{"id":5749,"date":"2013-07-15T20:46:59","date_gmt":"2013-07-16T02:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/?p=5749"},"modified":"2013-07-15T21:30:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-16T03:30:20","slug":"im-now-a-devout-fatatarian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/2013\/07\/15\/im-now-a-devout-fatatarian\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m Now A Devout Fatatarian"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m considering starting a new religion call Fatatarianism<\/em>. If I do, you\u2019re all invited to join. I promise I won\u2019t collect any dues, with the possible exception of a cover charge for our annual pilgrimage to a farm, where I\u2019ll wave my hand over a pig that will be later be transubstantiated into a delicious meal.<\/p>\n

I realize joining another religion could be problematic for those of you who are already religious. I apologize for the inconvenience, but my only other options were to form a new ethnic group called Fatians <\/em>or an entirely new culture called \u2026 actually, I don\u2019t know what I\u2019d call the culture. Maybe Fatian <\/em>would work for that too.<\/p>\n

Anyway, given that the thousands of members of the Fat Head Facebook group come in all shapes and colors, it\u2019s highly unlikely we could pass ourselves off as an ethic group. \u201cYou Fatians all look alike to me\u201d would just never fly \u2026 although given enough time, I\u2019m sure people would start writing Fatian jokes.<\/p>\n

How do you drown a Fatian submarine crew?\u00a0 Tap on the hatch with a sausage.<\/em><\/p>\n

I kind of like the idea of starting a culture, but I have no idea how to go about it. (A girlfriend once accused me starting a culture in my shower, but she was referring to something that had sprouted in a corner of the stall.) I\u2019m reasonably sure starting a separate culture would require developing a lot of original music, dances, clothing styles, myths, mating rituals and perhaps even a small crime syndicate. Oh, and at least one restaurant in New York, San Francisco and Chicago. We don\u2019t have that kind of time.<\/p>\n

So religion it is. If nothing else, there\u2019s far less paperwork involved.<\/p>\n

I should probably explain what\u2019s motivating a secular guy like me to consider starting a religion. It\u2019s all about ensuring that Chareva and I can still decide what to put in our girls\u2019 lunchboxes if Tennessee is ever taken over nanny-statists.<\/p>\n

You may recall the incident last year in which a school-lunch inspector took away a girl\u2019s home-packed lunch. Here\u2019s a quote from the newspaper article I linked in my post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because the school told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious.<\/span><\/p>\n

The girl\u2019s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the person who was inspecting all lunch boxes in the More at Four classroom that day.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs \u2013 including in-home day care centers \u2013 to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home. When home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones.<\/span><\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t an isolated incident. A reader I\u2019ve met in person told me about a similar incident involving his niece, and a school district in Chicago has already banned lunches brought from home<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And now just to prove that American officials aren\u2019t uniquely stupid, some politicians across the pond are proposing the same stupidity. Here are some quotes from an article in the U.K. Guardian<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Packed lunches could be banned and pupils barred from leaving school during breaks to buy junk food under a government plan to increase the take-up of school meals, which is to be announced on Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n

The plan, drawn up by John Vincent and Henry Dimbleby, the founders of the food company Leon, aims to tackle the poor public image of school meals.<\/span><\/p>\n

Okay, somebody in the U.K. please tell me: are Vincent and Dimbleby proposing rules that would require more kids to eat the foods produced by their company? I\u2019m not familiar with Leon.<\/p>\n

And why do stupid government proposals always seem to spread around the globe?\u00a0 Is there an annual convention where officials from around the world all get together at a resort, drink cocktails with umbrellas, get taxpayer-funded massages and exchange stupid ideas?<\/p>\n

Anyway \u2026<\/p>\n

The report, which suggests a link between nutrition and academic performance, highlights that parents currently spend almost \u00a31bn on packed lunches but only 1% of them meet nutritional standards. In contrast, scientific studies show most school meals are a healthier option.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those \u201cscientific\u201d studies are of course based on the unscientific assumption that government nutrition guidelines are correct.<\/p>\n

The report suggests a range of measures for headteachers to increase take-up of school meals. They include banning unhealthy packed lunches full of sugary drinks, crisps and sweets, or even a total ban on all packed lunches.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what does all this have to do with me starting a religion? I\u2019m getting to that. First, let\u2019s look at part of a follow-up story<\/a> to the incident in North Carolina:<\/p>\n

After a national outcry over lunch inspections at a pre-K program in Hoke County, the North Carolina Childcare Commission got the message. The commission reinstated a rule allowing homemade lunches to be exempt from nutrition guidelines. <\/span><\/p>\n

