Center for Consumer Freedom

CSPI Says: Dance For Us, Colonel Sanders!

Looks like the food police have a quota to meet. Last seen moving the goalposts on beverage policy, this morning the dietary dictators at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) deposited a little present on KFC's doorstep. CSPI's lawsuit targets the Colonel's use of trans fat in preparing fried chicken, pot pies, and other popular menu items. Should KFC not comply with CSPI's demands, the lawsuit asks for the company to pay fried chicken lovers nationwide a sum roughly equivalent to the annual GDP of Snakistan -- every day.

What you won't find in CSPI's lengthy press release, however, is any mention of the fact that this is the same organization that once said: "All told, the charges against trans fat just don't stand up. And by extension, hydrogenated oils seem relatively innocent." Or, in plainer English by CSPI: "Trans, shmans." CSPI once pushed companies towards using the very frying oils that contain trans fats. Now that the winds of science have blown in another direction, the food cops have hired some high-powered trial lawyers to shove KFC the way they want. We took out an advertisement in yesterday's Washington Post Express detailing just how CSPI's lawyers could have dug up plaintiffs for the suit.

If CSPI dealt a little more honestly with its own history, it would know that science evolves. But if CSPI was being truly honest about its own past, of course, its lawsuit would have a different defendant.