Fans of the beloved 90’s sitcom Seinfeld will no doubt remember the words of the Soup Nazi which were quickly directed at any customer who did not strictly follow his no nonsense rules for standing in line, ordering, and payment at his popular New York deli.
“No soup for you! Â NEXT!” the Soup Nazi would shout at the red faced customers who would silently slink away in shame after being lambasted for not adhering to his standards.
New York Mayor Bloomberg has taken Soup Nazi’s tactics to a whole new level with his Administration’s banning of food donations to all government-run facilities that serve New York City’s large homeless population.
The nanny-esque ban, put in place in March 2012, still stands despite city resources stretched to the breaking point by the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy on the City’s five Boroughs in October 2012.
Perplexingly, the reason for the ban is not the result of homeless getting ill from food contamination!
Rather, Mayor Bloomberg has become New York’s new Soup Nazi by insisting that because the nutritional content of donated food cannot be adequately assessed by the Department of Homeless Services (DHS), homeless shelters are thereby required to turn away all Good Samaritans wishing to donate even such innocuous items as soup and bagels.
Seth Diamond, Commissioner of the DHS, defends the decision saying that the ban is in line with Bloomberg’s passion for improving the nutrition of all residents of New York City. Â The measure tightly controls what can and cannot be served at city run facilities for New York’s down and out including portion sizes and the amount of sodium, fat, fiber and calories per serving.
No exceptions to the strict ban are given even for established donation centers with a healthy track record such as Ohab Zedek, an Upper West Side Orthodox congregation which has donated freshly cooked and nutrient rich foods left over from synagogue events for over ten years.
Mayor Bloomberg’s relentless pursuit of a New York food utopia through implementation of his social justice agenda, while well meaning, is certain to fail (note the ban on all sugary sodas larger than 16 oz in September 2012 which head scratchingly exempted diet sodas which are arguably just as bad if not worse as diet drinks have been shown to trigger overeating).
The reason is that is removes all personal choice and responsible actions from the individual – be it positive or negative.  If people want to drink a Big Gulp, they should be free to do so.  And, if citizens like Glenn and Lenore Richter, who lead a team of food-delivery volunteers from their local congregation, want to donate fresh foods to homeless shelters in their neighborhood, they should have the freedom to perform such charitable activities as well.
Attempting to control consumer behavior with a socially “just” agenda cannot and never will accomplish health. Â It just creates a populace that becomes highly adept at circumventing the “rules” such as what happened in America during Prohibition.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Source: Nanny Bloomberg Bans Food Donations to Homeless Shelters
I’m sure the mayor is not going hungry tonight or any night. I believe that if you chose to eat unhealthy then you should suffer the natural consequences that go with it – poor health, high insurance premiums, etc. But this is America is it is my right to chose this, just as it is my right to chose to eat a healthy diet and buy the best food I can afford. What if another mayor decides that butter and liver are bad for you and bans them – many do think this! We already see issues like this with raw milk. We need to fight for everyone’s freedom.
just another attempt at the left to take over our rights, our freedoms by taking control of everything and taking our FREE choice away from Americans.
Bloomberg is a POLITICIAN first and foremost. Nothing redeeming about him.
The dumbing-down of America has come to fruition. Uneducated, uncaring, unethical, malnourished minds and bodies… not caring that we are becoming a marxist country. It’s woeful and saddens my heart.
We desperately need values and common sense to return and help us retain our
free enterprise democracy…. IT matters and name calling will not solve anything.
You will not find a healthy mind or spirit in a malnourished body….
taking “diet dictocrats” to a whole new level. so sad.
I can’t believe there are people on here that support this…You want to talk health care? Look at it this way:
Right now the government thinks WE are burdening the healthcare system with all of our full fat (and raw!) milk, tons of butter, bacon, coconut oil etc…They will not help these people. They want them on low fat, or gmo canola oils. You think it’s a good idea to give them this control?
If there was any chance for those homeless people to get good food, this ends it.
You win.
Have a great day!
I’d heard before that some soup kitchens ban donations of wild game as lead from the buckshot is, well, not meant for human consumption. When a relative serves us wild game they just laugh and tell us to look out for buckshot!
Does Bloomberg’s ban apply to government run homeless shelters only or do his henchmen plan to meddle in the affairs of private or church-run charities?
It does not make sense to implement such a rule in this difficult economy and with charities being unable to meet the demands placed upon them.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to save sugar packets and give them to homeless street persons. Sometimes that would be all they would get in a day. Refined sugar isn’t food, but will you let a person starve because you don’t approve of it?
1. Smaller scale is irrelevant. It doesn’t decrease risk, it only decreases potential number of people that get sick. On the other hand, the quantity of any one particular donated food also decreases the potential number of people who get sick. 2. A feeling of trust is also irrelevant to actual risk factors. And individual people reaching out to help the homeless does more to foster community spirit than the government running everything. 3. In the history of people feeding the homeless, has there ever been an instance of purposeful poisoning? I doubt there has been. But if I go to a potluck function at my church, for instance, I have no way of knowing if the potato salad brought by the new family is poisoned because they don’t actually like Christians. I *choose* to take that risk. What is to say that a volunteer won’t poison the official government sanctioned food? What we’ve been saying all along is that homeless people are still people and should have the same right to choose what risks they will take.
in a democracy you can be voted off the island!
1: smaller scale.
2: feeling of community, which also brings trust.
3: the presumption that the others don’t wish any harm upon you because they view you as a leech on society.