The Big Apple says "NO" to Trans-fat

[theworm[$]]

NYC Bans Trans Fats From Eateries

In a nation now accustomed to bans on smoking in public places, New York has planted a flag on what could be the next front in community health wars.
It is becoming the first city in the country to ban all restaurants from using artificial trans fats, while requiring hundreds of eateries to post food calorie counts right on their menus.

Perhaps this should be in the symposium. We ban public smoking - is it right to ban public serving of trans-fat, or should restaurants just disclose ingredients and fat, etc.

I like the idea of reducing or eliminating trans-fat from my diet, and this would make it easier, but should the govt be legislating our health? No such thing as second hand fat.... You can have as much transfat as you want at home.

Good thing? Bad thing?

[cristina1]

I think it should be disclosed, but banned? No.

[drmomentum[$]]

Legislating health-related behavior of restaurants is not a new thing. This is much ado about nothing.

Nobody is going to stop the individual that wants to eat trans-fats. This ruling stops poorly-motivated restaurants, which could use more-healthy alternatives, from using trans fats. Just like health codes try to stop a restaurant from using other unhealthy practices.

The difference between this and, say, telling McDonalds that it can't sell hamburgers is that you can't easily tell by looking at a food whether trans fats were used, and the use of trans fats doesn't make much of a difference. Restaurants are going to do whatever makes them the most money, not what is best for people's health.

-JP

[theworm[$]]

just to make my personal position clear - I'm all for it. I was just wondering about the precident and legality. So it's like telling a restaurant they can't serve road kill?

[Prepoia[$]]

Nobody is going to stop the individual that wants to eat trans-fats. This ruling stops poorly-motivated restaurants, which could use more-healthy alternatives, from using trans fats. Just like health codes try to stop a restaurant from using other unhealthy practices.

But the question remains.....Is this really what I want my government deciding for me? Should the government be stopping me from doing anything that's legal? I think not.

Is it better for everyone? Yes. But that has nothing to do with whether the government should be making personal decisions "for me".

I don't think it is anything like health codes for the masses. We don't have choices there except to not go to that restaurant but we don't always know that rats are in the kitchen so that's a government function to protect the public from the unknown.

[theworm[$]]

Prepoia said

Nobody is going to stop the individual that wants to eat trans-fats. This ruling stops poorly-motivated restaurants, which could use more-healthy alternatives, from using trans fats. Just like health codes try to stop a restaurant from using other unhealthy practices.

But the question remains.....Is this really what I want my government deciding for me? Should the government be stopping me from doing anything that's legal? I think not.

Is it better for everyone? Yes. But that has nothing to do with whether the government should be making personal decisions "for me".

I don't think it is anything like health codes for the masses. We don't have choices there except to not go to that restaurant but we don't always know that rats are in the kitchen so that's a government function to protect the public from the unknown.

Thank you!
Why are so many of you better at saying what I'm trying to say than I am?
I would be thrilled if I knew that restaurants that I frequent have not transfat, but should the govt be regulating it?

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Obesity and diabetes are both at epidemic proportions in NYC, especially among the poor. But I don't think banning trans-fats will put much of a dent in this problem. I think the Board of Health could have invested their time and energy into other health issues and measures that would have more effect than all the time and energy they spent pushing for this legislation and the time and energy they will spend on enforcing it.

[drmomentum[$]]

It won't cut into obesity, but that isn't the aim. It's the other effects of trans fats.

What we're talking about is similar to using a food coloring that is proved to cause cancer vs. one that is not. If restaurants would continue to use the dangerous one, government is justified in stepping in and telling them to use the safer alternative.

Listening to talk radio this morning, I think people just don't understand what a trans-fat is and automatically think that their french fries are being taken away.

-JP

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

The research I've read has said that trans fat might increase your risk of cardiac problems if you have factors x, y, and z along with a, b, and c. My point was that NYC's biggest problem isn't the possible long-term side effects of trans-fats on some people, obesity and diabetes are the city's biggest problems, and I'd have rather they spent their time working on that stuff.

[drmomentum[$]]

But food makes you fat, not any particular type of food.

I don't think there's much the government can do there without getting even more intrusive.

