From the Las Vegas Sun comes the news that many of us have been predicting: “NYC Health Board Votes to Ban Trans Fats ”:
The Board of Health voted Tuesday to make New York the nation’s first city to ban artery-clogging artificial trans fats at restaurants – from the corner pizzeria to high-end bakeries.
The board, which passed the ban unanimously, did give restaurants a slight break by relaxing what had been considered a tight deadline for compliance. Restaurants will be barred from using most frying oils containing artificial trans fats by July and will have to eliminate the artificial trans fats from all of their foods by July 2008.
But restaurant industry representatives called the ban burdensome and unnecessary.
“We don’t think that a municipal health agency has any business banning a product the Food and Drug Administration has already approved,” said Dan Fleshler, a spokesman for the National Restaurant Association.
Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said recently that officials seriously weighed complaints from the restaurant industry, which argued that it was unrealistic to give them six months to replace cooking oils and shortening and 18 months to phase out the ingredients altogether.
[…]
Trans fats are believed to be harmful because they contribute to heart disease by raising bad cholesterol and lowering good cholesterol at the same time. Some experts say that makes trans fats worse than saturated fat.
The panel also passed another measure that has made restaurants unhappy: Some that chose to inform customers about calorie content will have to list the information right on the menu. The rule would generally apply to fast-food restaurants and other major chains.
Sheila Weiss, director of nutritional policy for the restaurant association, said the rule would be a disincentive for restaurants to provide any nutritional information.
Trans fats are formed when liquid oils are made into solid fats by adding hydrogen in a process called hydrogenation. A common example of this is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, which is used for frying and baking and turns up in processed foods like cookies, pizza dough and crackers. Trans fats, which are favored because of their long shelf life, are also found in pre-made blends like pancake and hot chocolate mix.
The FDA estimates the average American eats 4.7 pounds of trans fats each year.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who banned smoking in bars and restaurants during his first term, is somewhat health-obsessed, and even maintains a weight-loss competition with one of his friends in order to stay slim.
He has dismissed cries that New York is crossing a line by trying to legislate diets.
“Nobody wants to take away your french fries and hamburgers – I love those things, too,” he said recently. “But if you can make them with something that is less damaging to your health, we should do that.”
—and by “we,” Mayor Bloomberg of course means “the people I order to do so, because I am more concerned with their health than they are, and hell—I’m the frickin’ Mayor, baby!”
The precedent set here can of course be extrapolated out and should be sending shockwaves through the bulk of US industry (save perhaps the folks who make wheat grass juice using high-priced domestic labor, and bottle it in recycled cardboard funnels). For instance, Bloomberg’s argument, applied to the automobile industry, say, would go something like this: “Nobody wants to take away your cars or your abiliity to get around on your own schedule—I love my freedom , too. But if we can get around in two-seater electric cars that are less damaging to the environment, or better yet, use public transportation to cut down on dangerous carbon emissions, we should do that.”
The problem, of course, is that these nannystatist regulations are nothing more than frontal attacks on our ever-dwindling freedoms of choice, and are not—and should not be—under the purview of local government agencies, who, let’s face it, have no “right” to tell you you shouldn’t be eating a certain type of cracker.
As with most nannystatist initiatives, the thinking behind this one proceeds from the belief that free citizens are in fact nothing but the municipality’s children, and as such they are in need of protection from themselves. Only by governmental fiat, then, can the requisite good judgment that we expect from adults be brought to bear on the latest crisis. Which is to say, such initiatives criminalize choice and punish those who are capable of making their own choices—weighing risk and reward on their own, and deciding for themselves how to eat—by stripping them of their ability to make the choice in the first place.
It is pre-emptive infantilization, and it is Constitutionally problematic. Unless you have one of them living Constitutions, which are able to absorb just about any justification for taking away freedoms, it seems.
Worst of all, though, this it is yet another step down that slippery slope to the Europeanization of America. Can governmentally-mandated portioning be far behind? Just what is the “proper” amount of salt to include in a [soy] quiche?
I have no idea. But I bet some bureaucrat somewhere thinks s/he does…
(h/t STACLU)
Remember, this jerk wants to be president.
You can’t even tell the shepherds from the sheep anymore. Which one is this guy?
I just got back from the gym and ordered a slice of cheesecake from room service.
Just because I still can.
That freakin minibar is toast!
