The anti-pleasure principle.

• Position: Letters

Jacob Sullum has made something of a career pooh-poohing the dangers of tobacco, so I wasn't exactly surprised to learn that he's similarly dismissive ("The Anti-Pleasure Principle," July) of the concerns the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) raises about various foods and food additives.

First of all, to say that CSPI is "anti-pleasure" or out to impose some kind of code of self-denial on others just isn't supported by the facts. We certainly don't force anyone to buy our books or read our Nutrition Action Healthletter, which Sullum admits has some 800,000 subscribers.

For every restaurant meal or food product we've criticized in our pages, we've praised another. For every "Food Porn" we've highlighted a "Right

Stuff" We've said good things about sirloin steaks and roast beef sandwiches, along with the less charitable things we've had to say about nutritional nightmares like the Bloomin' Onion. I bet Sullum knows this, though he didn't care to tell your readers. I think what really troubles him is that somewhere, someone is getting information about food from something other than a big food conglomerate.

Take olestra. Sullum is certainly welcome to believe olestra is safe if he wishes, despite the science surrounding it. (For what it's worth, [discredited journalist] Stephen Glass, too, famously smeared our efforts to block the sale of olestra-containing chips.) Sullum laments that the negative publicity about olestra's side effects was largely to blame for its "disappointing performance in the marketplace"--as if that's a bad thing is corporate advertising the only form of communication that should trigger a market response?

If ever there were an example of "extremism disguised as moderation"--a charge leveled by Sullum at CSPI--it is food advertising, particularly fast food and soda ads aimed at kids. After all, what's "moderate" about supersizing or Big Gulps? One would think that a libertarian would be more welcoming of our efforts to balance the billions corporations spend telling people what to eat.

When Sullum laughs at us for urging consumers to wash fruits and vegetables, you get the sense he's just piling on for the sport of it. And sportingly, he fails to mention that CSPI led the successful fight for easy-to-read nutrition facts labels on packaged foods; it has stopped scores of deceptive advertising campaigns, reduced the number of deaths due to sulfites, and encouraged major restaurant chains to add more...