Ri-freaking-diculous

My husband sent me this by email today, with the subject line "I may have to turn you in."  That may be funny, but what is happening to poor Steve Cooksey is not. 

Are the members of the North Carolina Board of Dietitics/Nutrition bored?  Are they now canvassing every blog that talks about food on the internet?  Wow.  That's a big honey-do list, if ever I've heard of one.

Hey, does that mean that every Weight Watchers group leader in North Carolina is violating this rule?

How about every know-it-all you ever ate lunch with at work?

You know who they should arrest?  Paula Deen and her son, who now have a TV show called "Not My Mamma's [Artery Clogging, Deep Fried, Crap Food that Caused Said Mamma to Have Type II Diabetes and Hide it From the World but Now Profit From it as the New Face of Pfizer]".  I caught two minutes of it on FoodTV last week.  Horrible. 

Food Police, Amok

By Andrew Stuttaford

April 27, 2012 2:24 P.M.

From the Carolina Journal:

CHARLOTTE — The North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition is threatening to send a blogger to jail for recounting publicly his battle against diabetes and encouraging others to follow his lifestyle.

Chapter 90, Article 25 of the North Carolina General Statutes makes it a misdemeanor to "practice dietetics or nutrition" without a license. According to the law, "practicing" nutrition includes "assessing the nutritional needs of individuals and groups" and "providing nutrition counseling."

Steve Cooksey has learned that the definition, at least in the eyes of the state board, is expansive.

When he was hospitalized with diabetes in February 2009, he decided to avoid the fate of his grandmother, who eventually died of the disease. He embraced the low-carb, high-protein Paleo diet, also known as the "caveman" or "hunter-gatherer" diet. The diet, he said, made him drug- and insulin-free within 30 days. By May of that year, he had lost 45 pounds and decided to start a blog about his success.

But this past January the state diatetics and nutrition board decided Cooksey's blog — Diabetes-Warrior.net — violated state law. The nutritional advice Cooksey provides on the site amounts to "practicing nutrition," the board's director says, and in North Carolina that's something you need a license to do.

Unless Cooksey completely rewrites his 3-year-old blog, he could be sued by the licensing board. If he loses the lawsuit and refuses to take down the blog, he could face up to 120 days in jail.

Regulatory overreach? I'd say so.