Sometimes, well, no, often actually, I find myself wondering who’s dumber: The federal government or the people who depend on that government to tell them how to live their lives. Have you wondered what “healthy” food is? Look no further! The federal Food and Drug Administration is about to tell you! Have a peek.
Now, these are the same folks who took six years to define what “gluten-free” means. Yes, we all know the true definition is: “A scam designed to bilk the sheeple into paying more for cheap, rice-based snack foods.” My gosh, do you know that flippin’ carrots and apples are labeled “gluten-free”?! Gosh, really?! They are? That’s swell because I didn’t know that a carrot pulled from the ground wasn’t the same as a loaf of bread! Generally, you can count on bizarre food fads originating in the West because we have a higher population of weenies than the rest of the world who see food as for eating and not social, cultural, or political statements. I doubt there is a falafel vendor pushing a cart in Cairo, Egypt hawking his food as “gluten-free” unless it’s a joke to rightfully ridicule the food-borne anxieties of the West.
But, bear with me for a moment here. How is it that we need the government to tell us what food is “healthy”? Or, rather, what foods can be labeled as such? I mean, come on, people, really?! Seriously?! Do you need the government to tell you a deep-fried Twinkie isn’t healthy even if it was labeled that way? “Gosh, June, do you think we ought to let the Beaver have these deep-fried sugared lard patties? They’re labeled ‘healthy’, but maybe we better wait for the federal government to confirm that…” Boy oh boy, are these people for real?! I feel like I’m in a science fiction movie where I was put into suspended animation in 1979 and woke up to see the entire West fell not to the Soviets but collective stupidity that revolves around dietary choices and fossil fuel phobias!
It all reminds me of this dude where I used to work several years ago. This guy was one of those “preachy” vegetarians always telling you that your ham sandwich is the product of animal cruelty. Even without artisan mustard. Well, someone left these cream-filled cupcakes on the break room table. I read the ingredients and see the “cream” is actually whipped lard. I then judge this food to be a sweetened candle, sans wick, more or less. Well, Mr. Vegetarian comes in, snatches one up, rips it open, and downs it. Then I told him, “Hey, did you know you just ate an animal?” He sniffs and says, “No! It was a cupcake!” I told him, read the ingredients on the label and he does. His eyes widen in horror as if he’d just had a Donner Party Hot Dog. “Why didn’t you tell me that before I ate it?!”, he cried. I said unto him, “You need to do your own due diligence, pal. Read the label. That’s why it’s there. See, if you really cared what went into your body, you’d find that out for yourself. Not expect others to do that for you.”
That’s a point I’d like to expand on. If you care what goes into your body, or the bodies of your kids, you’ll read the dadgum labels! Excuse me, but if there were Plutonium Pops in the freezer section, would you bring those home for the kiddies because they’re labeled ‘healthy’? What, now we need the government to come tell us that words might or might not be misleading on products people are trying to sell? No! Really? I bet the government doesn’t engage in such deceptions, do they? I mean, it’s not like they’ve ever called wars “police actions” or “regime changes”, right? Or told us that they’ve never tortured people when they did, right? I would say the entire Bill of Rights and Constitution are deceptively labeled in this modern American era. Might as well slap “gluten-free” and “healthy” on those two documents, too. But not “sustainable”.
I don’t know about you, but when the government thinks it needs to tell me how to decide on foods to eat, I think the United States as a whole has fallen and can’t get up, as the old TV infomercials used to say. Except we can’t press a button and have a political paramedic team arrive and restore common sense by mouth-to-ear logical reasoning. I think we need The Clapper for this society. We have a population unable to discern what healthy food is. “Gosh, if I knew carrots and zucchini were healthier than deep-fried cupcakes and sugar-coated rock candy breakfast cereal with soda poured over it, maybe I might be able to walk further than fifteen feet.” And these people vote! That’s even worse! At least when they’re eating this crap, they’re doing it in their own homes. But voting, they’ve just served us up another four years of baloney!
Hey, I love fruits and vegetables. I don’t need to read the labels of my bread because I bake it myself. I know what’s in it: Flour, water, yeast, sea salt, and extra-virgin olive oil. There’s nothing better than a crisp, cold carrot or apple on a summer day. But I don’t need the government to tell me that, either. If I can’t know the difference between yogurt and lard, I’ve got much bigger problems than how those things are labeled. Again, though, people who can’t tell the difference between those two things unless the government tells them, vote and install more idiots in there. How can they tell the difference between yogurt and lard in that case? They can’t. Not that there is any difference, really. Be that as it may, I daresay the government will soon use the Homeland Security reverse-911 system to remind us to brush our teeth before bed. “Oh! Look! It’s Homeland Security! Oh, gee, thanks, government! I got into my jammies and went to beddy-bye without brushing my teeth!”
Ok, Jack’s going to help everyone out now. The fruits and vegetables you see in the store? Yes, those are healthy. Eat lots of those. On the aisle where the bags of snacks and candies are? Yes, those are not so healthy. Eat those in moderation. As in don’t binge on them and come whining later that the government didn’t tell you not to. Take some personal responsibility for your actions. Oh, wait, the government doesn’t want you to. My bad.
The government wants you dependent on them from cradle-to-grave so you cannot even so much as go grocery shopping without their “helpful” help. They really don’t care about your health, because if they did, they wouldn’t go over to the Middle East and provoke violence as they do. No, it’s about control. Which is the same reason they’re in the Middle East. Interestingly, the Middle East is not impressed with their “help”. They don’t label a lot of their foods, either. Hmmm…
