I have very mixed feelings about this Times Dining piece on Mayor Bloomberg, who wants to reduce the amount of sodium in processed food yet eats plenty of salt himself. Also? He will eat the occasional Big Mac, yet insists that the calorie count be posted. And? He was once a smoker, but continues to make cigarettes more expensive and less socially acceptable. I understand the value of a good "oh, the hypocrisy" piece as well as anyone, and God knows it is plenty easy to look at the mayor and see a tiny Jewish tyrant bent on forcing the people of this city to do his will, but, really, is it that binary?
I was having a conversation with a colleague about this in the wake of the whole parks 'n' beaches smoking ban thing the other week. Now, I speak here as a pack-a-day smoker who will drench his bacon in salt without even tasting it first. My consumption of alcohol and artery-clogging comestibles is fairly well documented. Still: I am not sure that I necessarily disagree with many of the measures that the mayor and his ilk have championed. I cannot think of anything, in my lifetime, that has had a more beneficial effect on the health of Americans than the increasing and incessant regulation and taxation of cigarettes. I would, perhaps, have a different opinion in the event of an outright ban, but can anyone really argue that bars are a whole lot more pleasant now that you have to go outside to smoke while you're at them? Particularly given the fact that the people least likely to smoke are always the most boring, so it provides you with an excellent excuse to extricate yourself from a deadly dull dialogue.
Again: conflicted. I understand the libertarian arguments about everyone being able to make their own choices in a free society, but is that really what this boils down to? No one is talking about banning salt; the proposal simply reduces the amount in prepared food. You're always free to add your own. In an age where you have to go on an extended safari to find a food that's free of high fructose corn syrup, is it an absolute restriction of liberties to say that maybe we should remove those items that are obviously detrimental to our health, particularly when we know that most of us are so lazy that we will pretty much accept the default option without complaint? Nora Ephron-yes, there she is again!-tells the Times that the listing of calorie counts "takes the fun out of everything," but is it some kind of brutal disenfranchisement to let people know that the large fries contain pretty much all the fat and sodium you need for a week?
Anyway. I'm not trying to be the Food Police. I think we should be able to smoke in parks (although not beaches, because there is nothing nastier than stepping on a cigarette in the sand). I just think that maybe we're getting a little overheated about regulations that are not exactly draconian. But I am certainly open to arguments. While you come up with them, I think I'm gonna go have a cigarette.
111001 11110001001 0110 0001101 10101 110011!
I hear ya, buddy.
This is kinda like the motorcycle helmets law that people here fight so much. Sure, to each his own and free society and all. But then tax money pays the workers' disability for those turned retarded by crash injuries... so...
I particularly enjoy the Delaware Compromise on motorcycle helmets: You have to *have* one available to you when you ride, but it doesn't necessarily have to be on your head. So they usually end up strapped to the seat, vaguely protecting (?) the rider's ass.
Like lifejackets!
'xactly!
I would love to see a bar empty out so that everyone can hear what those interesting smokers are talking about outside.
Smokers Outside would make a great punk NY talk show. Desk. Host (Balk?!). And then just random guests from the bar with an audience just standing around smoking.
I actually think that idea has legs. Do 'er up.
When the smoking-in-bars ban went into effect, I had a smoker friend who loved the idea because it segregated the cool kids (outside smoking on the sidewalk) from the uncool kids (sitting by themselves at the bar babysitting the smokers' purses).
Sigh. If they ban smoking at parks and beaches, I am destined for a life of smoke-free lonliness.
I quit smoking two weeks ago. Is this why I have developed a fascination with crocheting and Oprah?
I definitely enjoy smoking while eating and drinking, and I think the smoking ban has had a terrible effect on the social interactions in this city -- being able to smoke while drinking is enjoyable for me in a way that standing outside of some bar in Manhattan, especially in cold weather, is not. The way you take puffs in between sips of a drink, and the way conversations go when both people are smoking, is completely different from two non-smokers in a bar or restaurant who can only focus on their food or drink while they're there. There's something tedious about making the culture of New York completely anti-pot and anti-smoking and letting the only legal actions be eating and drinking. And don't get me started on Nora Ephron, who calls herself a "foodie" but admitted to the NYTimes that she is on a very careful diet (similar to Tina Fey's "points" diet, I think).
