From a letter to the editor in suburban Pittsburgh:

The 99 is a medium-sized chain of basic American food eateries that's been around Greater Boston for ages. Up 'til now, it was never my first choice but I was willing to stop there if it seemed the best option in whatever strip mall I found myself in.

But until it takes down its current "craveworthy" ads, I will find somewhere else, and I will probably switch away from the radio station running them (98.5 The Sports Hub, I'm thinking of you). That's probably not the reaction they were going for.

A poll released yesterday by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press offers a couple of information points about the battle againsty obesity in the U.S.:

A bit more than half of Americans think the government should play a significant role in reducing obesity, but of 22 issues Pew asked its 1,504 respondents, the issue ranked last in importance. Nineteen percent rated it as the highest priority, compared with 14 percent who said the government should not take any role.

As a new restaurant owner and assistant minority leader of the Massachusetts Senate, BOB HEDLUND, 49, of Weymouth is well situated to comment on politics and food. After I read his comments in the Boston Globe recently — especially that “the marketplace should determine what’s on restaurant menus, not the First Lady of the United States” — I asked if we could talk. Regular readers will recognize the format: questions and answers of 10 words or less. Please, no counting; it’s a goal, not a rule, and besides, let’s see you do it.

The name of your restaurant: “Four Square.”

Where is it? “Weymouth Landing, Braintree.”

What kind of a place is it? “Beer and wine, with a very diverse menu.”

What’s your favorite dish, personally? “Beer.”

Have you ever had a weight problem? “No.”

Please rank obesity as a national problem, on a scale of 1-10: “Between a 7 and an 8.”

Do we need a solution for it? “It’s obviously not going to solve itself, but the answer does not lie solely with government.”

As regular readers will know, I am a lefty, politically, from way back. It is with a rueful semi-admiration that I observe that it is almost always the other side that frames our debates, relying on pith and misdirection while I expect logic to prevail. When I do that, I am the pocket-protected nerd, all over again.

What I'm thinking of this morning are the phrases "food police" and "nanny state," which are emotionally laden semi-accurate terms intended to convey a sneer before anything else. No need to listen; who could possibly support people with names like that? 

Probably the better course would be just to ignore them, and I often do, but this post from the food/restaurant industry shills at myfoodmychoice.org is just too ripe for mockery. For these simps, that's saying something.

The headline says, "Kids Reject New Govt School Lunch Food Formulas," and the half-truthiness has begun:

My longest-standing readers know that I started out blogging on topics of sustainability, which I rather narrowly defined as issues around energy use. Gradually, I shifted to food issues because I wanted and needed to support my book, "Fat Boy Thin Man."

In the transition, I saw how sustainability, defined as the dictionary does, rather than cloaked in the meaning "we" have attached to it, applies in so many ways to food. Yes, my thinking was absurdly narrow.

I know that blog posts should be short, but I so often struggle to combine brevity with complete, rounded thoughts. I also indulge in little preludes, such as the one you just read. Anyway, here's an attempt at shorter:

One absolute invoked by those who speak of the "food police" is the primacy of individual and corporate rights. End of discussion. I value my rights, too, but they don't prevent me from seeing all the harm that unfettered junk food marketing to kids, and to the rest of us, is doing.

I can't say I understand how it works, or its implications, but I am intrigued by this story about European scientists working on metabolic typing, which the story says could lead to personalized nutrition.

I cannot more highly commend this post by nutritionist Kristin Wartman, which I encountered at Grist, though a tag at its bottom says a version ran at civileats.com.