NYC banned trans fat

This is really sad. If you are too stupid to take care of your body, maybe you should die...

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn10737

Quote

NYC is the first city in the US to impose such a ban, which comes amid debate on how to tackle the country's increasing weight problem, with more than one in five Americans now either obese or severely obese. Originally, restaurants were to be given just six months to replace the fats, but opposition from the city’s 24,000 restaurant owners led to an 18-month compromise.

Well that's about the most random thing I've ever heard of, if the people wanna eat trans fats the hey, it's their choice. It's not like anyone's forcing them to eat it...

I totally agree with you Doomzies... If people want to eat this stuff, let them.

Haha enough said You shouldn't ban something billions of people like, it just pisses them off, and that not very good now is it?

I don't have anything against the ban. It's not like it's a bad thing, just a step toward trying to improve the U.S. and its image of being the fat country.

I'm inclined to agree, mainly because they're simply forcing restaurants and such to replace trans fats with other fats, which can be done quite easily. Trans fats are awful, awful things and is one of the most unhealthy things you can consume, and yet many people do without realize the effect it has on the body. It's much better that they're forcing a replacement than imposing a tax on foods with it (which they were considering).

The only worrying part is that this can be used as proof that the government should monitor what we eat, like banning most sugary products and such. Fat nation or not, it's our choice, not the governments

yah i think that it's good that they're doing it, because it'll start to help our obesity problem in america, but at the same time it's their choice weather they wanna eat trans fat so idk i agree w/it but at the same time i don't

My God!! I'm totally astonished that any of you could oppose this ban!!

I don't know how these issues are discussed amongst the common media in the USA or how the general public understanding of it is. But as far as I understand from what I've heard, transfat is a chemical fat - it's specifically engineered to do a good job making food taste and feel nice and have a good shelf life, but unfortunately it's *much worse* than saturated fats for the body.

And guys, it's not a case of people being aware of it and choosing to eat or not to eat it. Transfat is a syrupey grey chemical shipped by the industrial drum. It's put into various foods at huge food processing factories. It becomes one of the little esoteric ingredients you don't want to think about when you buy processed food. I mean, do you really want or expect every member of the population to have a biochemistry qualification to understand what transfat and numerous other processed food ingredients may do to them?

You wouldn't expect food companies to be allowed to choose to include or not include toxins such as mercury or silver into their foods. Well, transfat pretty much almost comes to the same thing. It is *severely* and rapidly bad. And without labelling - it's completely impossible to know how much you are eating unless you grow all your own food - organically! And even with labelling - how much can a single person be expected to know - food comes in cans and packaging for the benefit of our lifestyles - it shouldn't add to the burden of making it in our competitive world.

And if you really think it should be up to the consumer - think of the snake oil merchants that used to be around during the Wild West era. It's exactly the same situation - large corporate food and industrial chemical manufacturers^ will do whatever it takes to maximise their profits at any cost by making food feel and taste nice irrespective of toxic content. And market it to kids whose parents are too stressed and overworked to resist when the kids demand the transfatted food. (^ I used to think food was grown, not manufactured!). Banning transfat is no different to the sheriff running the snake oil seller out of town. Indeed, I believe transfat is also banned in Sweden or somewhere.

What's actually wrong with transfat isn't just "obesity" and "fatties in the streets", it's *highly* efficient at causing atheroclerotic plaques inside arteries, leading to heart disease, heart attack and stroke. Followed by high ongoing medical expenses. And who do you think is going to pay for all that high medical expense. Make no mistake - it will be the taxpayer - even in a country like the USA where you have relatively little public medical subsidy it will come out of your taxes *and* your health insurance premiums. Even if your employer's contributing to those - it's money they could have paid into your hand instead, and more and more of it will just go towards expanding national medical costs.

And my last pitch to convert your opinions is this: allowing food and industrial chemical manufacturing corporations to put whatever they want into their product to sell it is just like allowing software and music companies to put whatever DRM and licencing restrictions they want on their products *as well as* not preventing them from setting the hardware compliance agenda (like HDCP). It's *exactly* the same principle of negligence not to protect the people against the profiteer, I assure you.

Artemis - I agree with you that banning the stuff is much better than taxing it. Can you imagine if the government became *dependent* on tax income from high sales of transfat products?!?!? Here in Australia, governments have already become dependent on tobacco taxes to fund the health system and very dependent on electronic poker machine taxes for general revenue - so they can't afford to ban or regulate them! (Gambling becomes a genuine addiction, so don't anybody try to bring up the "stupid" label again). And alcohol taxes also go into general revenue, I think, though they should go back into the health system, since alcohol is responsible for much of the cost there (liver failure as well as trauma after drunken brawls).

Well since you've put it that way you've just changed my opinion, it's good they've banned it... I didn't know so many people were ignorant of what trans fats are...

I totally agree that trans fats are very bad. My point is that the government pushed that saturated fats are worse before this and that's what lead to hydrogenated oil in the first place! Now we are going back. It is plain stupid to have the government step in and say what the population can and can't do when it comes to food.

The FDA stepped up and forced people to put trans fat on product labels to increase awareness in the program. Restaurants were already switching passed trans fat oils by themselves.

A lot of restaurants are only doing it on their own because increased awareness deters people from eating in places that have trans fats in their food. However, since they haven't been forced to change and trans fats are very cheap, some restaurants decide not to change (particularly those in low-income areas).

They were thinking about taxing trans fats and saturated fats (any food with such fats in it would thus cost more, not for the manufacturer but the consumer) not to long ago (probably still are) and the people who'd ultimately suffer from that are those in the low-income bracket.

It is good that they forced a label on it a while back, the problem with that is that most people don't understand a food label, much less the difference between trans fat, saturated fat, and unsaturated fat. And many people implore the 'ignorance is bliss' clause and simply don't look because what you don't know doesn't hurt you...and I'm sure a lot of people don't even notice the food labels just like people never seem to notice the rating symbol on video game cases.

Like I stated before, it's really the symbolic nature of this ban that's bothersome. The government could then decide to ban other foods they deem dangerous, even though many of them are not as 'sneaky' as trans fat. For instance overconsumption sugar (in particular, sugary drinks like soda) is linked to causing diabetes, especially in children. Should the government ban or impose a ration system to prevent this from happening, even though it's ultimately the choice of the individual to over consume such products? Kind of slippery slope there, but it just seems like a warning sign for things to come if we're not careful.

Said By Aron Schatz

Restaurants were already switching passed trans fat oils by themselves.

They were only doing so because the city warned them it would be banned if they didn't limit its use themselves. After the deadline passed, only half of the restaurants in the city had even paid attention to the warning.