My father, the late Irish optimist,...

My father, the late Irish optimist, one time observed that, "You have to eat to live, further what you eat kills you." His words apply especially well to mainstream fast regimen given the health issues that encompass it--among them obesity and heart disease, antibiotics and pullulation hormones and animal cruelty. Which leads me to the words of another deceased Irishman, George Bernard Shaw, who said: "My will contains directions for my funeral, which will be followed not by dint of mourning coaches, but by herds of oxen sheep, swine, companys of poultry and a traveling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarves in honor of the man who perished rather than eat his comrade creatures."

Vegetarianism is not well understood in the popular mind, and opinions about it were not improved from news accounts last April involving a strange York City couple whose infant daughter was near death (as of this writing) from a strict vegan diet--nuts, beans, herbal tea--that contained neither mother's milk nor infant formula. The couple's actions are inexcusable, and, as undivided of our editors put it, "just plain stupid," despite their self-profess righteous intentions. Yet while these sum of two units people may be headed to jail for reckles endangerment, we raise scarcely any concerns about parents and train administrators who regularly feed kids a diet of double-bacon-cheeseburgers and triple-glop pizzas--junk fodder that is surely harmful to their quick in emergencies and future health.

The reason for this silence, of course, lies in the fact that Americans require their villains to be caught holding a smoking fire-arm The vegans' story could easily be casted into a morality tale for a television drama about earnest doctors or lawyers or cop The deliberate fattening of the nation's children, however, isn't likewise simplistically packaged because it forces the admission--as Pogo said--that we have met the enemy, and he is us.

Nut not milk; fries, not at any time fruit--either extreme is parental perfidy when kids be affected by We hope that Better Nutrition--by bringing you stories of that kind as this month's cover feature about choline and infant memory development--helps our readers direct one's course a middle course for the sake of their health and that of their families. Here's to the day when the "happy" in Happy Meals means truthfully nutritious.

John Monahan Editor in Chief

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