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New York- saving us- from ourselves!

Finch

Whats it to ya?
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]The New York City Board of Health voted unanimously yesterday to move forward with plans to prohibit the city’s 20,000 restaurants from serving food that contains more than a minute amount of artificial trans fats, the chemically modified ingredients considered by doctors and nutritionists to increase the risk of heart disease.

The board, which is authorized to adopt the plan without the consent of any other agency, did not take that step yesterday, but it set in motion a period for written public comments, leading up a public hearing on Oct. 30 and a final vote in December.

Yesterday’s initiative appeared to ensure that the city would eventually take some formal action against artificial trans fats. If approved, the proposal voted on yesterday by the Board of Health would make New York the first large city in the country to strictly limit such fats in restaurants. Chicago is considering a similar prohibition affecting restaurants with less than $20 million in annual sales.

The New York prohibition would affect the city’s entire restaurant industry, by far the nation’s largest, from McDonald’s to fashionable bistros to street corner takeouts across the five boroughs.

The city would set a limit of a half-gram of artificial trans fats per serving of any menu item, sharply reducing most customers’ intake. The fats are commonly found in baked goods, like doughnuts and cakes, as well as breads and salad dressing

Article  here. So what do you guys think?
Enacting legeslation for proactive public health? Or massive civil liberties breach?
 
I think it's BS! If people want to kill themselves with food or want to serve food with TF, then let them!

I think this is I think this is unconstitutional.

Are their hearts in the right place? Yes. Is this right? No. this is not second hand smoke. There's no such thing as second hand trans fat... It can't hurt you if you don't shove it in your pie-hole...
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (herenorthere @ Dec. 05 2006,9:14)]I prefer taxing trans fats.
I think this idea certainly has promise.

While I am on the fence on the NYC ban I do believe there is something unsettling about banning transfats; however, I am not necessarily against it.

xvart.
 
"You can't look after yourself and make your own choices, so lucky for you we're here to think for you! Aren't you happy? No? Screw you!"

That's the way I see it. What's next? Telling people what to eat all together?
 
Out of curiosity, I have a question.

What if it was found that these restaurants had arsenic in their food? Not a lot, but enough to do serious damage over time for some people. Don't ask me how the arsenic got there or why it's only these restaurants... it's just a thought experiment.

Which of these scenarios would you prefer:

1) The city enacts a law that says these restaurants can only have a certain level of arsenic in their food (enough to do exactly as much damage as half a gram of trans fat, whatever that amount may be).

2) The city makes it illegal for food to contain any amount of arsenic, because it's commonly recognized as a poison.

3) The city puts no limit on how much arsenic restaurant food can contain and leaves it up to the discretion of the customers whether they eat it or not.

4) The city forces each restaurant to at least list the exact arsenic content of each dish in their menus, but otherwise no restrictions are created.

Note that currently most if not all of these restaurants lack any sort of warning or signage that their foods contain arsenic. The word on the street is that all this restaurant food has it to some extent, but no one really knows for sure how much is in each dish or how much is in the average dish of each restaurant.

I'm just curious if anyone will respond differently to arsenic than they do to trans fats. We're talking about the same amount of damage to the body. Are trans fats better because we associate them more with food? Because we're used to having them in our food? Because arsenic has more of a stigma? Would it be different if arsenic had a good taste to it?

And if you think the arsenic should be completely allowed, why? Why shouldn't we be protected from poisons? They're removed from your tap water for you. Should levels of arsenic and other poisons known to be dangerous in the long term be allowed in tap water? Should we be upset that the government is deciding what kind of water we're allowed to drink? Are EPA standards a violation of civil liberties?

What makes one thing a poison and another thing a personal choice when they do the same amount of harm?

Just wondering what kinds of responses this'll get.
 
#4.

There are entirely too many stoooopid people on this planet.
 
Arsenic and Trans fat are not the same.. You're comparing Nightshade to frenchfries.
 
  • #10
The FDA has not banned trans fat due to a link to heart disease, the scientific community has agreed that trans fats are strongly linked to heart disease (New England Journal of Medicine). However, the FDA now requires food labels to list the amount of trans fat in their food products.

Consumers have no idea how much trans fat is in their restaurant food...In my opinion, they should be given the trans fat levels information in the menu...it's impossible for people to make a choice when they don't have any options. Or the trans fat should be banned.

The number one reason the restuarant industry uses trans fat, as opposed to vegetable oils or butter, is because they are CHEAPER. I think it's high time the food industry stops compromising people's health, and find alternatives to trans fat. Heck, even KFC could do it!

Wikipedia has a very good article on trans fat BTW: Trans Fat

Just my opinion.
 
  • #11
The alternative to trans fat is saturated fat, such as animal fats or tropical oils. I remember the big crusade against coconut oil and palm oil that led to them eventually being replaced by trans fat. It was a windfall for the US' processed food industry because trans fats are cheaper to buy and store and our agribusiness giants were happy because they control the production.
 
  • #12
[b said:
Quote[/b] (JustLikeAPill @ Dec. 06 2006,9:23)]Arsenic and Trans fat are not the same.. You're comparing Nightshade to frenchfries.
In equal quantities they aren't nearly the same, of course. The lethal dose of arsenic is a fraction of a gram.

