What do Halloween and sugar have in common? The easy answer is candy for the
trick-or-treat bags. The correct answer
is that each gives organizations an opportunity to identify victims and to pass
the responsibility to outside parties rather than where it belongs.
The first such organization is one called Food Allergy
Research & Education (FARE) working “on behalf of the 15 million Americans
with food allergies.” They are promoting
a program to shift the responsibility for children with food allergies away
from the children themselves and their parents and onto the community. Their website reads: “This Halloween, FARE is encouraging families
to start a new tradition: paint a pumpkin teal and place it on your porch to
indicate you have non-food treats available.”
They want neighbors to feel compassion for these children who otherwise
could find themselves not included in the festivities.
In days gone by parents inspected the trick-or-treat
collection for possible problems, ranging from the legendary needles in apples
to allergy issues to candy that might affect loose teeth. In other situations the children themselves
were expected to, and did not feel uncomfortable to turn down any foods that
were not allowed in their diets. When
they were too young to do so the parent stepped in. Teachers were often unaware of these problems
and not expected to police the situation.
Now all that has changed and neighbors, the community,
innocent bystanders are being drawn in to do the work and are asked to raise their
own awareness along with that of others on the block, making sure those 1 in 13
kids don’t feel left out. (They even
offer the solution of painting a plastic pumpkin for participants with pumpkin
allergies!)
The next bit of information is a trailer for a documentary 'FED UP' which “contains a lot of crucial information that most Americans don't
know about the food industry. The increase in certain health problems and fatal
diseases has been on the rise, and research shows that sugar is at the core of
most these ailments.” That’s right. Don’t send the kids out at all on
Halloween. They are the victims of a
sugar industry with “extraordinary power” that is “in business to make money,
not keep America healthy.” In this
trailer speakers use the word “epidemic” twice and seem to mock Michelle
Obama’s statement: “It shouldn’t be so
hard to get them to run around and play,” implying that it’s not the kids
problem to solve – it’s the fault of the sugar industry and their willing
accomplices in government.
They support this shifting the blame with statements like:
“Your brain lights up with sugar just like it does with cocaine or heroin” and
“You’re going to become an addict.”
Their solution is not diet and exercise, because the problem is systemic. “We are blaming willpower and it’s a
crime” (to do so). They conclude by saying, “We
have to change the diet of America.” Who
do you think this we will
include? If we, common citizen, can’t be trusted to feed
our kids properly, if we can’t be trusted to read the food labels to know how
much sugar our family is eating, if we can’t be trusted to see through the
deceptions of the junk food companies that are “acting just like tobacco
companies,” I’m sure we can’t be trusted with the vast responsibility of
changing the diet of America! We,
especially our children, are the victims here and must look to someone else to
save us from the epidemic.
Halloween is about children who are the victims of food
allergies. We would be heartless to
exclude them. Give them toys instead of
the candy we use to feed the addictions of the rest of the children who
are victims of the evil sugar industry, a complacent, if not complicit
government, and the well-meaning but misguided people who recommend that they
just go out and run around. It’s
certainly not hard to find examples of responsibility gone dormant. Happy Halloween.
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