Just a quick NQR chime-in on the soft drink debate that’s currently raging in New York City (see article on the recent hearing where Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal to limit soda sizes to 16oz in the city is debated).
Personally we’ve taken to ordering kids’ meals when we’re traveling and don’t otherwise have our normal range of options for healthy eating (or at least obtaining healthy portion sizes). The fries in a kids’ meal are the same size now days as LARGE fries when we were kids. The burgers are portion-sized, rather than 1000+ calorie behemoths. And the sodas are in the 8 – 12oz range. This says alot about America, and American gluttony, that the cheapest and most available sources of food are too large, too sugary, and too fat. Unlike much of the rest of the world, where the poorer classes are subjected to starvation-level poverty, in America food is an almost unavoidable excess unless you’re rich enough (ala Angelina Jolie) to hire a private cook and nutritionist.
Here’s proof (from what has been, over time, one of our more favored and frequented fast food joints) on the explosion in size of soft drinks. A REGULAR soda (regular!) came across the counter to me barely large enough to fit in my hand. The fine print in the lower right corner of the cup reveals its size: 30oz. It’s stupid big. And it lends credence to what doctors are saying about these soft drinks, that they’re addictive. How else can anyone explain drinking, in one sitting, an amount of soda that is equal to half the normal intake of water someone needs during a day?
I say to Mayor Bloomberg: “Good work.” If someone has a problem with a 16oz size soda, let them purchase two (or four, if they want the equivalent of a modern ‘large’).
Giant cup of sugar (or worse: corn syrup!)
Not Quite Right 
August 1st, 2012 at 8:53 am
Bravo, Ben! Folks too often take the argument for personal freedom to an extreme, not thinking that their ill-advised ‘individual’ decisions to eat and drink monster portions actually affect the rest of us through higher health care costs. Likewise, I wish more school superintendents would exercise a bit of inspired leadership and rid our schools of soda machines and ‘fat pills and lead pies’ for lunch.
August 1st, 2012 at 9:16 am
Definitely a battle we’re fighting as parents now that other generations didn’t have to worry about. But its so odd that we’re fighting AGAINST plenty and proliferation of calories when so much of the world needs to eat. Hard to teach a child to choose healthy food when sugar tastes so good and can be found in so many strange places: white bread, soda, even in processed veggies.
August 1st, 2012 at 12:06 pm
Completely agree!