The Feds Take on Cheerios

The Obamatons are firmly ensconced at the Food and Drug Administration.

Cheerios, the world’s best-selling cereal, isn’t so wholesome as its maker General Mills Inc. claims, U.S. regulators said.

Packaging and Internet advertising for the toasted oats violate federal law with promises to lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer, according to a warning letter posted on the Food and Drug Administration’s Web site today. General Mills, ordered to fix the issues or risk product seizure, said it would try to resolve the letter with the regulator.

[SNIP]

The FDA started its Cheerios review after the National Consumers League, a Washington-based advocacy group, complained in a September letter that the cereal’s health claims made it out to be a drug, Sundlof said.

The warning letter represented the FDA’s first action against a “mainstream food product” in more than nine years and showed the agency is exerting its authority under President Barack Obama, said Bruce Silverglade, director of legal affairs for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, in Washington.

“Consumers are influenced by food claims on labels,” Silverglade said in a telephone interview today. “To the extent that they’re misleading, it’s as bad as a doctor giving out poor medical advice.”

"As bad as a doctor giving out poor medical advice"?

Risk product seizure?

Will Obama now try to take over General Mills in the "public interest"?

I don't know if you've ever watched a press conference for the "Center for Science in the Public Interest" but these people are wackos. Maybe not certified, but definitely fringe elements. Want to alternately laugh and be disgusted at the same time? Check out CSPI's "Then Worst and Ten Best Foods" web page where they will tell you that Dove Ice Cream will kill you, and recommend broccoli instead. When you're in the mood for ice cream, who the hell wants broccoli?

Maybe Cheerios isn't the health food its advertisements claim, but I never believed that Wonder Bread built strong bodies 12 ways, or that Lucky Charms was "magically delicious." I doubt if too many people do.

We're Americans, dammit, and we are used to outrageous ad claims. We are not the helpless little children that the lefty do-good'ers and government bureaucrats claim. We do not equate Cheerios ads with doctors' warnings.

Leave us alone. Let us have our Cheerios without the frickin' warning labels. Quit trying to legislate away our Whoppers and Quarter Pounders.

Let us die happy, and free!