Nutritional standards used by
Michelle Obama's school lunch program are worse than useless.
By Rand Simberg in PJ Media
Do you think you know how to eat
healthy? Your friendly neighborhood federal government doesn’t think you do.
And they’re here to help.
Buried deep in the ObamaCare law,
the gift from the Democrats to the nation that keeps on giving, chain
restaurants are required to start labeling calories on all of their menu items.
The law applies to vending-machine items as well. It’s proven
to be a nightmare for small business and franchises, adding cost (which
will have to be passed on to the diner, if they choose to pay it). In the case
of things like “order your own” sandwiches or pizza, it is almost impossible to
implement. As with much of the poorly written misbegotten law, it is unclear
whether it applies to things like food trucks, or what the penalty is for
non-compliance. Despite the uncertainty, overall cost has been estimated to be
half a billion dollars, which will be “eaten” by consumers.
Meanwhile, over in the public-school
cafeterias, food
is being wasted, and money is being lost by the school districts, because
kids refuse to purchase or eat what Michelle Obama thinks is good for them. The
goal of her Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, passed in 2010, was to wage war on
childhood obesity. But unsurprisingly, the children, obese and otherwise, find
the high-fiber, low-fat, low-salt fare unappetizing, and when they don’t brown
bag to avoid having to buy it, they throw much of it away. Worse, and
particularly insanely, the law makes no distinction between different kids’
dietary needs, and completely fails to take into account physical activity —
the football player gets as many (or few) calories as the chess champ.
Leaving aside the legitimate issue
of whether or not such one-size-fits-none policies are actually in the purview
of the federal government, the worst thing about them is that they’re based on
junk science.
The calorie counts are based on the
flawed theory, per basic thermodynamics, that a calorie is a calorie, in terms
of weight gain or loss, regardless of whether it comes from fat, protein or
carbohydrates. The reduction in sodium is mandated on the notion that salt is
bad for everyone. The low-fat and reduced-cholesterol items are based on the
primitive thinking that “you are what you eat.” In short, the FDA and USDA food
“pyramid” (which the first lady recently
replaced with a “plate”) upon which these laws and regulations are based is
(like the scene from Woody Allen’s movie Sleeper) almost exactly the opposite
of what we now know to be nutritionally healthy.
In fact, what kind of calories you
consume is much more important than how many — protein and fat are actually
beneficial in weight reduction, because they are more satiating and increase
metabolism, while grains (a key part of the “plate”) and other high-glycemic
carbohydrates, such as potatoes, actually promote weight gain (which is why
cattle are fattened on corn, not on lard). Calorie counters have trouble
keeping weight lost off because the diet is so unsatisfying and
counterproductive metabolically. So the labels are actually worse than useless.
Unless one has elevated blood
pressure, there is no scientific evidence that sodium is bad for most people,
particularly young people. It might help to use sea salt rather than table,
which provides additional elements such as magnesium and potassium, but for
kids, reducing salt per se only reduces willingness to choke down the
unappealing food.
With regard to fat and cholesterol,
you are not what you eat. All of the recommendations for reducing fat in diet
are based on flawed decades-old “studies,” and the actual science (as revealed
by Nina Teichholz’s recent best seller, The Big Fat Surprise) indicates
that saturated
fat is healthy, and that elevated bad cholesterol and triglycerides, and
weight gain, come
from eating grains and other bad carbohydrates, not the consumption of fat.
In the case of children, they need fat to promote the growth of not just their
bodies, but particularly their young brains. Giving them low-fat milk is not
just distasteful to them, but dietary child abuse.
It’s bad enough that flawed
nutrition advice from the government agencies has in fact promoted obesity,
diabetes and premature mortality from heart disease and stroke for decades. But
it’s long past time to stop forcing Americans to follow it.
Rand Simberg is a recovering
aerospace engineer and a consultant in space commercialization, space tourism
and Internet security. He offers occasionally biting commentary about infinity
and beyond at his weblog, Transterrestrial
Musings.
No comments:
Post a Comment