David Kessler is Back, And Can’t Resist the Chocolate Chip Cookie So He Wants to Outlaw It
David Kessler, the FDA head under Clinton, has re-emerged as a fervent voice about food. His latest argument is that the sweets industry has addicted the US population. His book argues that the food industry has addicted the US population to foods that corporations sell.
As a person who watches all of the ads but still has no interest in sweets I am unconvinced and think this is really about his own penchant for sweets that he cannot control. So regulate and outlaw them! Use government force to control Kessler’s own weaknesses!
As head of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. David A. Kessler served two presidents and battled Congress and Big Tobacco. But the Harvard-educated pediatrician discovered he was helpless against the forces of a chocolate chip cookie.
In an experiment of one, Dr. Kessler tested his willpower by buying two gooey chocolate chip cookies that he didn’t plan to eat. At home, he found himself staring at the cookies, and even distracted by memories of the chocolate chunks and doughy peaks as he left the room. He left the house, and the cookies remained uneaten. Feeling triumphant, he stopped for coffee, saw cookies on the counter and gobbled one down.
“Why does that chocolate chip cookie have such power over me?” Dr. Kessler asked in an interview. “Is it the cookie, the representation of the cookie in my brain? I spent seven years trying to figure out the answer.”
I don’t know why the cookie makes Kessler crazy but please don’t try to regulate everyone else’s cookie experience based on your own cookie dysfunction, Mr Kessler.
