Banning Happy Meals Might Be a Good Idea, But Some of the Data Is Shady
Our favorite morsel from the blogs.
loop_oh/Flickr Really? A third of the food San Franciscans consume in a year is junk?
City Supervisors are continuing to weigh legislation banning toys from fast-food meals existing as thinly veiled fat and corn syrup bombs. But as reported Joe Eskenazi points out today at SFoodie's sister news blog, the Snitch, a stat quoted in Supervisor Mar's proposed law's legislative digest is fishier than a Filet-O-Fish left overnight in an employee locker. Here's the line: "According to 2003-2004 data, San Franciscans consume over one-third of their food, as measured by weight, at fast food and pizza restaurants." Alarming, right?
Eskenazi gets busy on the phone, and finds the provenance of such an eyebrow-raising assertion to be completely eyebrow-raising ― as in just plain wrong, or at best, misleading. You can check Eskenazi's math at The Snitch. Then again, the whole idea of banning Happy Meals just might be moot. Eskenazi:
In the end, what light does this far-fetched data shine on the wisdom of regulating Happy Meals in San Francisco? Not much. And what chance does Mar's proposal have of surviving a promised mayoral veto when Supervisor Bevan Dufty is running for mayor and almost certainly won't touch this with a 10-foot Happy Meal toy? Even less.
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