My Food My Choice: Government “bland-lords” launch latest “a-salt” on food freedom

June 15, 2010 - PRLog -- NEW YORK – My Food My Choice, the only online community offering the tools to fight and defeat attacks on individuals' rights to make their own food choices, says the federal government is moving forward on an initiative to control Americans’ right to make their own food choices.  The new dietary guidelines for Americans announced today by the USDA and HHS, recommending a 1500 mg sodium quota puts our dinner plates, and individual liberty, on a collision course with federal bureaucrats at the FDA who plan to use the new guidelines to regulate salt content in food.  
 
“If we allow the government to dictate what’s on our dinner plates, to veto our family recipes and to rewrite the menus at our favorite restaurants, we have surrendered our most basic liberties,” says Orit Sklar, national spokeswoman for My Food My Choice.    

Dr. David McCarron, a visiting professor at the University of California, Davis, demonstrates in a June 14 piece for the Financial Post that the FDA is playing fast and loose with the facts in order to control what Americans are “allowed” to eat:

“…as New York’s health commissioner, [Centers for Disease Control’s director] Dr. [Thomas] Frieden determined that if New Yorkers could not make the choice to lower salt intake on their own, he would make it for them. Dr. Frieden’s “low salt for all New Yorkers” legacy now threatens all Americans...Frieden is employing an approach he championed in New York where his office chose to use “public pressure …and publicity” rather than available science… Why should we all be concerned? If a high-ranking public health expert cannot get the science surrounding the salt shaker correct, then one can only imagine where a country’s future health-care dollars will be spent.”

“This is more about junk science than junk food,” said Sklar.  “The government is purposely ignoring research to impose a political agenda.”  

“Let’s not allow ourselves to be taken for fools.  “Recommendations” from this government agency will lead to mandates with penalties for non-compliance,” said Sklar.  “Small restaurant owners will suffer the most while big corporations with the right connections and the millions to lobby can pay to play. But, the FDA seems unconcerned that the anti-salt campaign threatens the very existence of America’s small family-owned restaurants which are vital for local economies across the nation, and many of which are community landmarks.”

Freedom- and food-loving people who want to make their voice heard may sign the My Food My Choice petition, view and share videos on Youtube, and join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Receive information first by signing up for mobile alerts: text MYFOOD to 68398.

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My Food My Choice is a grassroots coalition of foodies, chefs, consumers, and organizations that promotes the advancement of consumer choice in the marketplace and an environment of economic vitality.

http://myfoodmychoice.org