John Stossel‘s latest column asks why we should trust government regulators to determine what we eat.

[F]or every study that says X is bad for you, another study disagrees. How is a layman to decide? I used to take consumer activists’ word for it. Heck, they want to save the world, while industry just wants to get rich. Now I know better. The activists want money, too — and fame.

To arbitrate, it’s intuitive to turn to government — except … government scientists have conflicts, too.

Who becomes a regulator except people who want to regulate? Some come from activist groups that hate industry. Some come from industry and want to convert their government job into a higher-paying industry job. Some just want attention. They know that saying, “X will kill you,” gets more attention than saying that X is probably safe.

I don’t suggest that we ignore the experts and eat like pigs. But the scientific question should not overshadow the more fundamental issue. Who should decide what you can eat: you? Or the state? Should government decide what we may eat, any more than it decides where we live or how long our hair will be? The Food Police claim that they just want to help us make informed choices. But that’s not all they want to do. They try to get government to force us to make healthy choices.

The moral issue of force versus persuasion applies even if all the progressives’ ideas about nutrition are correct. Even if I would be better off eating no fat and salt, that would not justify forcing restaurants to stop serving me those things. Either we live in a free society or we don’t.