Government Regulations on Food

They say that America has increasingly high rates of obesity and diseases like diabetes. Lawyers are threatening to sue food manufacturers, just like they sued those mean tobacco companies. But is "high fructose corn syrup" and soda really destroying our health? First of all, if you expect food companies to put the most expensive ingredients into their processed food, you don't understand business, or capitalism. The reason why they use high fructose corn syrup instead of sucrose is because it's more concentrated, and therefore, cheap. Cheap means higher profits. That's why they used sucrose in the first place, it was cheaper than honey. Honey is not only expensive, it's actually good for you. We can't have that! But is the problem really the food itself? I don't think so. The majority of Americans eat too much. When I worked in an office, I was astonished to see what people eat for lunch. I brought in my usual chicken salad on whole wheat toast, which I washed down with filtered water. To me this seemed like a perfectly satisfying mid-day meal. But most of my co-workers, men and women between the ages of 20 and 60, scarfed down the basic American lunches: Big mac with cheese and fries...3 or 4 slices of Pizza...General Tao's Chicken with a side of fried rice, and of course the Pennslyvania favorite, The Cheesesteak sandwich (if you haven't gorged on one of these, just imagine low-quality fatty, chopped meat on a foot long sub covered with onions and melted wiz pride cheese). Of course they all had the standard 20oz cup of Coke to help blast the greasy grub down their throats. I love an expensive steak once in a while, especially USDA Prime, which cost around $20 a pound. About once or twice a year my wife and I go to an expensive steak house and split one of these tasty treats. Why do we split it? Because the top steakhouses don't sell a steak smaller than a cockerspaniel. It's insane. Why would anyone need to eat a 36oz steak? At home I only eat about 4 to 6 oz of meat at a time, tops, but in a restaurant I can go as high as 12--and even that's too much. It just isn't necessary. Unfortunately, the chubby children you see all over the place are learning to eat like pigs from their parents. Hey, I took my kids to McDonalds too, but we split a large order of fries, split a Jumbo soda, and instead of Big Macs we ate quarter pounders. Besides, when you eat smaller portions, you have more room for dessert.