Obama Food Update: Michelle Eats Deep-Fried Fat Cakes in Botswana, Barack Eats Greasy Hamburger Hash Brown Dish in Iowa, Calls the Press “Chickens” for Not Eating “Whole Thing” (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on June 30, 2011
POTUS Barack and FLOTUS Michelle Obama - 'do as I say, not as I do' when it comes to healthy eating
Add this to the First Family’s Do as I say, not as I do file.
Wagging fingers at others about eating healthfully and making companies follow healthy food government mandates can be so dang exhausting, so cut Barack and Michelle some slack for pigging out on greasy foods when away from the White House.
And don’t DARE call them hypocrites.
Reported by The Hill, Obama’s lunch stop includes ‘mountains’ of greasy food:
President Obama made a lunchtime pit stop during his Iowa trip Tuesday.
Obama’s motorcade made an unannounced visit to Ross’ Restaurant in Bettendorf, Iowa, one of the quad cities on the border of Illinois and Iowa. The visit surprised owner Cynthia Freidhof, who met the president at a town hall meeting in August 2008.
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Obama might not want to tell First lady Michelle Obama, who runs an anti-obesity campaign, that he ate at a place best known for serving mountains of greasy food.
Nah, no worries for POTUS. Michelle O does her own anti-anti-obesity eating, as you’ll see further down.
The Hill continues…
Ross’ restaurant is known for dishes called “Mountains”; their signature dish is the Magic Mountain: Texas grilled toast, hamburger meat, French fries or hash browns and cheese sauce.
Freidhof, who didn’t realize the president would be visiting until she watched his motorcade turn off the highway, renamed the signature dish ‘Presidential Magic Mountain’ in his honor for the day.
“Anybody who wants one, I will buy it for you,” Obama said, according to the report.
The president bought Magic Mountains for three customers in the restaurant, and brought four Magic Mountains and two Volcanos (the Magic Mountain with the addition of chili) back to traveling companions.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney ordered a Volcano but told reporters he could not finish it.
Obama also challenged the accompanying members of the press to eat “the whole thing.” He called them “chickens” for not taking them up on the challenge.
Adorable. Not. And not the first time POTUS has pigged out on fattening food when away from Michelle.
From The Powers That Be, Obama’s Iowa Lunch Stop Strictly Adheres to Items Found on USDA ‘Lunch Plate’:
That is of course as long as the USDA Dinner Plate is loaded with hamburger, fries, hash browns, Texas toast, chili and cheese sauce so you can’t read the words…
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Obama then told the fry cook that if he’d donate a hundred bucks to his campaign he could come and get some pointers from the White House chef. Just kidding… I think.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled lecture about the dire emergency that is childhood obesity and what we can all do to lead by example.
Now we’ll whip over to the other side of the world. FLOTUS Michelle Obama is on a healthy-food-driven visit to South Africa this week, promoting healthy eating for children and speaking against childhood obesity — and where she chowed down on deep-fried fat cakes and French fries.
Here’s the First Lady at a small restaurant in a village in Botswana.
FLOTUS approaches the food counter to order. What — no lobster?
First Lady Michelle Obama in small Botswana restaurant, June 2011
Woo hoo! Deep-fried fat cakes and French fries! That’s the ticket!
Deep-fried fat cakes and French fries for lunch... kids, don't do this at home
We’re not eating these fat cakes here in front of the cameras — we’ll take them back to the hotel.
Michelle holding the prized fat cakes and French fries
Doug Powers chimes in — Let’s Move! FLOTUS Promotes Health in Africa By Ridding the Continent of Fat Cakes & French Fries:
Comedian Ron White has a joke about cows causing global warming, and that he’s doing his part by “eating the cows as fast as I can.” I’m starting to think that’s how Michelle Obama plans to protect the world from fatty foods.
The First Lady has been promoting good health in Africa. She kicked off “operation eat your veggies” in Botswana by buying some fat cakes and fries at a local eatery (click here for the Reuters news video on YouTube – it is no longer available for embedding).
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The other day FLOTUS admitted to South Africa that she can’t stop eating French fries, but also reminded them to make sure to eat their vegetables. They’ll have to — the French fries are all gone.
Two videos created by RobtKraft on the Team Obama Food Police — the first uses Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” and the second, Weird Al Yankovic’s music parody “Beat It.”
Team Obama Food Police™ Birthday Edition
Team Obama Food Police™ Calorie Count Edition
And who’s paying for Michelle O to tour about Africa on fuel-guzzling Air Force One Two and chow down on grease-loaded fat cakes?
Silly things, why do you even ask?
From The Lonely Conservative, Michelle Obama’s African Adventure Cost Taxpayers Between $500 and $800K:
Earlier today President Obama railed against wealthy Americans who use private jets. Stimulus subsidies that he signed off on aside, most of them probably aren’t paid for by American taxpayers. Michelle Obama can’t say that. She uses Air Force 2 like it’s her own private jet, but we foot the bill for it no matter where she goes. Her last trip to Africa is estimated to have cost a whopping $500,000 to $800,000, according to the Daily Mail.
[...]Forget jetting around the world and staying in luxurious $10,000 per night suites, most Americans can’t even afford a long weekend away. But these people who routinely call for shared sacrifice think sacrifice is for everyone else.
UPDATE: I just noticed that this is my 4,000th post at Frugal Café Blog Zone since I started blogging 2-plus years ago.
Yowzer, how quickly time flies when you’re watching the federal government overspend taxpayer dollars…
About the author
Ok, so Obama indulged. Don’t we all? No one mentioned whether he then ran an extra 5 miles. Or skipped dinner.
