WhatFinger

Center for Consumer Freedom

The Center For Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies, and consumers, working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.

Most Recent Articles by Center for Consumer Freedom:


Locavores Gone Loco

One of the most popular trends among urban hipsters and self-styled foodies is “locavorism.” Locavores are food consumers who buy “locally” -- or at least within a certain local area which they've termed a “foodshed.” This self-imposed eating restriction is driven primarily by the romance of local farmers markets, but its supporters have thought up a variety of benefits to their food fetish. Eating locally supposedly helps local economies, saves the environment, and is healthier.
- Saturday, January 8, 2011

Newest Obesity Culprit: Potatoes and White Rice

Obesity has a new scapegoat, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture says we’re supposed to eat three ounces of it every day. Uh oh: Time to eliminate those carbs from your diet (again).
- Thursday, December 23, 2010




The Fear-mongering Industry Fights the Facts

There's no shortage of activist groups that make a living breathlessly creating scares about everything from fish to farming to french fries. Usually their tactics, though fundamentally flawed, are subtle enough to avoid scrutiny until the scare has run its course in the media. On the New York Times' Freakonomics blog, though, James McWilliams reports on some good old-fashioned intimidation tactics being used by the "organic" lobby and its allies:
- Friday, October 22, 2010


Organic = Fattening?

Most consumers, whether they buy it or not, understand that "organic" is a label that refers to how food is produced. But many may think organic's "halo effect" applies to how fattening certain foods are too.
- Monday, August 2, 2010

Experts: Eat Your Seafood (Without a Side of Scaremongering)

In the age of mass media fueled by scary stories, it's no surprise that environmental activists have been able to turn minuscule levels of mercury in fish into horrifying anti-seafood hysteria. But what about all the health benefits of eating fish?
- Monday, August 2, 2010

BMI: Body Mass Idiocy

As we explained yesterday, "Body Mass Index" is a simplistic measurement of human height and weight used by government to classify people as "overweight" and "obese."
- Saturday, July 24, 2010

There’s Overweight, and Then There’s “Overweight”

We've long held that using the "Body Mass Index" (BMI) as a tool for measuring obesity is wrongheaded. BMI is a simplistic measure that only combines height and weight—ignoring muscle mass—which leads to erroneous classifications. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has cast doubt on its usefulness. So it wasn't surprising to read yesterday that the British National Health Service (NHS), which measures schoolchildren's BMI and sends "warning letters" to parents of supposedly "overweight" kids, has made a number of big fat screw-ups.
- Saturday, July 24, 2010



Fitness Proof Is in the Presidential Pudding

Phil Vettel, the Chicago Tribune's food critic, notes a certain whiff of hypocrisy in First Lady Michelle Obama's food-focused campaign to solve Americans' weight woes. While she's preaching about access to fresh veggies, her husband goes on the road and happily noshes on wings, burgers, and fries.
- Saturday, May 22, 2010


Potato Chips = Heroin? Yeah, Right

"Junk food could be addictive 'like heroin'," screams one news headline today above a story describing a new study in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida found that rats fed high-fat diets exhibited " addiction" symptoms, lost control, and overate. Get ready for the hyperbole.
- Tuesday, March 30, 2010



Obesity Blame-Game Gets an F

Today we opened our local paper, The Washington Post, and read about a recent study that urges area schools to increase exercise requirements. To us, this read a little like "Sky Is Blue, Study Says." But as the national debate over obesity indicates, that Post story is probably news to many. The prevalence of obesity among kids aged 2 to 5 and 6 to 11 more than doubled since the 1970s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19, the prevalence of obesity more than tripled. There are just two possibilities: Either kids started eating more, or they've been exercising less.
- Friday, April 10, 2009

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