Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Summer 2015
Publication Title
Seattle University Law Review
Publication Title (Abbreviation)
Seattle U. L. Rev.
Volume
38
Issue
4
First Page
1299
Last Page
1316
Abstract
Scholars, advocates, and interest groups have grown increasingly concerned with the ways in which government regulations—from agricultural subsidies to food safety regulations to licensing restrictions on food trucks—affect access to local food. One argument emerging from the interest in recent years is that choosing what foods to eat, what I have previously called “liberty of palate,” is a fundamental right.1 The attraction is obvious: infringements of fundamental rights trigger strict scrutiny, which few statutes survive. As argued elsewhere, the doctrinal case for the existence of such a right is very weak. This Essay does not revisit those arguments, but instead suggests that if a right to food liberty were recognized, the chief beneficiaries would not likely be sustainable agriculture consumers and producers, but rather those with the most at stake (and the most expensive lawyers) — big agriculture and large food manufacturers.
Rights
© 2015 Samuel R. Wiseman
Faculty Biography
http://www.law.fsu.edu/our-faculty/profiles/swiseman
Recommended Citation
Samuel R. Wiseman,
The Dangerous Right to Food Choice, 38
Seattle U. L. Rev.
1299
(2015),
Available at: https://ir.law.fsu.edu/articles/457
Included in
Administrative Law Commons, First Amendment Commons, Food and Drug Law Commons, Health Law and Policy Commons
Comments
First published in Seattle University Law Review.