Michelle…..Ordered, yes. Eaten, who knows? Maybe she was just being diplomatic and ordering a common local food, vetkoek. And the french fries….I adore french fries. Put a plate in front of me and I’ll gobble them all up. But I rarely eat them. or fed them to my daughter when she was a child. Who’s to say Michelle isn’t the same?
And the travel cost? What, you want she should fly coach on a commercial airline? Here is some background on First Ladies who travel:
http://www.firstladies.org/FirstLadiesAsAmbassadors.aspx
Wikipedia’s entry on Laura Bush’s travel:
Foreign trips
During President George W. Bush’s second term, Laura was more involved in foreign matters. She traveled to numerous countries as a representative of the United States.
As First Lady, she took five goodwill trips to Africa.[49] The purpose of these has mostly been to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and malaria, but Bush has also stressed the need for education and greater opportunities for women.[50] She has taken many other trips to other countries to promote and gain support for President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief;[51] these countries include Zambia (2007),[52] Mozambique (2007),[53] Mali (2007),[54] Senegal (2007),[55] and Haiti (2008).[51]
In mid-2007, she took a trip to Burma where she spoke out in support of the pro-democracy movement, and urged Burmese soldiers and militias to refrain from violence.[56] Later that October, she ventured to the Middle East. Bush said she was in the region in an attempt to improve America’s image by highlighting concern for women’s health, specifically promoting her breast cancer awareness work with the US-Middle East Partnership for Breast Cancer Awareness and Research.[56][57] She defined the trip as successful, saying that stereotypes were broken on both sides.[56]
Were the expenses of these trips vilified by conservatives?
Since the White House has forbidden that photos be taken of Michelle eating [New York Post, August 12, 2009], it would be quite the coup to snap a photo of FLOTUS with food in her mouth. Based on her track record with sneaking out of the White House for cheeseburgers [NBC Philadelphia, April 26, 2009), I’d say yes, she ate them. As far as Michelle Obama’s spending excesses, (what kind of goodwill mission was she on when she and all her friends stayed in an extravagant 5-star resort in Spain last year?), I didn’t write about Laura Bush’s AIDs or women’s awareness missions to Africa because I was not blogging then. Also, the economy didn’t suck like it does now. If indeed one of Laura’s humanitarian trips to Africa cost taxpayers between $500,000 and $800,000, I’m sure that the left-wing media would have mentioned it at least once. I’m not finding the cost of Laura’s trips anywhere, however, which suggests that it didn’t cost anywhere near as much as Michelle’s. You know that liberal journalists would be throwing that against the wall like overcooked pasta if Laura had spent more than a half million dollars of taxpayers’ money on a continental trip that included her brother’s children and her mom, and which is also a “personal pilgrimage” for her (translation: vacation), per the US State Department. During our current 9.1 percent unemployment and record job losses in our nation. When Bush was in office, unemployment averaged around 5.26 percent.
Headlines for Laura’s Africa trips include: Laura Bush Hands Out Malaria Nets and Picks Vegetables. Laura Bush Pushes Woman’s Issues. Laura Bush Fighting Aids and Malaria, Laura Bush To Attend First Woman President In Africa Inauguration. Laura Bush Push’s Education In Africa. Laura Bush Visits Daughter, Barbara, Volunteering In Africa to Fight Aids.
With Michelle, we have greasy fat cakes and safaris [Reuters, http://blogs.reuters.com/frontrow/2011/06/25/safari-time-in-africa-for-first-lady-family/ and “eat your vegetables” (unless she goes to Miss Katie’s diner for cheeseburgers and fries). While Michelle was there to promote “women’s development,” I can find only one scheduled event (Young African Women Leaders Forum) where she did that – she was a speaker, but I have not found her helping out anywhere. Visiting, yes, talking, yes. Actually DOING something of substance – nada. She visited a museum, visited and toured the Nelson Mandela Foundation, visited a daycare center in Johannesburg, and visited with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu. She also met up with Oprah Winfrey while there – they dined together in her posh hotel. Michelle’s trip was billed by the White House as “an attempt to foster goodwill between the United States and Africa” per Politico. I wasn’t aware that there were such dire problems with a lack of goodwill between us that Michelle needed to spend more than half a million dollars visiting the country.
Bringing up Laura Bush’s trips to Africa to somehow excuse Michelle Obama’s excesses is silly. If Laura was indeed excessive like this, shame on her. Michelle IS excessive and is currently doing it during the worst economy we’ve seen in more than three decades, so double shame on her. It would be like excusing a burglar for robbing ten houses because police know of another burglar who had once robbed as many or more. Both are bad.
You’re also missing the point. Laura Bush NEVER interfered with American policy like Michelle does, never pushed her agenda with businesses, never said “we can’t leave it up to the parents” when it comes to what children eat. Michelle was not elected by the American people, but is acting like she’s a member of Congress, like she’s one of Obama’s czars. And is spending our money freely. This Africa trip could have been so much more than it was, could have been more than a pricey photo op… it was a “personal pilgrimage” for Michelle and her family, a “ceremonial” visit during horrible economic times in our nation.
Laura Bush hasn’t been in the White House for more than 2 years – Michelle Obama is there now, spending now, gallivanting now, wagging her finger at parents now. You don’t sound outraged, but if this had been Laura, you’d be. The amount of money Michelle spent on this Africa trip is tiny when compared with our nation’s deficit, with the hardships that millions of Americans are experiencing during “hopenchange” — it’s just one more straw.
POTUS and FLOTUS can eat whatever they want… but then you must expect justified retaliation when they then hypocritically lecture Americans on their food choices and strong-arm restaurants and companies to follow their “healthy eating” mandates. “Do as I say, not as I do.”
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