Lately there have been a whole host of weird news stories involving food that I've been collecting up within the last couple of days.  I suppose it's only natural.  We've already demonized drinking, smoking, and drugs.  Gambling is being outlawed, unless you're on an Indian reservation.  We're starting to run out of things to demonize.  And as the old saying goes... you're never allowed to win a culture war.  So it's only natural that food would be the next target.  So let's take a look at the latest battles in the War on Food.

Last week, the Today Show had a "groundbreaking" report on how food is really addictive and provided an 8-step program to break your addiction.  Just to personalize it for their audience, they of course pulled out the old standard of the woman addicted to chocolate.  Personally I would think this is pretty insulting to women, as its a pretty tired old cliche:

For nearly 15 years, Dana Littleton ate chocolate practically all day long. "I used to drown myself in it," says the 34-year-old stay-at-home mom from Guntersville, AL. "I just couldn't get through my day without chocolate. I'd be positively frenzied if I didn't have it and feel calm and at ease when I did."

Earlier this week, Ann Althouse pointed to this New York Times article showing how the battle front in our schools:

Earlier this year, our small Midwestern school district joined the food wars, proposing a new policy that would discourage all food in classrooms, ban nuts and sugary foods and do away with vending machines.

So much for peanut butter sandwiches, snacks for kindergartners and birthday cupcakes.

Like the policies put in place by school systems around the country, this one was driven by anxiety - about food quantity, quality and safety - and by the ever-increasing pressure for children to look a certain way and to weigh a certain amount.

Is this the lesson we want to teach children?  Do we want to remove all enjoyment out of life completely?  I wonder what the perfect food would be for these people if they had a choice... perhaps tasteless nutrition pills ala 1950's sci-fi?  Would that good enough for them?

Sadly, it gets worse.  For not only are we banning all kinds of foods in our schools, even caffeine gum has become verboten:

A middle school student was suspended for three days for sharing caffeinated chewing gum, school officials said.

The girl, whose name and age were not released, gave another Huston Middle School student Jolt gum. The gum is "a stimulant that has no other redeeming quality," said Amy Palermo, schools superintendent.

What do you mean no redeeming quality?  How about the fact that it stimulates you?  That's not a redeeming quality?  And before you reflexively answer no... how many cups of coffee do you drink in the morning?  But maybe you agree with that.  Maybe you think it's ok to ban that in schools.  What about banning ketchup (via Samantha Burns):

One Arizona high school has added another item to its list of banned substances: bottled ketchup.

One student at Basha High School in Chandler was disciplined after being caught with a ketchup bottle two days in a row. And the principal said the school called the parents of several others found with the contraband.

The smuggling began after the school cafeteria limited students to three packets of ketchup per hamburger. You can get extra packets, but they cost 25 cents each.

I'll let that sink in for a moment.  That's right.  Apparently having too much ketchup on your hamburger is now so terrible that you face suspension.  Can someone explain this stuff to me, because frankly I don't get it anymore.

But fine.  So maybe you can't eat the food you want.  But remember when you could have yourself a good old fashioned food fight?  Yeah, those days are long gone (via The Agitator):

A student at Mountain Ridge High School was arrested Friday by Glendale police for allegedly plotting to stage a food fight in the school cafeteria.

The boy, a 17-year-old junior, was taken into custody at the Glendale school then placed in a juvenile detention center on a charge of disrupting an educational facility, police said.

Jeff Payne, the student's father, said the food fight never happened, so he can't understand why his son was arrested.

That's right... he was arrested!  Not suspended.  Not given detention.  Arrested!  It's not like this kid was plotting the next Columbine for God's sake.  It was going to be a food fight!  So now, not only can't you enjoy the food you want because it's not good enough for you, but now food is so dangerous, we'll arrest people who threaten to throw it because it's akin to a deadly weapon.

And in case you need to see where this is going... take a look at this proposal in Europe which would declare "second hand drinking" to be dangerous (also via The Agitator):

The campaigns to combat the effects of "passive smoking" are widely credited for Europe's growing number of smoking bans. Now alcohol is in the sights of the public health lobbyists, and they have invented the concept of "passive drinking" as their killer argument. I have seen a leaked draft report for the European Commission, which is due to be published some time in June. It makes claims about the high environmental or social toll of alcohol, the "harm done by someone else's drinking". The report is likely to inform proposals for a European Union alcohol strategy later this year.

Just wait and see.  I predict in less than two years we'll see a similar report which talks about the dangers of second hand eating.  After all, some people already consider obesity to be contagious.

The war is on.  Which side are you on?