Save Us From Our Salt

Admit it - you're powerless. Your mind is devoid of thought and your reasoning has clearly been comprised. Surrender....surrender to the nice man in the business suit who has a winning smile and all of the answers. And if you don't....well, let's not let it get that far.

A few weeks back, a Washington, DC-based non-profit organization called the Center for Science in the Public Interest released what it calls its "Extreme Eating Awards" to recognize the chain restaurants that serve food highest in calories, fat and sodium. Its stated motive? To alert the public about the dangers of fatty foods and unhealthy dietary practices. In short, they wanted to save us from our own gluttony, one of the most toxic of the seven deadly sins.

But what the Center failed to take note of was the fact that they were simply choosing one offering off of the restaurants' jampacked menus and singling those items out for scorn. More importantly, however, what they neglected to highlight in their study was that no one at the restaurant chains stood with a high powered rifle to someone's temple imploring them to chow down on the pasta carbonara. Americans were doing what Americans typically do - making choices which fit their own wants, needs and personal tastes. They didn't asked to be saved, they merely wanted to enjoy a good meal free of the guilt imposed by a non-profit with a vested financial interest in making good people feel very guilty.

One of these days we're going to have to realize that our own hypocrisy is strangling our nation, choking the breath out of the liberties we fight and die for. We hate cigarettes but we salivate at the tax revenues their sales generate. We decry the ills of drinking and turn around and situate liquor stores on our most heavily traveled highways. We consistently seek newer and more innovative methods of communication and then stymie their growth with legislation both threatened and enacted. What is our major malfunction?

When we allow others to become our nannies, daddys and mandated new best friends, we virtually ensure that the objects of their self-serving attacks suffer a loss of reputation, business and ability to turn a profit. This results in business closings, loss of jobs and a stagnant economy, not to mention a society where others are arbitrarily making decisions on our behalf. We're not talking about protecting children from lead paint in Chinese toys here, we're talking about specifically targeting American businesses who are exercising their right to create legal products that some people enjoy and that some people would prefer to avoid.

If you're worried about the onset of diabetes from eating unhealthy foods, ride a bike. Join a gym. Walk around the block 20 or 30 times. Write a diary entry about it and impress your friends. Just don't pad your wallet and accept donations to "out" businesses you find objectionable and don't preach to the rest of us about how we should live our lives. We'll be too busy eating our cheeseburgers, watching television and buying scratch tickets. After all, it's our right.