The new rule means if parents pack a lunch for their child, the preferences of the parents would trump the established nutrition guidelines.<\/span><\/p>\n

The change can be credited to a story that triggered national attention.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s good that the government food fascists backed off, but before we all do a victory dance, let\u2019s stop and consider why <\/em>they backed off: they were embarrassed by the national outcry. It didn\u2019t suddenly occur to them that they\u2019re supposed to be public servants, not the public\u2019s masters. Take away the national attention and the embarrassment, and they would have happily continued telling parents what they can put in their own children\u2019s lunchboxes.<\/p>\n

How do I know that? Because an earlier article<\/a> about the same commission\u2019s proceedings (before the national attention and embarrassment) tells us so:<\/p>\n

The staff of the Division of Child Development and Early Education drew up some nutrition rules in May 2011 for the NC Child Care Commission to consider. The commission discussed the proposed rules at a September 27, 2011 meeting. The minutes of that meeting show the commission members talked about allowing parents to make a \u201cpersonal preference\u201d for the food their children eat at school, including what they bring from home. According to the minutes, the commission\u2019s attorney, Alexi Gruber from the Department of Justice, advised the members such preferences should supersede any nutrition rule.<\/span><\/p>\n

The panel went against that advice, however, and deleted the word \u201cpersonal\u201d from the recommendation. The only exception left was for ethnic, religious or cultural reasons. The new rule cited a vegetarian diet as an example of the exception.<\/span><\/p>\n

See if you can spot the glaring contradiction in the commission\u2019s (ahem) thinking. Go ahead, I\u2019ll wait \u2026<\/p>\n

Got it? Yup \u2026 the commission chose not to allow exceptions based on a parent\u2019s \u201cpersonal\u201d preferences, but they were willing to make an exception for a vegetarian diet. <\/em>Excuse me?\u00a0 Weren’t the exceptions supposed to be for ethnic, religious or cultural reasons?<\/p>\n

Yes, some religions specify a vegetarian diet, but vegetarianism itself is not a religion. It\u2019s a personal preference.<\/em> But since many vegetarians cite moral reasons for their personal preference, the goofballs on the commission were willing to treat vegetarianism like a religion and offer vegetarians an exemption from their rules.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I\u2019m considering starting the Fatatarian <\/em>religion. You can argue the health benefits of meat vs. wheat with government officials until you\u2019re blue in the face, and they won\u2019t budge. But play the religion card, and they fold. So I figure to ensure that our daughters (and millions of other kids) are allowed to bring Fat Head lunches from home in the future, we need to make this a religious-freedom issue. Imagine how much fun it would be.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, Mr. Naughton, we called you in today because your daughter\u2019s lunch didn\u2019t include any grain products and was very high in saturated fat. I\u2019m afraid that violates USDA rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, sorry, but you\u2019ll have to make an exception. We\u2019re strict Fatatarians.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich means \u2026?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means our religion requires us to eat a diet high in fat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that you can go to heaven?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, so that we can enjoy our time on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUh, but \u2026 well, there\u2019s also the issue of you not including any grains in their \u2013”<\/p>\n

\u201cNo can do. Fatatarins consider eating wheat immoral.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can eating wheat be immoral? You\u2019re not killing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you taken a peek at the diabetes rates lately?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, but I still don\u2019t see how eating wheat is a moral issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSimple. When kids end up with cavities and diabetes and asthma and food allergies and behavioral problems and beer bellies just so the USDA officials currently on sabbatical from their real jobs at Monsanto can force their parents to buy Monsanto\u2019s grains for their kids\u2019 lunches, that\u2019s immoral.\u201d<\/p>\n

“But –”<\/p>\n

“And I’m quoting directly from the Book of Dietoronomy, verse twenty-seven.”<\/p>\n

\u201cBut\u2014”<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I don\u2019t want to have to turn this into a First Amendment issue, but if you\u2019re going to insist I violate my religion, I\u2019ll have to call my law\u2014”<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, that won\u2019t be necessary. I\u2019m sure we can work out an exception.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat. And by the way, on the third Friday of every month, my girls are required to walk around all day with a live chicken. I\u2019ll expect you to accommodate them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m considering starting a new religion call Fatatarianism. If I do, you\u2019re all invited to join. I promise I won\u2019t collect any dues, with the possible exception of a cover… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-foolishness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5749"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5753,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5749\/revisions\/5753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fathead-movie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}