Forget about Barack Obama’s new, unbuttoned post-presidential look. It’s the former First Lady who’s really letting loose.
In an unfettered interview last week with former Let’s Move! executive director Sam Kass, Michelle Obama pulled no punches in discussing Trump administration efforts to weaken her key nutrition initiatives. Speaking at the at the Partnership for a Healthier America summit, Ms. Obama decried a proposed delay in implementing the new Nutrition Facts label, which for the first time would disclose added sugars, as well as a rule requiring calorie counts on restaurant menus:
“Keep families ignorant. That’s all I’m hearing,” Ms. Obama said. “You don’t need to know what’s in your food. You can’t handle that, mom. Just buy this, be quiet, spend your money — don’t ask us about what’s in your food.”
She also addressed the recent weakening of some school food nutrition standards with this memorable quote:
“Every elected official on this planet should understand, don’t play with our children,”she added in the exchange. “Don’t do it.”
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bw1 says
“Just buy this, be quiet, spend your money — don’t ask us about what’s in your food.”
Imperative characterizations like this are insulting to parents – it assumes they are mindless automatons who have no choice but to blindly comply. If a food producer were to even remotely imply this message to a parent who cares about what’s in their kids’ food, and has even HALF a brain, then the response would be “apparently you don’t want or need my business; I’ll take it elsewhere.”
It’s further insulting to parents to tell them that the government must rob them of agency as consumers by mandating a one size fits all standard for what information consumers must purchase (and yes, since including it does increase costs, you DO purchase it) along with their food. The only proper role for government is requiring that whatever information IS supplied is accurate.
The market has responded very well to the demands of the various market segments with packaged and served foods whose nutritional labeling exceeds government requirements and which omits entire classes of legal ingredients that some people wish to avoid. It’s not the government’s job to get between consumers and their sub-optimal choices; if it were, we’d need to amend the Constitution to deny free speech protections for reality TV, and ban it.
I’m curious why I’ve never seen anything on this blog about the meat packing industry successfully lobbying to require the scare labeling of “uncured” on processed meats that omit carcinogenic nitrites. It’s no different from Bettina’s and her supporters push to require GMO labeling – it’s an attempt to put a “scarlet letter” on products that diverge from the interested faction’s doctrines. Of course, I know better than to expect an
answer, because Bettina has made a blanket statement regarding her refusal to confront those who challenge her in any but the most passive, half-hearted fashion. I merely pose such direct questions to expose her actions for what they really are.
aMom says
She hasn’t blocked you, has she, bw1? Quit your complaining. You are tiresome.