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
if we can’t help each other we will accept government help.
What’s my point? I think I made my points pretty well above. Sorry you might not have understood. I did use a few big words.
“We don’t pay taxes for the mayor to tell us how he thinks we should eat or think.” This is true, however, we DO pay taxes and into a healthcare system (ok, sickcare system) that is overly burdened by people who indulge in the practice of slowly poisoning themselves, and then need lots of doctor visits and pharmaceuticals to help them feel relatively normal.
We ALL pay for that, whether we want to or not, and whether we drink soda or not.
What?!
So VERY encouraging to find others who KNOW what AGENDA 21 is! I never thought I would see America in this shape in my or anyone else’s lifetime! That is what happens when people are taught to be ignorant and don’t bother to educate themselves! If you follow any story on the internet nowadays, you find so many people with aggressive opinions that are based on IGNORANCE! It reminds me of the movie “Life is Beautiful” when the hero thought he had a friend in a Nazi doctor, and then found out the doc was INSANE from believing such horrible lies! Anyway, sorry to rant, just still shocks me to see people with no integrity in such high positions… God save America.
Agenda 21 in action. If you don’t know what Agenda 21 is – it would be good to Google it for more information. We can’t fight something we don’t understand…
Thank you Lea Ann! When I try to tell people what is happening they will tell me to take off my tin foil hat. They think I’ve lost it! When I point out the chemicals in food, they tell me the government wouldn’t allow us to eat something dangerous. When I tell them about the fluoride in our water, they tell me we need it for good teeth. When I tell them about vaccines, they say they are necessary for good health. When I point out the chem-trails in the sky, they say those are normal flight patterns of commercial jets. I keep pointing out the many, many examples of Agenda 21, NWO and eugenics but people just don’t want to see it.
My friends also tell me I should stop listening to Alex Jones, and while he may be a little over the top at times, I don’t know how anyone can listen to the layers upon layers of proof he has thrown out there and not believe/understand/ comprehend that something very scary is going on.
Hello Susan, always nice to meet a fellow tin-foil-hat-sister 😉 My awakening came in an unusual way. When I was pregnant with my first child and researched natural child birth, I learned quite clearly that routing medical interventions into the birthing process directly oppose the PUBLISHED MEDICAL LITERATURE on the topic! Every “routine intervention” greatly increased the odds of a C-section. I learned then to look for the $ incentive behind anything that contradicted common sense. I went on to research vaccines, then when I was introducted to the information Alex Jones presents, it wasn’t very difficult to see the “connect-the-dots” patterns. Agenda 21 scares me the most because I’d be happy to just pull out of society and become self-sufficient (if it ever became necessary), but Agenda 21 directly prevents this escape route…
Re Agenda 21: Promotoed by George Soros… need I say more ?
Why not ban the culprits, high fructose corn syrup and aspartame? I don’t remember there being an obesity or diabetes epidemic in the 80’s when people were drinking Big Gulps…
I do think the soda ban in a backwards way has raised awareness of the dangerous outcomes of consuming this poison. Perhaps education of public is preferable, but if they can’t get the food pyramid right, because for example low fat high fiber is still considered good, and raw milk is not trusted, I don’t have hope that they could do much. At least in it sounding so preposterous (which it really shouldn’t because the stuff it poison long term) it brings the discussion out in the open. Likening to cigarettes is not that preposterous, its restricted, but people still have freedom to be addicted. As far as not allowing people to feed the homeless, there may be more to it than this, I suspect. I know lots of people who made food for shelters and displaced persons. No one was shutting them down. It might be giving the freedom to feed homeless back to the people, not having the govt run the soup kitchens. Just a thought.
I am still puzzled at why this guy is STILL mayor! Then I realize that many Americans keep electing the same people in office everytime (not matter what party!) There was a similar issue that happened in Texas where this couple had been cooking foods from their home to feed to the homeless, and they had done this for many years. Well, the city found out about it, and the said they had to have a permit, which costs lots of money. They stated that it was a “health hazzard” to the homeless (meanwhile, if these people weren’t feeding them, they would have been eating out of garbage cans). Lea Anne you are right on Agenda 21. Most people don’t even know about it. We THE PEOPLE allow the government & media to run our lives, when is enough going to be enough! Thank you for posting this Sarah!
I hear ya Joyce! More government is NOT the answer, and we have to keep telling anyone who will listen to educate themselves. I think it might be easier for people to be introduced to the plans of the NWO via the topic of Agenda 21. Topics like 9/11 turn off too many people, but everyone eats, and if they can see the threat that Monsanto and the NWO poses to our food supply, they might open their eyes to all of the other pots the NWO has their fingers in…
Wow, so I suppose he thinks its better to starve than to risk veering from the USDA’s laughable guidelines! Ludicrous just isn’t a strong enough word. In the words of Ronald Reagan, the nine most terrifying words in the English language truly are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
someone should get these people registered to vote and get him out of there. if immigrants do not need homes to go to schools here, voters should not need one either.