Now, I'm not usually one to be suspect of conspiracies nor do I think a lot about governmental secrets. However . . . Today as I was sitting in front of a computer after I finished giving a reading test for TAKS, I was just surfin MSNBC.com and came across an editorial.

The title was "Junk-Food Jihad: Should we regulate French fries like cigarettes?" Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all about health and people choosing healthy lifestyles and taking pretty good care of my own health. But this article really kind of ... made me wonder, how much control is too much? Let me give you some statements from this article and then I'll share my thoughts. (Keep in mind that this is and editorial, speaks a lot from opinion and that these statements are not necessarily fact.)

Health advocates want to restrict junk-food sales, regulate advertising, require more explicit labels, and ban trans fats (also known as partially hydrogenated oils), which are often put into crackers, cookies, and other products to prolong shelf life.

For that matter, the rationale for recent bans on smoking is the injustice of secondhand smoke, and there's no such thing as secondhand obesity.

But they do clarify how it will unfold. It will rely on three arguments: First, we should protect kids. Second, fat people are burdening the rest of us. Third, junk food isn't really food.

Targeting kids is a familiar way to impose morals without threatening liberties.

It's not our dependence on foreign oil that's killing us. It's our dependence on vegetable oil.

To lower junk food to the level of cigarettes, its opponents must persuade you that it isn't really food. They're certainly trying. Soda isn't sustenance, they argue; it's "liquid candy." Crackers aren't baked; they're "engineered," like illegal drugs, to addict people.

Last year, New York City's health commissioner asked restaurants to stop using trans fats, which he likened to asbestos. But he ignored saturated fats, which are equally bad and more pervasive. Why are trans fats an easier whipping-cream boy? Because they're mostly artificial.

A fact sheet from Harkin implies that schools should treat milk, French fries, and pizza like soda, jelly beans, and gum. Come on. How many people died in the Irish jelly bean famine? How many babies have nursed on 7-Up? How many food groups does gum share with pizza? If you can't tell the difference, don't tell us what to eat.

Okay .. So. I pretty much agree with this author. I know that smoking is harmful, I know that eating poorly is harmful. And I make the choice to smoke or not smoke, to eat healthily or to eat crap. And I deeply appreciate that Bryan/College Station has statutes on smoking in public places and restrictions on smoking in restaurants. And I appreciate that the FDA, CDC, USDA, etc etc etc, have required food manufacturers and other food producers to make the contents of their products public. It does make food choices a lot easier.

However, how far is too far? How much control is too much? I feel like it could get to the point to where our government will be telling us what to eat, how much to eat, what not to eat, when to eat. Just thoughts, but I just don't want to seem like Mel Gibson on Conspiracy Theory.

I suggest you take a read at this article if you're at all interested. :o) Besides, it's kind of funny.