Very strange in a market economy…
Not a big fan of legislating morals, health, and what not…
It’s your butt, super size it if you want to. Just don’t go crying to the gov’mnt about lawsuits because you were ‘duped’ into eating things that made your butt huge. Or clogged your arteries… what ever…
My solution would have been better:
Tax transfats.
Sort of a pay as you weigh sort of thing….
Hell they tax cigarettes for the same reasons.. health…
Why not soda pop (our fat kids drink a bunch I understand)?
Why not cookies, and other snacks with little nutritional value (as compared to, say, an apple).
So they screwed themselves out of a revenue scheme… all to enforce their idea of health.
What I really want to know is… were New Yorker’s whining for this? Was this a grassroots initiative… or just BIG GOVERNMENT telling you what to do (or not do) with your life.
TW: charge, as in TAKE CHARGE of your government before they take charge of YOU!
Europe rule you f*cking rubes!!
Bloomberg? That will never happen. See Steve Forbes and Ross Perot.
You really can’t buy the White House.
Maybe this is connected to creeping socialization of our health care. If the government is going to pick up the tab for our bypasses and stroke rehabs, they feel entitled to keep us in good health, by force if necessary.
I’m going to replace transfats with Smack. As long as both are illegal…
I seem to recall a short story by Stephen King about a guy desperate to stop smoking … this group really got him to do it…
when he cheated, they tortured his wife and child.
Then after he gets himself nicotine free, they send him a little postcard about his weight being a little high…and punishment will be removal of his little finger…
Ah hell… public schools are banning dangerous games of dodgeball, tag and running… WHY NOT let the government ban all sorts of dangerous stuff?
For our own good…of course.
In my mind, the first domino was seat belt laws, justified by the reasoning that if you crash without a belt, the increased likelihood of injury was a drain on social services like ambulance and hospital care. (Well, maybe not the first, but the most illustrative president of nannyism). Just imagine the assumption of control over your personal health decisions if universal healthcare comes to America.
If they’re going to deny me transfats, the least they can do is provide me a suitable substitute.
I’m going to write my congressman and demand a federally subsidized Hooters-girl-of-the-week club.
Lee, I’d beg to differ, that the first “domino” to fall was motorcycle helmet laws. In most states they predated seatbelt laws, and were even more directly concerned with protecting one’s self from one’s own actions. At least the lobbyists for mandatory seatbelt use had the “staying in a position to control the vehicle” talking point. I’m risking nobody’s health but my own by not wearing a lid.
But that’s a small point of contention with your idea. Regardless of where it starts, it’s an undeclared war upon pleasure, being waged by obviously miserable statists.
And wearing one makes you more likely to mow down a mom-and-stroller in a crosswalk. Maybe not you, butâ€â€statistically.
Same with seatbelts. Faultless driver/pedestrian accident fatalities zoomed up when the laws came in. As a percentage, they’re still oddly high (thank you, airbags).
Totally predictable. Habitualized safety measures make people careless, and laws are made to form habits.
Let me be the first to volunteer to replace your freedom fries with a pile of money.
For freedom.
You can pry my snickerdoodles out of my cold, dead hands.
And why only blind consumers? Because it sort of puts anybody off their feed to see Taco Bell food?
Funny, take a stroll in any one of the fashionable areas in Manhattan and all you will see are -size 0 anexoric skeletons with huge tits.
BoZ, thanks for delving a little further into the seatbelt/helmet idea…
Did you know that in most states you can be ticketed for wearing a crash helmet in a car? Seems they cut down on your ability to hear, and severely restrict your peripheral vision. No word on why these concerns go away when you’re on two wheels.
At any rate, my stock answer to those with whom I associate who come down hard on me about my smokes: “Statistics show that 100% of nonsmokers die too.”
They laugh, I don’t.
In honor of this, I think I’m going to have to make a big batch of fudge, and some cookies to boot.
How long before Don Henley writes a song about running bootleg buckets of Crisco into Harlem soul-food kitchens?
Didn’t the people in NYC see Demolition Man?
I want a rat-burger.
(how ironic….my “submit the word you see below…” is heavy16)
Or that cars should have seat belts, or headlights, or meet collision or CAFE standards. But I think this fucks up your analogy.
Why not blue laws?
Holy shit! Actus has a point!
Is that really you, or a resident PW wiseguy fucking with us?
Solyent Green, anyone?