Doughnut burger, fried butter, new foods at state fairs - USATODAY.com

Man, I like junk food as much as the next guy, but FRIED BUTTER?  This is an amusing offbeat story from USA Today.  See if your local fair is “up to date” in culinary delights.  I’ll stick to elephant ears, scones, onion burgers…

I guess those don’t exactly represent a healthier alternative, do they?  But really, fried butter?!?!?!

Okay, it’s really frozen cubes (not the whole stick) of butter, fried in funnel cake batter and topped off with sugar and cinnamon. Still, imagine biting into a funnel cake with half a mouthful of melted butter inside…

Doughnut burger, fried butter, new foods at state fairs - USATODAY.com

Technorati Tags: Weird News,Humor,Food,Funny

Why the Slippery Slope Argument is Not Always Wrong

For years we’ve heard the sneering directed at the ‘slippery slope’ argument made by the NRA that they must contend every perceived infringement of what they view as a Second Amendment guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms or the first chink in the armor would simply be a beachhead to further restrictions and ultimately to a complete elimination of the private gun ownership.  Pragmatists have often argued that the NRA could make minor concessions in situations where the perceived infringement of gun rights were in the public good and would not harm legal gun owners.  This slippery slope view was a constant source of derision by many, who saw it as a silly and inflexible argument – a revealing sign that the NRA was extreme and unwilling to be reasonable in the gun debate.

Over the last few years I have begun to wonder if the slippery slope was, after all, more prescient as an analysis than I’d thought.  When the governments at all levels began to take action against smoking to protect people who were being exposed to second-hand smoke, that seemed a good and proper thing.  It was harmful to them, in whatever degree, and it seemed appropriate to ensure that people who did not wish to be exposed to smoke would not be forced to do so in public places.  Next, however, we began to see specific taxes directed at penalizing people who smoked and I began to wonder “Who gets to decide which behaviors our society will target, and restrict the individual right to eat, drink, drive, smoke, exercise or not exercise, etc., as he or she sees fit.  Where does the public or government point of view begin to supersede the individual person’s choices for their own behavior and lifestyle?  Who gets to decide what free citizens are allowed to do with their own bodies? 

Well, the answers are beginning to seem to me to argue that the slippery slope view was more correct than I had believed.  Legislatures have begun debating financial penalties (read: new taxes), criminal penalties and product restrictions when those government elements reach a decision that those substances, behaviors or activities are ‘wrong’ or ‘harmful’. 

Should Big Macs be taxed at say, $5 a piece, because too many will promote obesity and heart disease?  How about Twinkies?  Or perhaps just the deep fried Twinkies at the fair?  Obesity?  Should we refuse to provide expensive treatment for adult-onset diabetes because a person’s behavior contributes to the contraction of the disease?  Should we ban advertising for foods or other products that some legislator or mayor or governor thinks adversely affects this amorphous ‘public good’?  Some argue that the tax would be a constant reminder to people that what they were buying wasn’t ‘good for them’.  Maybe I should be allowed three days in a county jail to re-think my choices if I don’t document that I got at least twenty minutes of aerobic exercise three times each week.  After all,  exercise is good, right?  And if I don’t do it then it would clearly be in my best interests to do whatever is needed to ‘help’ me do what is best for me.  What if, like dear old Dom Delouise, food makes one happy?  Perhaps we should amend the Declaration to say “the pursuit of happiness (if said pursuit includes only behaviors which are deemed ‘healthy’ by appropriate authorities).  Even if a person is making poor choices, is it the role of government to intervene?  Should we be made to buy food with cards that track the items we buy and refuse to allow us to go over some caloric, or fat content value that has been determined by the government?  Or maybe we should create devices to attach to the naughty bits and be required to gain approval before engaging in ‘adult behavior’ with a partner.  That way, if both partners didn’t have recent and approved STD results on file, a jolt (note that I am assuming an unpleasant and deterrent jolt) would be issued to the bits of the party not approved for whatever form of intimate congress.  In fact, when you think about it, things that were far-fetched a decade ago are actually being considered now.  Is that not a slippery slope?  Perhaps we could put controls on the car that refuse to start the vehicle if the person in the drivers seat hasn’t had a minimum of six hours of REM or deeper sleep – that would end the scourge of drowsy driving, right? 

I could go on and on, and looking up I think I have.  But I am definitely beginning to wonder if the slippery slope is in fact the best logical argument for the incredibly rapidly expanding intrusion of government into personal, private lives and choices.  What worries me more and more each day are these questions, and the variety of proposals I am reading and hearing about almost every day on the news:

• Who decides what is best for me?  When the city/county/state/federal government needs new tax revenues will they come up with a new way to ‘help’ me and all Americans by taxing me – say a 50% excise tax on processed meats, which would help me to avoid the hot dog at the baseball game, or fund the latest underfunded stimulus package item?  Isn’t it a public service when I am stupid and self-destructive with a Hebrew National in one hand and a Red Hook in the other at the ballpark?  Taxing me for that behavior, rather than putting me in the corner to “think about what I have done”…is that responsible parenting by my new parent government entities of all levels? 

“Thank you sir, may I have another?”

