Chef Ramsay:"Ban Out-of-Season Vegetables"

For generations, parents have exhorted their kids to eat vegetables. Today's politically correct (though quite insane) amendment to that rule is: "Unless they're out of season, in which case it's a matter for the police."

Celebrity British chef Gordon Ramsay said restaurants should be fined if they serve out-of-season fruit and vegetables. "I don't want to see asparagus in the middle of December. I don't want to see strawberries from Kenya in the middle of March. I want to see it home-grown," he said after raising his concerns with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"Fruit and veg should be seasonal. Chefs should be fined if they don't have ingredients in season on their menu," he told the BBC on Friday.

Last year, this self-absorbed oaf was in the news because he

...lashed out at parents of obese children, calling for them to be taken to court and fined.

Now that smoking has been all but snuffed out — marginalized, forbidden, scoffed at — it's clearer all the time that anti-choice little fascists have turned their attention to food. Fight back now unless you want a world in which candy bars, cheeseburgers, and pastries are preposterously pricey and possibly illegal.

Think I'm too hotheaded, or just crying wolf? Then read the piece William Saletan published on Slate yesterday. This paragraph summarizes it:

[Some health nannies believe that] junk food, like cigarettes, is addictive and should be similarly regulated. Initially, this was just a metaphor. Now it's becoming more than that. Scientists are trying to show that food literally addicts you like drugs.

Whole thing here.

[hat tip: Martin Owens]

Comments

[Hunter]

Whatever. Crazy people are crazy, and for something as silly as this, let them be as crazy as they want. It'll give them less time for advocating things that might take root, like the death penalty for pot smokers.

If only do-gooder, large parental government types would occupy themselves with trivial stuff like this, we'd all be able to live our lives in peace.

[David]

As oil gets more and more expensive, this is going to happen anyway. It will no longer be economically feasible to transport fruits and vegetables halfway around the world. It has nothing to do with political correctness, just simple economics.

[karl]

Turns out, of course, that Ramsey forgot to add "except for me". Perusing the online menus of his restaurants, you'll find exotic fruits, steak flown in from Japan...

[teqjack]

As noted above, "except for me."

Make him cook for a month without olive oil, pepper, or a host of other things either import-only or at best grown "out of season" in greenhouses (at terrific costs).

Also make him forgo non-native things like potatoes, tomatoes...

Haggis, anyone?

[George]

So basically why doesn't he start by setting the example and removing all his "european" produce from the menu of any of his restaurants. And he could do the same in the US couldn't he? And maybe we should stay at home during the winter eating root vegetables and steak & ale pie like our grandparents did after WWII. At the end of the day any fruit or vegetable is out of the british season. And if it is about local, then maybe Mr Ramsey has found a way of producing some french products in England, but last time I checked, Foie Gras, Perigord Truffle, Pigeon from Bresse...were all French. And say goodbye to coffee and tea if it is not local! "F" Ramsey.