He ended the thread folks.

The government should not pay farmers to grow, or not grow, anything. We have the right to eat what we want.

As for what i think about actual regulations and bans and such....

If the majority of society isn't responsible and is becoming obese....

People want to be obese.

That's just it. To pass laws to protect people from what they want is stupid... since what government is for is to make sure that people can pursue their goals without having to worry about others.

Force companies to list accurate health and calorie information sure... anything past that?  No.

Oh... as for salt...  Most modern studies actually tend to show salt isn't bad for you.  Just the stuff it's on is bad for you.  Or large increases of salt.  If you have an otherwise healthy hight salt diet... you should be fine.

I'm fine with that but then charge obese people in relation to their weight..

Why should I pay the same price as someone weighing 100 pounds more than I for a plane ticket where clearly it costs more to fly them than me ? ( if my luggage is two pounds over the limit I get charged more but that 300 pounds dude pays the same price ?)

Anyway the real issue is healthcare and the fact that it costs more to keep an obese population healthy ( there's a reason the US has some of the highest healthcare costs on earth) and if nothing gets done at some point in the future private health insurances will charge you based on your diet..

No way. I think it's about time people take control of themselves. The Government isn't some type of DayCare.

In one hand, i agree as companies shouldn't profit from bad eating habits. But, really it's the consumers choice if they want to eat that shit. All subsidies should be banned though and possibly GM foods (people shouldn't have contaminated foods, fuck monsanto!) Maybe, a few regulations should be in place to limit salt and sugar amounts.

What? GMs are great.

Or maybe people are too lazy to cook for themselves and so shovel shit down their throats.  It's a lifestyle now. People are lazy and so get obese because they ain't even responsible for themselves. Convience at the time, but not forever. 

It's not even real food! It's been tampered by some scientist! You can buy it in the USA but people don't even know if there are any bad health affects. Might as well stick to actual food, at least it can be good for you. 

It's as real as you and me and has been confirmed to have zero acute health effects. On the opposite side GM crops have the potential to save billions of lives in developing countries and increase health in the US. Anyway like 90% of corn and soy beans in the US are GM and corn and soy beans are in like 90% of products so it makes more sense to label non GM foods.

Interestingly enough I live in Boulder, Colorado. 99% of the populous are hippies and only eat locally grown organic all natural small business food.

Yea, I realize that, I googled that real quick for verification. In the OP I used The World Factbook, it's a lot more accurate and stil Mexico is 7% below USA.

Yes you're right about HFC in Europe, it's not a band, a production quota, but it still forces people not to use it.

Anyway I agree with you, life the corn subsidy. I don't think we have one in Canada, so here we'd have to make regulations for HFC, but for USA I would do a bit of both.

I don't think people want to be obese. They might not want to be twigs, but some people like having a little meat on the bone. However obesity is defined as having a BMI of 30+, I think even larger people want a BMI between 25-30 (which is still overweight).

The point of passing laws to tax junk food isn't to prevent people from becoming obese when they don't have to. It's so that people can keep eating the foods they love without physical consequence. Maybe I'm being idealistic, but I bet most chips would taste roughly the same with 2/3rds as much fat, and less salt.

Putting salt in pop for example is something there should be a law against, you shouldn't be more thirsty after drinking.

As for salt...where the heck did you hear that? I have a few doctors in the family and I work at a Medical office, and everyone I work with actually suggests having a lower salt diet then the recommended 2g. There's actually a push from the Medical Association for those Nutritional stickers to indicate a lower salt value.

High salt in your diet means you need a lot of potassium to balance it (look up the sodium potassium pump, it's in your red blood cells). Without Potassium, your body flushes out the salt by making you drink and pee more. Tell me, if your body is trying to flush out the salt, then why is a high salt diet good for you?

All salt does is help increase your odds of heart attack and stroke at an older age because your arteries become more rigid, and unable to expand for the extra water needed to dilute your blood, and then you don't get enough oxygen/red blood cells to your brain/heart.

You need to read up on the consequences of salt in your diet.