Long Time Gone » Blog Archive » Things I don’t miss…

27/November/2009

Posted by: John McCrarey @ 9:36 am | Filed under: Life in these United States

I really, really dislike the whole “nanny state” concept. It brings out the rebel in me. Korea may or may not be trending that way, but it is at least a decade or two behind what I’ve observed in the good ol’ USofA. But really, does it get more insane than this:

When a small church comes to the Bowery Mission bearing fried chicken with trans fat, unwittingly breaking the law, they’re told “thank you.” Then workers quietly chuck the food, mission director Tom Bastile said.
“It’s always hard for us to do,” Basile said. “We know we have to do it.”

Lines at soup kitchens are up by 21 percent this year, according to a NYC Coalition Against Hunger report released yesterday. The city’s law banishing trans fat took effect in July 2008 and touched everyone with Health Department food licenses — including emergency food providers.

You might die hungry, but you’ll die healthy I suppose.

So, when people ask why I am seriously considering retirement in a third world country here’s another reason. I’d rather have the inconvenience of limited government services than the oppression of a government telling me what’s good for me.

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4 Comments »

Wow, I never thought about that before - so wasteful and annoying at the same time.

Comment by We've Got Seoul — 27/November/2009 @ 9:53 am
I googled your story to fact check it. It was such a small story in such a small online rag that it apparently didn’t merit any chatter. Moreover, I could not find any similar stories. Usually you see a story get picked up over and over by different news services. I did see a lot of reports-the most recent by Forbes-that the ban was successful. The sky didn’t fall down, profits weren’t lost, diners could tell the difference or any other of the dire predictions of the naysayers.

People I know do not voluntarily eat lard a common form of trans fat. Rather lard turns up in food we buy –primarily baked goods in order to extend the shelf life. That is done to extend the profit margin. How is telling businesses that you are no longer allowed to make a profit off of making people sick a bad thing? We do not allow the meat industry to sell rancid meat or the dairy industry to sell sour milk or allow restaurants to use such in their food prep.

Comment by Fortuneate — 28/November/2009 @ 10:27 pm
Fortuneate, the issue was about the homeless shelter being required to throw away donated food. Your response seems to be along the lines of “let them eat cake”.

Comment by John McCrarey — 29/November/2009 @ 7:38 am
Sorry it looked like the issue was your allegation that the US is a nanny state not the fact that the mission is throwing out food. The next paragraph in the article quotes another organization -a soup kitchen -that accepted a load of food from a deli going out of business which they did not throw out. It concluded with the fact that less than 5 % of donated food contains trans fats. Sounds like we are missing a piece of the story. In any event the decision of the mission to throw out donated fried chicken from a local church -even if that decision was actually prompted solely on the fear that the chicken might have been fried in trans fat hardly paints the picture that the new law is reducing the cities ability to feed its poor or reduced contribtions.

Comment by Fortuneate — 29/November/2009 @ 8:06 am