In LA, food choice vs public health

The struggle against poor diets has included booting soda from schools, banning trans fat and, more recently, sending New Yorkers into dietary sticker shock with a law that requires calorie counts be posted on menus, right next to the prices. But this appears to be the first time a Government has prohibited a specific style of restaurant for health, rather than aesthetic, reasons.

Jonathan Gold, the LA Weekly food critic, who won a Pulitzer Prize last year, said he understands the spirit of the freeze, which is an urban planning measure meant to keep the neighbourhood from being swallowed up by drive-though fast food restaurants.

But he worries that the law could keep out places of more culinary interest. South Los Angeles has the best barbecue in the city, he said, and it has a growing number of cooks from Mexico and Central America.

The councilwoman behind the moratorium, Jan Perry, says its intent is not to crush food choices. Making healthy decisions about food is difficult when people have small incomes, the grocery store is five miles away and a $1 cheeseburger is right around the corner, she and supporters of the ban say.

The idea is to bring new eating options to the city’s food deserts, the term now in vogue to describe poor neighbourhoods whose residents have few places to buy groceries.

Almost three-fourths of the advertising aimed at children is for candy, snacks or fast food. Portions at restaurants have been steadily growing since the 1970s. During that period, people have been eating at home less and at restaurants more.

“What we’re beginning to see is monopolisation of our dietary intake by a handful of corporations,” said David Zinczenko, editor in chief of Men’s Health magazine.

“Add to that the financial reality of feeding ourselves today, where a single grapefruit from a corner fruit stand costs two or more times as much as a few Chicken McNuggets,” he said, “and I think you can begin to put together a case for governmental intervention.”

But not everyone agrees, including Joe R Hicks, a radio talk show host who was the executive director of LA’s Human Relations Commission under Mayor Richard Riordan a decade ago.

“The crime… is that people are sitting around meddling into the very minutiae of what people are putting in their mouths,” he said.