I believe in government staying out of what people eat. It is the government’s responsibility to keep America safe and in order, not to control what people choose to eat.

Every person has the “Freedom of Choice,” Whether it be what you choose to do with your life or what you eat each and every day. There are so many things around us that influence what we eat on a regular basis. But we should have the ultimate say on whether what we eat is healthy or not. Even if the government has good intentions on making America a healthier place, people are still going to consume the food they enjoy. Government controlling what we eat is just a step closer towards communism in our free country.

A very contradicting example of what the government is doing to make America healthier starts with the kids; the government tampers with what’s in the lunchroom by taking the unhealthy choices out and by adding “healthier” ingredients. This doesn’t affect what kids eat for lunch when the majority of kids from Arrowhead- a High School in Hartland, Wisconsin- get two to three lunches just to fill themselves up. This furthermore proves that people don’t take what’s healthy they just eat what they want to eat.

A first hand example is the cookies in the lunchroom of Arrowhead High School. This year, they have become a healthier lunchroom by adding substitute ingredients in place of the bad ones. Instead of adding white flour to the cookies, they add whole wheat flour. They also cut back on the salt and sugar added into the food and even take away the “unhealthy” snacks altogether and replace them with “new and improved healthy food.” This might make the lunchroom slightly healthier, but, it also makes food taste a whole lot worse. This only prevents people from getting hot lunch every day which would decrease their profits. Kids then bring the same “unhealthy” food from home which totally defeats the purpose of cutting back the unhealthy food items.

Jon Stossel referred to the abandonment of salt in restaurants in a Fox News hour “Myths, Lies, and Complete Stupidity.” He states that “there’s no evidence that salt is harmful to the majority of us.” This would just have restaurants out on customers and money. I believe this is outrageous to do because many small restaurants pride themselves on their food and by banning salt they would have to change up their menu which would put them in jeopardy of bankruptcy.

If any state government or even the national government put a tax or banned certain foods, there would always be away around doing what they say. Denmark’s Fat Tax and Chicago’s Candy Tax both failed in the same way. Denmark just made the unhealthy food cheaper which then evens out the tax on fat food. People even crossed the border just to get their groceries at a cheaper price. In Chicago, the tax on candy is greatly debated because they have to decide “What is candy exactly?”
Even if the government implements a tax or other law on unhealthy food, they will not have the money to enforce it. They can’t watch that restaurants don’t add “unhealthy ingredients” or even that people don’t bring unhealthy foods from other cities or states that don’t imply a food tax. This would just create a further downfall in today’s society.

It’s not government’s job to watch what the citizens of America consume, but instead to protect our country from terrorists and get our country out of debt. It is not government’s job to involve themselves on what their citizens eat because it is our “freedom of choice.”