Government/Coporate America to the Rescue

A rant
I am usually a week behind on newspaper news - they pile up over the week and I go through them on Sundays - so it wasn't until last night that I read the news that "Walmart Wants to Slim us Down."

"Wal-mart said Tuesday it will re-formulate thousands of store-brand products to reduce sodium and sugar and push its suppliers to do the same."

And you know what that means. "Either take out all your sodium and sugar from this product, or we wont' carry you on your shelves. THere's lots of fish in the sea and we dont' need you."

So companies will be forced to bow down to corporate America - which is being forced to bow down to the government.

And I find that really, really frightening.

Of course, I'm torn. There is too much sodium and sugar in kids drinks. But if companies want that, it's their perogative - it's up to the consumer to not buy their product. And if the consumer doesn't buy their product, then they can make the decision to reduce the sugar, sodium, etc. To be forced to change their recipes because of a dictat from the government (and you know Walmart is only doing this in hopes of getting government concessions on the whole union issue) is just... outrageous.

State governments - the nanny states - are also getting involved. In New York resteraunt chefs are being banned from putting salt in food, and I believe that stricture is in place in all of California as well. Again, the states don't have that right. If a chef wants to put salt on the food he or she cooks, that's his or her damn business. If a restaurant customer doesn't want any salt, let them put in a special request. Stop harming the many for the sake of a few.

And, its Monday
A new day at work. Remember its also weight training day. If you've been skipping your weight training, today's the day to get started back with it. If you've been weight training on a regular basis, probably time to add a couple extra repetitions to each of your exercises.