In one post earlier today, I invoked First Lady Michelle Obama, alluding to her "Let's Move" effort. I ended a second post with, "Anyone want to argue these points?"

I ask that again, regarding a point from Marion Nestle's post:

As regular readers will know, I am a lefty, politically, from way back. It is with a rueful semi-admiration that I observe that it is almost always the other side that frames our debates, relying on pith and misdirection while I expect logic to prevail. When I do that, I am the pocket-protected nerd, all over again.

What I'm thinking of this morning are the phrases "food police" and "nanny state," which are emotionally laden semi-accurate terms intended to convey a sneer before anything else. No need to listen; who could possibly support people with names like that? 

Probably the better course would be just to ignore them, and I often do, but this post from the food/restaurant industry shills at myfoodmychoice.org is just too ripe for mockery. For these simps, that's saying something.

The headline says, "Kids Reject New Govt School Lunch Food Formulas," and the half-truthiness has begun:

Paid spokespeople are typically cagey, couching their points of view in the most reasonable terms possible. Then there's Beth Mansfield, mouthpiece for company that operates Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, quoted in the Los Angeles Times:

My longest-standing readers know that I started out blogging on topics of sustainability, which I rather narrowly defined as issues around energy use. Gradually, I shifted to food issues because I wanted and needed to support my book, "Fat Boy Thin Man."

In the transition, I saw how sustainability, defined as the dictionary does, rather than cloaked in the meaning "we" have attached to it, applies in so many ways to food. Yes, my thinking was absurdly narrow.

I know that blog posts should be short, but I so often struggle to combine brevity with complete, rounded thoughts. I also indulge in little preludes, such as the one you just read. Anyway, here's an attempt at shorter:

One absolute invoked by those who speak of the "food police" is the primacy of individual and corporate rights. End of discussion. I value my rights, too, but they don't prevent me from seeing all the harm that unfettered junk food marketing to kids, and to the rest of us, is doing.

Another excerpt from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity's f.a.c.t.s. report, which looks at food advertising directed at children:

McDonald’s and Burger King have pledged to improve food marketing to children. However, both restaurants increased their volume of TV advertising from 2007 to 2009. Preschoolers saw 21 percent more ads for McDonald’s and 9 percent more for Burger King, and children viewed 26 percent more ads for McDonald’s and 10 percent more for Burger King.

HEIDI SNYDER, 46, of Port Townsend, Wash., is a certified nutrition consultant and a holistic health educator. She is fabulously versed in both the constituents and the wholeness of food, as I rediscovered when we both attended the Society of Food Addiction Professionals conference recently in Houston. Before we parted on Sunday, I asked her to play my typical short-question interview game, in which the questions — and, by my request, the answers — are 10 words or less. Remember, please: No counting. It’s a goal, not a rule.

I can't say I understand how it works, or its implications, but I am intrigued by this story about European scientists working on metabolic typing, which the story says could lead to personalized nutrition.

I cannot more highly commend this post by nutritionist Kristin Wartman, which I encountered at Grist, though a tag at its bottom says a version ran at civileats.com.