or the other bans and taxes he has done. This is interstate commerce! International commerce! Who died and made him king? I guess it is-- WE THE PEOPLE.
