The Era of Double Gulps…..yikes

I remember my 88 year old grandma coming to visit the US for the first time from Japan to attend my High School Graduation.  She joined me on my way to school and we stopped at 711 to pick up a few things when she suddenly noticed customer walking out with a Big Gulp in his hand.  As her little jaw dropped she said to me “ What is he going to do with that?”  “Drink it,” I said.  She said “Nooo not possible for one person-too big!  It’s 7:30 in the morning!!!.”   A few years later when I went to live with her in Japan, she would have her friends over and tell stories of how she saw a “big round man drinking a the largest coke she had ever seen…… enormous people with enormous drinks”  Ironically that was when the Big Gulp was only 20 or 30 oz.  Now we have Super Big Gulps (40 ounces) and Double Gulps (50 ounces)!

New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s initiative banning large sugary drinks was blocked by a New York Supreme Court judge yesterday.  The bill would have banned sales of sugary sodas larger than 16 ounces by restaurants, movie theaters, push carts and sports arenas.  Of course many people argue that the government should not be regulating how the size of our coke.

So what do you think?

In an era where kids are more obese than ever and where diabetes is at an all-time high I think it is critical to educate consumers.  Recently the NY Times posted a fascinating article, The Extraordinary Science of  Addictive Junk Food about how the food industry gets us hooked…..fat, sugar, salt combined in such a highly engineered, addictive way.  And what about the sly marketing to kids and working parents who don’t have the money to give their children healthy options??

Recently Whole Foods Market Inc announced that it will be requiring all foods made with GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) to be labeled by 2018.  At least one company is taking the initiative in allowing consumers to know what is in their food J

So join the conversation and let me know what you think.  Does the Government have the right to intervene on portion sizes and how food is produced and labeled?


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