At some point we have to say that it's none of Bloomberg's business what we eat or drink, and that's the end of it. He clearly does not believe in individual freedoms, and uses dubious secondhand smoke evidence and the rising obesity epidemic to govern our lives that way. And why don't restaurants have the right to decide who can do what on their private property? One important reason Bloomberg keeps winning elections is because the people who should know better somehow end up justifying the things he has done in the name of the health of the city. And yet I still haven't seen a convincing study that proves that secondhand smoke causes the number of deaths that the hardcore anti-smoking activists say it does.
The smoking ban has had a terrible effect on YOUR social interactions, but you [smokers] are in the minority. There are plenty of severely unpleasant side-effects of secondhand smoke that aren't lethal. If I'm in a restaurant I want to taste the food I'm spending the last pennies of my paycheck on, and I don't want to get a headache from the clouds of smoke from someone across the room. It's the classic "my right to swing my fist ends at someone else's nose" situation. I and every other non-smoker deserves the right to enjoy a beer and conversation without going home reeking of smoke or feeling nauseous. Also "the only legal actions [are] eating and drinking"? This makes YOU sound boring.
The idea that Bloomberg has some secret anti-freedom agenda and is enacting it by making restaurants disclose how many calories are in an item is ridiculous. It's about giving the public the information they need to make healthy choices, and about making fast food and hanging out in the park and going out to bars just that little bit healthier.
Jenkins, if I had to constantly listen to all of your mind-spinning-self-defense, I would probably smoke too. You're conducting your little battle, but you're going to lose the quality-of-life war.
the "number of deaths" they say it does. This reminds me of all the "global warming is a joke" types I meet who claim that global warming is nowhere near as bad as scientists say so why should we worry about it.
Think about the people working 8+ hour shifts, 40+ weeks in small, stuffy bars and restaurants and I think we're talking about a more than negligible effect on health. I agree that sitting next to a smoker for 5 minutes isn't going to kill you but what about the working environment for wait staff and bartenders, etc?
The smoking ban never bugged me. I am more than happy to trade walking outside, even in January, for not going home reeking.
And the reason a law had to be made is because, until it was, no significant number of restaurants or bars were going to break from the pack and go smoke-free, despite (given how many bans have passed) the fact that most of their patrons wanted them to. The market wouldn't work in this case because there weren't enough nonsmoking options to bring your business to.
There's no good science to prove that salt is bad for you. That's the difference between salt and, say, smoking.
Anyone who has spent enough time in this country will come to the common sense conclusion that disclosing calories to Americans can only benefit our society.
i dont think there's anything wrong with making restaurants ALL post nutritional information. Honestly, why isn't this a federal law?
But as far as like banning transfar or regulating how much salt they can put on french fries. that's going too far.
Trans-fat bans and salt regulation don't really bother me (I mean, at least in the case of the former, the science is pretty conclusive: They're bad for you), but I can appreciate opposition to them.
But yeah, posting nutritional info should be federal law, and no libertarian worth his or her salt (PUN, kind of) should be against it. The whole free-market shtick rests on consumers having information available to them.
A transfat ban is maybe the one case I could see as justified.
Our society is growing to the point where we are all taking on being not only free individuals, but individuals working on common goals. Health care for all is in direct opposition to the freedom to eat whatever the heck you like. If I'm paying for your health care, you'd better not smoke, have a reasonable caloric intake, and treat high fructose corn syrup like poison. Luckily, it will be a little while before we as a society mature enough to make those choices. We're still stuck in 'no smoking in bars is a violation of my freedoms'.
So putting calories next to food choices and reducing some salt in some ridiculously salty foods? Please folks. Get a grip.
And stop smoking already.
*"Word Trade Center cough"*
(The L got stuck in my throat.)