tax

Freedom Friday: Standing up for your right to eat junk

Love sugar? Better stock up while you still can -- because the next great Nanny State attempt at social engineering will be taxing the sweet stuff right out of your cupboard.

A group of "leading experts" -- including Dr. Robert Lustig, aka the guy who does the anti-sugar rants on YouTube -- is calling on the feds to block, limit, restrict, and tax sugar.

Doesn't matter if you're obese and diabetic with deathly bad eating habits, or slim and trim and just trying to sneak an occasional candy bar. Under their plan, you'd pay through your sweet tooth for the privilege of indulging no matter what.

Now, you know I'm the last person on the planet to defend sugar. If a single ingredient has made more people fat, sick, and dead, I can't think of it.

But I WILL defend your right to feed yourself and your family as you see fit, for better or for worse. You might be nuts for eating sugar, but I've heard the same thing said about me and my steak-and-eggs habit (both of which will be up for sin taxes of their own any minute now).

Besides, there's not a chance in the world that a tax on sugar will lead to healthier people even if it "works" and everyone cuts back.

A junk food junkie is a junk food junkie. If he doesn't get his fix from sugary snacks, he'll get it from something else. Maybe it'll be potato chips and corn crunchies, but I bet it'll just be "diet" sweets made with sugar substitutes like aspartame.

And if there's anything worse for you than sugar, it's aspartame.

Cancer, migraines, brain damage, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia -- you name it, it's been linked to aspartame. Associated with more than NINETY side effects and counting, this is quite possibly the most dangerous additive ever approved for human consumption.

And that's saying something.

Personally, I think you should skip both the sugar AND artificial sweeteners like aspartame. But that choice should be yours -- not mine, not Dr. Lustig's, and certainly not the U.S. government's.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to eat

One of the last freedoms you have left is the freedom to choose what's on your dinner plate tonight -- but get ready to stick a fork in that one.

The Food Police have taken over in Denmark -- and we could be next.

This week, Denmark is taking the Nanny State to the next level with an onerous new tax on the fresh and natural foods your body needs. Under this so-called "fat tax," anyone who wants foods with saturated fats will have to pay through the teeth for the privilege.

Farm-fresh butter? TAXED!

Cheese? TAXED!

Meat? TAXED!

Pretty soon, shoppers will be forced to load up on lower-priced substitutes made of factory-processed soy byproducts and a lab full of dangerous chemicals—all in the name of good health, of course.

This sin tax is meant to help slash the risk of an early death. Puh-lease. Studies have shown time and again that people who eat healthful natural animal fats and skip the sugars and other refined carbohydrates have a much LOWER risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and even early death.

If that's what passes for sin, then being bad never felt so good.

Denmark isn't the only one leveling the sin tax. Hungary has imposed a tax on foods with high levels of sugar, salt, carbs, and caffeine. Denmark, Switzerland, and Austria have banned trans fats. And Finland, Romania, and Britain are all considering fat taxes as well.

But I think everyone is missing the point here. Forget for a minute that the government has picked the wrong bad guy (sugar and carbs would have been a much more appropriate target), the bottom line is that no government has any right to legislate your food choices. Period.

Hold on to your rights, America, or you'll be next. If Uncle Sam is going to be footing the bill for your healthcare, He certainly thinks he has the right to determine how you eat (and sleep and drink and exercise and you-name-it).

Consider this your wake-up call. And go eat some butter—before it's too late.