Food - It never did become The Next Tobacco

So, why didn't food become The Next Tobacco? 

Nathan Koppel reports in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL that plaintiff attorneys had high hopes of big awards  for food-related lawsuits as in the tobacco litigation.  But that just didn't happen.  To today, despite the best push and imagination of the plaintiff bar, food litigation, particularly obesity complaints, never really got traction.

My hunch is that we Americans, sort of like our pet dogs and cats, won't let anyone mess with our food. If they want to put all this information on the labels, fine. Everyone needs a hobby.  But when it comes to what we eat, we won't let the lawyers, the regulators, the health evangelists in. 

After all, it's physical, emotional, and spiritual common sense that when we gotta eat, we gotta eat.  Sometimes that gotta comes from hunger.  More often it comes from the need for comfort.  Candy sales are surging during these hard times.  I spend hours each week considering trade-offs between dinner and a medium-size vanilla Dairy Queen with chocolate sprinkles. 

If only we Americans could stand our ground in other matters and insist on common sense in environmentalism, labor laws, and who gets what in a divorce.  Suing is becoming so 20th century.

Comments

[JT]

Well, we can't sue everyone for our own lack of self control. Foodmakers are beginning to change their food in response to the outcry against ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils. Beyond that, we really just have to take responsibility for what we put into our own bodies.