Sorry, but I just don’t believe in them. Not penny-per-ounce soda taxes, not front-of-nutrition labeling, not vague industry pledges to make their food healthier ... at some specified time far enough into the future that everyone will have forgotten.

There’s a saying at the poker table that “cards speak.” Doesn’t matter what anyone thought was there; only the facts matter. I recalled the aphorism while reacting to this tiny tempest on HuffPost Women:

Over at medicaldaily.com, the writer Evan Winchester shows severe gaps in his understanding of the food experience of tens of millions of Americans in his April 22 piece, "Is Food Addiction a Real Eating Disorder?"

I was moved by his piece to offer three points of rebuttal, which I then decided to expand on and share beyond just the readers of his post. I hope the context will be sufficient...

I often score the ugly mouthpieces of Big Food for faulty logic, especially when they recast reasonable positions as absolutes, so they can then “prove” their falsity. (Example: “There is no evidence that sugary soda is the sole cause of obesity, so soda taxes or other curbs are unreasonable.” Except, no one (except them) says it’s the sole cause. Just that it’s an egregious, unredeemable cause, and therefore a good place to begin attacking the obesity problem.)

I'm a little dismayed to say that I don't know how to use the coding provided to embed this graphic, which is why not all of it is viewable. But if you mouse over it, you'll see a button to enlarge it, which you'd want to do to read all the text anyway.

One of the tactics that Big Food's paid apologists deploy is class warfare. The pointy-headed, Ivy League liberals conspire with parentally support Berkeley students to take away gosh-darn good eatin' from simple folks like us.

Note to devious mouthpieces of Big Food ("Always with the negative waves, man."):

Something needn't the sole cause of a problem to be a cause of a problem. So when you fault any attempt to curb consumption of sugary sodas because soda isn't the sole cause of obesity, you're just obscuring the truth.

No, sugary soda is not solely responsible. The problem and its contributors are varied, confusing, and sometimes conflicting.

http://ncdd.org/10940

How’s this for breathtaking disclosure: I am not a woman.

I think of myself as a feminist, in that I think women have the same rights to ... everything despite  centuries of acculturation to the contrary. Now, whether the objective woman would review my record and agree that my actions are consistent with this pronouncement, I can only hope.

So I was a guest last week at the annual two-day summit of the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, and my acceptance of a press pass implied that I would write about my experiences. I guess I better get started!