If you’re not familiar with Steve Cooksey, the North Carolina blogger who received a “cease and desist” letter from the NC Board of Nutrition and Dietitians for blogging about treating diabetes with a low-carb diet, you may want to read the back story (here and here) or watch the embedded video below.
I’m very pleased to see that Steve has gotten some assistance form the Institute for Justice and they have now filed suit against the NC Board for infringing on Steve’s right to free speech.
Read the whole announcement for all the details, but I thought this the salient point:
[T]he First Amendment does not allow the government to ban people from sharing ordinary advice about diet, or scrub the Internet—from blogs to Facebook to Twitter—of speech the government does not like. North Carolina can no more force Steve to become a licensed dietitian than it could require Dear Abby to become a licensed psychologist.
Props to Steve … as you might imagine, I certainly hope this is resolved in his favor.
Weight Maven is written by Beth Mazur. Beth believes that obesity is more symptom than cause and that the real problem is our Western diet -- especially sugar, refined grains, and industrial oils. Beth writes about nutrition, ancestral health & food policy. And cats! 
I like what Justin Stoneman says about this sort of thing.
People in America like to think that they eat with freedom. Ultimately, however, they can only pick what is presented to them, and what they can afford. Then, the decision is based on what they believe to be healthy, tasty and safe. With that in mind, can you imagine how great it would be for the industries mentioned above, if dietary advice given could be contained and restricted to just one organization that they could pour money into? That scenario is not just some North Koreanesque wet dream. It is USA 2010.
The ADA (American Dietetic Association) has complete monopoly on dietary advice. To keep the bubble airtight, the full might of the law has even been implemented. Kim Jong-il would be proud of the attention to detail.
Staggeringly, in 46 out of 50 States, the message the authorities want you to have is protected. The law determines who is able to provide you with nutritional advice.
The Commission on Dietetic Registration is the credentializing agency for the ADA. A practicing dietician not registered with the ADA or CDR is liable to face prosecution in over 90% of the country.
With that in mind, who precisely is ‘sponsoring’ the ADA and the nutritional advice you receive?
My friends, it is a beautiful army. Partners (recent and current — and their latest annual revenue figures):
Coca Cola (revenue $31.4 billion), GlaxoSmithKline (revenue $42.5 billion), Hershey’s (revenue $5.3 billion), Unilever (revenue $55.8 billion), Aramark (revenue: $12.3 billion). There are even some ‘premier sponsors’: Mars (revenue: $30 billion), PepsiCo (revenue $44.3 billion), Truvia sweetener (revenue of parent company Cargill: $116.6 billion), Kellogg’s ($12.7 billion).
ADA ‘sponsors’ have combined revenues of over $400 billion.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/justin-stoneman/post_868_b_720398.html
Beth, could you consider making a post or sending me an email entitled “A Readers’ Digest Summary of the Sh*t that hit the Fan in the Paleo World Recently”?
As you know, I am radical loss maintainer, mostly a calorie balancer who uses macronutrient management to quell insulin-triggered hunger. Like nearly anyone who has been able to maintain for more than five years, I’m my own n=1 science experiment. I check in on Paleo from time to time. Hoookay. Something’s goin’ on and I’m out of the loop. People are lobbing sweet potatoes at one another, Jimmy Moore weighs 300+ pounds, some people are hating on Guyenet. And then there’s this guy’s story: Paleo v. North Carolina dieticians. What gives?
sappyarwood at att dot net.