The intersection of politics, diet and science.

Words of widsom. Full post at the link well worth reading. Funny too.

Fat Head » Calorie-Count Menu Laws - A Load Of Bologna:

"...As a libertarian, I believe government’s primary function – one of its few legitimate functions – is to prevent people from harming each other, whether by force or by fraud. (This was also the clearly-stated belief of The Founders, by the way.) But in the past century, this beautiful, freedom-promoting concept has become so mangled, people now believe government’s job is to force other people to give them what they want.

If a restaurant doesn’t share nutrition information with you, you are not being harmed – you’re just not getting what you want. If you believe you can’t make healthy choices without that information, you are free to take your business elsewhere. The restaurants know this, so it’s in their interest to keep you happy. That’s why nutrition information is easily available online and in pamphlets – because enough customers demanded it, not because politicians did.

But most customers are not clamoring to have the calorie counts shoved in their faces when they visit McDonald’s … and that’s exactly the problem: the nutrition nannies have realized that – gosh darn it! – many people don’t care about calorie counts and don’t bother to look at them, no matter how little effort it takes. So now the politicians want to force you to view the calorie counts, whether you like it or not.

...Fat people don’t eat “too much” because they’re unaware of how many calories they’re consuming, nor because they’re gluttons. They eat “too much” because if they don’t, their bodies run out of fuel and begin to starve at the cellular level. In fact, from an energy-balance standpoint, they’re not eating too much at all – they’re eating exactly the right amount.

Most fat people are insulin-resistant, so their bodies have to produce a higher level of insulin to keep their blood sugar down. Unfortunately, the elevated insulin also commands their bodies to store calories as fat, which means those calories are not available as fuel for the muscles and organs.

As a result, fat people have to eat more to avoid running out of fuel. If they simply eat less, their cells begin to starve. The urge to eat eventually becomes overwhelming...

So how can the restaurants help us lose weight? They can’t, and it’s not their job anyway. It’s ours..."