Will the Government ban brown bag lunches?

Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people. -Henry Kissinger

Will the government cut parents out of the loop when it comes to lunch at school? What if they ban students bringing lunch in from home? Will your child be forced to buy lunch at school?

To justify banning something it needs to be deemed unsafe. Today, bag lunches that we have eaten for generations have been reported as reaching temperatures that facilitate food borne illnesses. The study was conducted with preschools, but a bag lunch is a bag lunch and could apply to any student of any age.

The federal government has proposed some "voluntary" guidelines for businesses to follow in advertising food that qualify as healthy targeted towards children. The National Restaurant Association is pushing back because:

"The proposed standards are unworkable for the industry and for consumers. They impose impractical nutritional standards that will significantly compromise the taste and palatability that consumers demand and underestimate the technical limitations of the industry."

Would the government really make such regulations? The government didn't ban the incandescent light bulb; it made regulations for light bulbs that physics cannot meet with the incandescent model. Will this force restaurants to only serve a low calorie nutritious gruel to children?

San Francisco and Santa Clara County have banned McDonalds from putting a toy in the "Happy Meal" because it targets kids to order an unhealthy meal. Is there a healthy choice at McDonalds? Yes. But shouldn't parents decide what their children eat and not the government?

Will the government really tell us what we can eat? California, Baltimore, and New York City have banned trans fats; other cities and States are proposing to do the same. New York is even proposing a ban on restaurants using salt. The FDA has a ten year plan to limit how much salt is in the food we buy. Across the pond in Stockport, England, they will no longer have salt shakers on the table. If you want salt you will have to ask for it.

What else will the government say we cannot eat? How else will it dictate marketing? Are we close to a ban on bag lunches?

Control the food ...