Mayor Bloomberg To New York City: I’m Gonna Make You Eat ‘Healthy’ For Your Own Good

NYC mayor once again trying to set the example for healthy living

One of the biggest trends over the past couple of years on the business side of health has been the move away from the use of trans fat in products and putting calorie counts of menu items served at restaurants. KFC eliminated trans fat from their restaurants with great fanfare as have quite a number of other chains wanting to get in on the bandwagon of this “healthy” trend. While I certainly think eliminating trans fat from your diet is indeed good for you to do, I don’t think it’s the government’s business to tell you what you can and cannot eat. That’s why I was very critical of New York City public health officials leading the charge against trans fat in 2006 because quite frankly it isn’t their job to legislate what a healthy diet is supposed to be.

Well, now they’re back at it again in New York City where Mayor Michael Bloomberg has just announced a new “formal food standard” executive order set by the City’s Food Policy Task Force last week which requires all city schools, senior centers, homeless shelters, child care centers, after school programs, correctional facilities, public hospitals, parks, and any other government-related entity within the city limits to accomplish three specific health goals with the menu selections where food is served:

1. Less frying of the foods
2. Less salt in the foods
3. More fruits and veggies on the menu

Millions of meals are served each week in these various government-run cafeterias and restaurants, so Mayor Bloomberg thinks it is his obligation as New York City’s leader to force a change in diet for the people being served food by particular facilities.

“All of the walking that we New Yorkers do helps us to stay fit and trim, but it is not enough — in fact, we are suffering from an epidemic of obesity, just like the rest of this country,” he said at a news conference. “We really have to do something about this.”

Perhaps this lends credence to what New York City native Gary Taubes says about exercise, huh? Despite all that extra exercise New Yorkers get from walking around so much isn’t helping, so let’s turn to people’s diets instead. But I have to ask the question: what right does a mayor have to mandate such changes that may or may not help the people it is intended to? Let’s take a closer look at his three specific proposed changes.

1. Less frying of the foods
No doubt this is a continuation of the concerns over trans fat that were birthed in New York City a couple of years ago. But is ALL frying bad? Of course not! You and I both know it’s perfectly fine to fry eggs in butter, chicken in coconut oil, non-starchy vegetables in olive oil, or any number of other delicious and nutritious low-carb foods in healthy sources of fat without making them unhealthy in the least. I’m sure Mayor Bloomberg would disagree with me that frying in fat would be considered healthy, but it really does depend on the kind of fat we’re talking about. The only one I actively avoid as much as humanly possible is trans fat, but most other fats, even saturated fat, is just fine on a carbohydrate-restricted nutritional approach.

2. Less salt in the foods
This is another one of those old myths that has been out there for so long that it’s just become accepted reality for most people, but salt is NOT as detrimental to our health as we’ve been led to believe. Conventional wisdom tells us that consuming too much salt will raise your blood pressure which can put you at a higher risk for heart disease. But as I stated in this blog post from March 2007, much of the concern over salt on your health is not based on any science whatsoever. For a comprehensive explanation of the reasons why you need not be worried about your salt intake, please read David McCarron’s report entitled “The dietary guideline for sodium: should we shake it up? Yes!” which was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2000. It fully exposes the big fat lie that salt is harmful to your health. Nothing could be further from the truth!

3. More fruits and veggies on the menu
Although I think in principle this is an absolutely FABULOUS recommendation, I think you have to be much more specific about the KIND of fruits and vegetables that are offered. It’s just a copout to say “eat more fruits and veggies” and serve whatever because people will gravitate to the higher starch (like potatoes, especially fried ones) and higher sugar ones (such as bananas and oranges) almost every single time. This could be why eating a diet high in fruits and veggies has been found to be ineffective against breast cancer. While they have long been marketed as “healthy” for many years, the fact is you have to designate the good fruits and vegetables from the not-so-good ones–something Mayor Bloomberg does NOT do with his new edict from on high.

So with obesity, diabetes, and other metabolic-related diseases on the rise in New York City and across the nation, what’s somebody like Mayor Bloomberg in a position of power to do? He feels like it is his duty to improve the nearly 225 million meals and snacks that are currently served by city agencies annually with these changes and full compliance will be mandatory by March 2009. This is the first such mandate by any city in the United States and may set off another chain reaction of copycats in other major and even minor cities in the coming months. In fact, Mayor Bloomberg EXPECTS this to happen.

“We are making healthier eating the norm by improving the food we offer,” he stated. “We hope that employers and other organizations will follow the healthy example we are setting — anyone who serves food can save lives by adopting standards like these.”

Bloomberg says each of the meals served need to stay within a certain parameter of calories, salt and fiber or it will be unacceptable to serve. Interestingly, it’s unclear what will happen to those that don’t meet these new standards put forth by Mayor Bloomberg. And what if somebody orders something that doesn’t match up with these mandates? Then what happens? Incidentally, these new standards will NOT apply to any food that is sold in vending machines or concession stands on city property (well, why the heck not? If you gonna be a food nazi everywhere else, then why not take away the M&M’s, Snicker bars, and Funyuns, too!).

Here are more of the proposed changes Mayor Bloomberg expects to see:
- 8 ounces of 100% fruit juice must be served (that’s supposed to be heathy?)
- Serve only skim or 1% milk (can you say HIGH-CARB?!)
- Water must be available at every meal
- Two servings of veggies with every lunch/dinner meal
- If three meals are served, then at least 5 servings of fruits and veggies required
- Fresh or frozen fruits and veggies only, not canned
- Deep fryers will be discontinued
- All foods will be trans fat-free

What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with Mayor Bloomberg. Despite his high-horse proclamation for everyone else, he isn’t gonna apply to his own office where his staff has access to such junk foods as candy bars, potato chips, sugary soda and whole milk. Ahhhh, don’t you just love hypocrisy from government leaders who like to tell you what’s good for YOU, but fails to practice it themselves? This is yet another reason why I stand firm in my belief that the government needs to just mind its own business and stay out of my life completely.

Since we don’t all agree on what is considered healthy, it is virtually impossible for a government official to make such universal declarations MANDATING behavior change when it comes to diet. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has tried to do it with their Food Pyramid scheme for the past three decades, but what has it gotten us–fatter and fatter, sicker and sicker! While I believe Mayor Bloomberg has the right intentions with his move to improve the menus at government-led places in the Big Apple, he is simply setting up the scenario that people will reject his subjective idea of a “healthy” diet and get their food elsewhere and/or bring whatever they want from home.

What do you think about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to radically change the kind of food that can be served by government food service providers? Do you think any meaningful positive impact will result from such changes or is this just another politician blowhard attempting to earn points in the court of public opinion with useless propaganda and innuendo about caring one iota about health? Talk about it in the comments section below.