• What means are appropriate to ‘help’ me do what is best for me?  Taxes?  Fines? Jail time?  Public humiliation (a la prostitute patrons whose names are published)? 
• What if I am not instilling properly healthful habits in my kids?  Say junior comes in at 20 pounds overweight, should the tax deduction I get for him be withdrawn?  Or maybe we should both have to take classes on parenting and growing up appropriately?
• Am I crazy in wondering if this sort of tax-the-behavior-that- costs-money-in-health-care reasoning might one day lead to taxing people who reproduce if they have genes that increase the risk of increasing health care costs? 
• If in fact, research proves that caloric restriction over a lifespan not only extends life expectancy meaningfully, but reduces health care costs as well, would it be reasonable for government to restrict calories?  Or tax overeating even when it did not produce overweight?  Or might we want to then encourage overeating so that we wouldn’t have the costs of people living longer?

The slippery slope reasoning seems to be a slippery slope itself, and I have now officially given myself a headache.  Which makes me wonder:  might we tax blogs that cause stress, headache, anger, irritation or anxiety?  After all, those things all drive up health care costs.

As always, the problem with regulation is less about the idea of regulating, and much more about who does it, how they do it and what means are allowed.  I would once have thought these things stupid and extreme thoughts.  But then, they weren’t in the Congressional Record and every major newspaper then.  I disliked the Nanny State talk almost as much as the slippery slope argument – thinking them sort of paranoid.  The events of recent years are making me wonder whether the folks warning about both have been on to something all along.

Links:

Taxing cosmetic surgery - is it because it is vain, or because rick people don't need to be prettier than the rest of us?

Plain drinks are fine, all that flavored stuff is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Incentives for 'healthy behavior' - will your salary be tied to your weight, exercise habits, sufficient sleep, eating habits...perhaps good blood pressure or cholesterol numbers?

http://www.freemarketproject.org/articles/2009/20090527121042.aspx

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/politics/nassau-proposes-2-percent-fast-food-tax-for-next-year-1.1258316

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=49658

(Do a couple of quick Google searches and you’ll be amazed at how many proposals there are right now.  I was.)

PS---Isn’t this the same sort of argument that was made early in the AIDS epidemic?  Didn’t we hear that money shouldn’t be wasted finding cures for a disease that people ‘brought on themselves’? 

Technorati Tags: Fat tax,behavior taxes,Nanny State,sin taxes,politics,health care tax increases,fast food tax,flavoered drink tax,punishing unhealthy behaviors

Chronic Sleep Deprivation and Fat

From Psychology Today:


Sleep the Fat Off
There may be a connection between the amount you sleep and your appetite.
By: Carlin Flora

Imagine… shedding pounds simply by spending more time in never-neverland. Sounds like something out of a late-night infomercial.
But two studies show a striking connection between amount of sleep and levels of appetite-regulating hormones in the body. The findings suggest that chronic sleep deprivation could be making you fat.
American adults have cut their average nightly sleep time by nearly two hours in the last 40 years. And while we've lost sleep, we've gained weight: In 1960, only one out of four adults was overweight, and one out of nine was considered obese. Now, two out of three adults are overweight, and nearly one out of three is obese.
Previous research had shown an association between shorter sleep time and higher body mass index, but no one knew why, says Dr. Shahrad Teheri, an endocrinologist at Bristol University, and lead author of one of the two studies.
He and his colleagues used data from the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort, which has tracked the sleep habits of over 1,000 volunteers for 17 years. They found that those people who slumbered (on average) five compared to eight hours each night had a higher body mass index.
And when the researchers collected blood samples from the volunteers, they discovered that the sleep-deprived had higher levels of ghrelin in their blood. Ghrelin is a hormone produced in the stomach that sends out hunger signals to the brain, which then commands you to be interested in food.
At the same time the sleep-deprived had high levels of hunger-stimulating ghrelin, they had lower levels of leptin. Leptin is another appetite-regulating hormone; it's produced by fat cells and delivers satiation signals to the brain. The particular hormonal ratio of high ghrelin/low leptin was likely encouraging the group to load up on unnecessary calories.
"Before this, people thought obesity was the result of sitting on your butt and stuffing your face," Teheri says. "But it turns out sleep has an influence. It makes sense to me personally, because when I was a sleep-deprived resident, I always had the munchies."
The second study hails from the University of Chicago's sleep laboratory. It shows that sleep loss has an immediate effect on the body's levels of ghrelin and leptin. A few nights of insomnia could thus trick your brain into thinking your body needs more food.
In the sleep lab, a small group of young men were forced to function on four hours of sleep a night for six days. The next year, they returned to the lab, but were allowed a full night's rest for six nights, so that researchers could directly compare their hormone levels and appetite.
During their sleep-deprived week, the men not only showed lower levels of leptin and higher levels of ghrelin, but they also reported stronger cravings for sweet, fatty and salty foods. Sound familiar?
"While there is a lot of attention on diet and exercise [for weight loss], these two studies underscore the importance of adequate sleep," says Terry Young, co-author of Teheri's study and professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin.
"Unfortunately, people think of sleep as an irresponsible activity. It's as if they are being macho, and want to prove how busy and important their lives are. I predict someday that attitude will be as socially unacceptable as smoking."