Los Angeles bans fast food

Los Angeles has outlawed fast-food restaurants throughout much of the city, following a similar ban in the Westwood neighborhood. This ban only affects future openings, not existing locations.

But such a decision raises an important question: What exactly is fast food?

After all, you can go into McDonald's and eat a healthy meal including a salad, a yogurt and a bottle of water. In fact, McDonald's now sells more chicken than burgers as people migrate away from red meat for health reasons. Yet on the other hand, you can go into Subway and get a sandwich that's loaded with mayonnaise, cheese and fatty meats.

The bottom-line is this: We are the problem, not Burger King or McDonald's or any other fast-food restaurant.

The Los Angeles move represents a ridiculous level of government interference in the free market. Contrast that approach with New York, which has required disclosure of calorie counts on menus at chain restaurants.

There's a big difference between being given the info so that you can make an informed choice versus the government actually deciding what you can and can't eat.

Meanwhile, you may have recently heard that 93% of kid's fast-food meals exceed recommended calorie counts. But that still means 1 in 10 kid's meals represents a healthy choice.

So parents have a responsibility to limit how often their kids eat these meals; or to ban them altogether; or to always insist on healthier food.