The new Health secretary, Andrew Lansley, has invited some of the biggest food corporations in the United Kingdom –McDonalds, KFC, PepsiCo, Mars and Kelloggs and supermarkets like Tesco–to help him develop the new government’s policy to tackle obesity, diet-related disease, and alcohol abuse.

Five ‘responsibility deal’ networks with business have been set up, co-chaired by Ministers, to come up with policies that will use voluntary approaches to improve public health, and will focus on persuading –or ‘nudging’—people to make healthier choices without force or regulation.

These new partnerships between business and government will form the basis of the new government’s public health strategy to help people make better health choices through voluntary measures and market incentives. The policy will be announced shortly in a new ‘white paper.’

Apparently it’s all part of a wider Conservative agenda to replace state intervention with private and corporate action!  The idea is to shift responsibility for health and improving diets from the state to society and to convince people that public health is all about personal responsibility.

And no, this isn’t a joke, it is for real. And since its happening over there, we will probably see a version of it happening over here soon. So watch out for variations on the same theme here.

McDonalds is the first fast food retailer – in fact the first large commercial business in New Zealand – to commit to using free range eggs in 19 of its restaurants in New Zealand.

You just know its all part of McDonald’s re-branding exercise, a cunning plan to try to shed their nasty ‘junk food’ image and reposition themselves as a more serious, credible, caring food outlet.

But hey, they are the first fast food company to do it. So whatever their motivation, congratulations! It will have the effect of sparing about 7 thousand (out of 3 million) hens from living their short and tragic lives inside a cage. And if other fast food companies join in, it could have the effect of phasing out demand for cruel, battery raised eggs altogether.

I know SAFE has been trying for years to persuade restaurants and food businesses to convert to using free range eggs, but most businesses have resisted their call, putting profitability ahead of principle.

So it’s great that McDonalds has decided to take the plunge, and hopefully others will follow. We certainly hope McDonalds will extend its decision to other stores outside of Christchurch and Dunedin. And we hope it will give a big boost to free range egg production, as well.

Speaking of free range egg production, its time we had some statutory guidelines about what actually constitutes a ‘free range’ egg. I have been told there are some companies which use the free range label, but you and I wouldn’t consider their farms to be free range at all.

So to protect consumers and ensure the word free range isn’t being abused, its time the Commerce Commission or the Ministry of Consumer Affairs took the lead and developed clear guidelines for the industry, and for what practices may, or may not, be deemed to be free range.

Perhaps we could benefit from this man, at number eleven on the Green Party list, coming in parliament to speak to these issues?

The Latest gastronomic sensation in France is the burger — and not just any beef patty in a bun. Only the McDo will do. You can ignore anti-globalisation protests, French cultural snobbery and antipathy over Iraq, the monkeys have not merely surrendered but are prostrating themselves at the Golden Arch.

If the French have rolled over over and embraced the clown, what hope is there? This article featured in today’s Dom Post as well as The Australian yesterday. I don’t know what else to say. McDonald’s burgers don’t even register as food on my radar. I guess that there is no accounting for taste. Would you like fries with that?

The logic for intervention is clear. Political parties that do not support restricting the marketing of unhealthy food to our children should just come out and admit that they have succumbed to pressure from the food industry. Where are their priorities? Do they really value commercial profits over the health of our kids?

I guess some people will be arguing that those 82% of parents and grandparents want to restrict freedom of speech. But, a bit like the Electoral Finance Act, this regulation on the fast food industry would be a restriction on advertising, not on freedom of speech. Ronald McDonald would still be able to approach as many children as he liked, on a one on one basis, to discuss the nutritional merits or otherwise of happy meals. He and his peers would just need to cut back a little on the US$10 billion he spends making sure his message gets more glamour and coverage than healthy food receives.

Now you can cook your cow with petrol too, as well as raising it on oil-based fertilisers, pesticides and maize silage.