[phoenixx]

I do not agree with this, because I do not think the government should have any say in my pesonal health (or anti health) choices.

I feel that smoking, abortion, eating, drinking, and marijuana all fall under that umbrella - none of them should be illegal, banned or in any way legislated.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

< off-topic-ish >

But food makes you fat, not any particular type of food.

I think something must be causing people to get fat besides just eating more.

I look at how many people around me are overweight or obese now compared to when I was a kid, and it's an amazing difference. Did everyone just decide to eat more? I think it's likely that there is something in the food supply now, that wasn't there then, that's contributing to the problem. Maybe trans fat, maybe high fructose corn syrup. It's possible that these things do get metabolized differently than their natural counterparts, and do, in some way that's not yet understood, contribute to weight gain.

< / off-topic-ish >

As for the new regs in NY -- I thought this kind of thing always originated in California!! I guess Bloomberg is just too quick for us. I'm ok with it, though I think that MJ is right that it will be a pain to try to enforce it. But maybe there will be enough voluntary compliance to make a difference.

[lynnzop[$]]

phoenixx said

I do not agree with this, because I do not think the government should have any say in my pesonal health (or anti health) choices.

Agree as long as you are only impacting yourself (i.e., I do think there should be legislation on smoking, drugs, and drinking alchohol) and potentially not others.

I don't like the idea of the gov't regulating food choices. I can choose to eat at McDonalds or at Subway. Both cost about the same. Which is a healthier choice?

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

drmomentum said

But food makes you fat, not any particular type of food.

I don't think there's much the government can do there without getting even more intrusive.

Some types of food, whether they contain trans-fats or not, are higher in calories and lower in nutrition than other foods. Poor neighborhoods in NYC are marked by the number of fried chicken and pizza joints and convenience stores (selling sugary or high-fat foods and snacks but no fruits/vegetables), as opposed to the better parts of town that have full grocery stores with fresh and frozen produce always available at moderate (not cheap, but moderate) prices. If it's too hard to get the healthy food from the store to the house, what do you think they'll be buying? I'd rather have seen NYC expand its encouragement of greenmarkets that accept food stamps in poor neighborhoods instead of chasing the trans-fat boogeyman. I think it would have had a bigger and more immediate affect on overall NYC health.

[Helen_B[$]]

There was a program on NPR that dealt peripherally with the increase of obesity and diabetes in the South, and the discussion was centered around the difference between how poor people lived in the forties and fifties, as compared to the present. (Sorry, I don't remember the exact time period).In the past, people lived on fat back, greens, biscuits made from water when there was no milk, and whatever could be raised on the property or picked from the roadsides. People with money kept a few chickens. Many were literally starving, with a handful of beans and some flour in a house where there was a whole family to feed. (A photographer had taken extensive pictures around the state, and the families were so proud to show off the inside of the fridge with hardly any food in it, or nearly bare cupboards.)
Now, people have money to buy food, from welfare cheques, and there are food stamps as well. Now people are obese, and malnourished, with high rates of diabetes and heart disease. Families don't go hungry, and there is lots of flour and fat to bake with. What kind of food does the corner store sell? Snacks like bacon rind, chips, Little Debbies, pop, etc. The owner of the store, an old timer in the neighborhood, and a woman of great status within the small community felt no responsiblity to change how people ate by stocking different kinds of foods.

[magenta321]

I didn't like the smoking ban and I really don't like this either. I don't think I'm giving up my french fries, as stated earlier. I think I'm giving up my civil liberties one at a time.

I honestly don't want to eat transfats. I do want to know if they are there.

Even more scary to me is hormones in my food. I'd like to know if they are there as well. I'd like to know if there are antibiotics in my food too. There's a lot of things I'd like to know about my food.

But, regardless, my food is mine, and I don't like the government telling me what I can or cannot have.

Isn't this a slippery slope? Transfat is bad. We all agree. A lot of things we eat are bad... so what? Eventually who will decide what is good and what is bad as they ban more and more things which are bad for us?

[mtomm[$]]

The recommended daily allowance (if that is the right phrase) of trans fat is 1.5 grams. That is an incredibly small amount!

Let people who care know, otherwise don't regulate it.