NEAL TRAVIS' NEW YORK
We have a steak in food fight
THE Health Police, not content with eliminating smoking from the nation's restaurants, will next move to control what we eat, drink and wear when out on the town.
According to a very scary piece in the trade magazine Nation's Restaurant News, it's only a matter of time before pressure groups make their next moves to limit personal freedoms.
The magazine foresees the Health Police arresting restaurateurs for serving fattening or heart-disease-threatening dishes like fettuccine Alfredo, or fining patrons for wearing perfume.
This may sound crazy, the magazine says, but 30 years ago, no one would have believed that smokers could ever be arrested and fined for lighting up at their tables.
"The game plan that rendered public smoking apunishable offense ... is being used to vilify and ban other lifestyle choices," the article warns.
"For virtually every choice we can make in a restaurant - whether involving alcohol, meat, lobster, tobacco, caffeine, dairy products, even perfume - there is a special-interest group dedicated to eliminating that option in the name of the public good," it adds. "And the movement to limit choice is gaining ground."
It quotes the director of Yale's Center for Eating and Weight Disorders as likening the fight against fattening foods to the campaign against cigarettes. And it says the Center for Science in the Public Interest wants to outlaw "excessive serving sizes" in restaurants.
So eat, drink and be merry now, for tomorrow we diet - whether we want to or not!