Los Angeles puts a moratorium on new fast-food outlets in poor neighborhoods:

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to place a moratorium on new fast food restaurants in an impoverished swath of the city with a proliferation of such eateries and above average rates of obesity.

I’m not sure why they didn’t just ban obesity. 

The yearlong moratorium is intended to give the city time to attract restaurants that serve healthier food. The action, which the mayor must still sign into law, is believed to be the first of its kind by a major city to protect public health.

“Our communities have an extreme shortage of quality foods,” City Councilman Bernard Parks said.

They reflect also an extreme shortage of money for paying for “quality foods”.  The poor person’s diet in this country is a paradox; we’re the first society in history (barring maybe the Dutch before the Tulip Crash) where the wages of poverty include obesity.  The staples of the poor person’s diet in this country are starch (ramen, mac and cheese, potato chips, fries, lots of bread in all its forms), carbs (pizza, spaghetti, tons and tons of sugar in a zillion forms, much of it in the form of corn syrup), and fat, fat, fat. 

On welfare?  What gives you the most mileage for your Food Stamp dollar? 

Starch, carbs and fat. 

Shopping at the cheap-o grocery – what fills the bag fastest and cheapest? 

Starch, carbs and fat.

On top of all that, what’s a Two Cheeseburger Value Meal with a large Coke?

Representatives of fast-food chains said they support the goal of better diets but believe they are being unfairly targeted. They say they already offer healthier food items on their menus.

The only real question:  How long before Minneapolis adopts and extends the idea?

Although it occurs to me that other than coffee, my saturday pre-show ritual garlic bagel at Bruegger’s, and a monthly Chipotle run, I haven’t been to a fast-food place in months.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 5:16 am and is filed under Progressive Tyranny. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.