But in proportional quantities that do effectively the same amount of damage to the body, which is really the lesser evil?

I'm trying to point out how our decisions are influenced by stigma vs. familiarity.

Were they overstepping their bounds when they took cocaine out of Coca-Cola at the turn of the last century? What if 100 years from now trans fats are just a similar amusing factoid. "They put that in their food back then? Were they crazy?" What's familiar now may have stigma in the future... and maybe for good reason.

Just trying to temper knee-jerk reactions with a little perspective. Whichever number you guys pick from the list, I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be the same for both arsenic and trans fats.
 
  • #13
^^^ Good response.

I think Transfats are EVIL. They are a man made oil that is just horible for you. It is hard to find food at the grodery store that doesn't have it in it. I wish it was bannded all together. It is not natural. There are very few natural transfats, and IIRC from reading about its proposal, it doesn't ban natural trans fats. Just the hydrigenated man made transfats.

And to think they would rather not ban this man made crap and ban a totaly natural plant like MJ. BLAHH
 
  • #14
NYC is a city of ban-happy socialists with a leaning towards big-brother gov't. Take it from someone who used to live there and still works there.
As for the ban, gov't shouldn't have that kinda authority. But then again restaurants should have the social responsibility to not serve customers dangerous foodstuffs...
I don't appreciate the gov't banning more things, taking away our freedoms, but on the other hand I am glad that the next time I get McD's fries they won't be AS unhealthy..
 
  • #15
[b said:
Quote[/b] (quogue @ Dec. 06 2006,12:53)]NYC is a city of ban-happy socialists with a leaning towards big-brother gov't. Take it from someone who used to live there and still works there.
As for the ban, gov't shouldn't have that kinda authority. But then again restaurants should have the social responsibility to not serve customers dangerous foodstuffs...
I don't appreciate the gov't banning more things, taking away our freedoms, but on the other hand I am glad that the next time I get McD's fries they won't be AS unhealthy..
I'd take social responsibility over enforcement any day. I wish we lived in a world where it existed in a greater capacity. Until then I don't really mind being protected from those who have no guilt about the harm they do to the world in the name of profit. They're the real enemy. Protection from physical harm is as basic and fundamental as law gets... if that's not reason enough to have laws I'm not sure what is.
 
  • #16
If you think at all the food industry will somehow regulate itself, then read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. Sometimes the goverment needs to step in with a ban.
 
  • #18
The Jungle is a novel.  Firmly grounded in reality, but novels aren't reliable places for viewing reality.  I heard that Sinclair wrote it to draw people's attention to the suffering of immigrant workers and was upset that people instead got riled up about some rat meat making it into the sausages.

Josh makes a good comparison.  Trans fats will lead to many more deaths and cost society much more than illegal drugs.  They'll also harm more Americans than Bin Laden and others ever dreamed of.  They just do it without all the photogenic smoke & flames.
 
  • #19
We need to go back to basics! All natural foods. Forget all the man made processed CRAP!!! I hate processed foods. Canned food is about the only thing I don't mind. Then again there are some of those I will not touch. All this hamburger helper and such is what is killing this nation.

quogue I feel your pain. I do not want a new ban, but I do feel this is a good one. The restaraunts are not going to stop using transfats because they are cheaper to use. When it comes to business, all that matters is the bottom line. There are few places that stopped using trans fat oils voluntarily. Since we cannot expect the foos places to regulate themselves the government has to step in and do it. Transfats are not natural and should not be used. Now I see the sides where people say. Label everything and let the people decide. Well frankly some people need to be saved from themselves. On one hand I feel if they want to be stupid let them kill themselves. On the other hand they need protection from themselves. It is a thin line to walk.

Another problem is that foods high in transfats are cheep. Many people are forced to buy them based on economic situations. I am not talking about restaruants here. I am talking about in the grocery store. Those people are forced sometimes to buy foods high in transfats and hydrogenated oils. We need to ban transfats all together. We would have a healthier nation. It would force companies to make healthier foods that are affordable to everyone. Then again what do I know. I have no willpower when it comes to many of these foods, so when my wif, who doesn't care about reading labels, buys it I still eat it. So if it was banned then my wife wouldn't be able to buy it then I wouldn't be temped to eat it.

The bottom line is that transfats are proven to be bad for you. Even at small doses. Almost all are unatural, sionce there are few natural transfats and all the man made transfats have no place in our food system.
 
  • #20
I think it's good!!! You really CAN'T buy food that doesn't have trans fat without seriously knowing some stuff. Read the can? See 0% trans fat? IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH. You need to read the ingredients.
The FDA wanted this label on products with transfats:
Warning: Trans fats may be dangerous to your health.

That's the exact same warning that first appeared on cigarettes, and with good reason. Trans fats have exactly the same capacity for long-term metabolic mischief as cigarette smoke. But the only label the FDA could get the food industry to agree to was a much weaker version:

Intake of trans fats should be as low as possible.

If you look closely, you'll see it down there at the bottom of the label. But you have to know to look for it. Otherwise, you'd never notice it.

But the more serious problem is that the law still allows the food product to contain 2.2 grams of trans fat in every serving. How?
The percentages you see on food labels are not percentages of the food, but rather the percentage that the food's "Standard Serving Size" represents in a 2,000 calorie diet.
So manufacturers can play with the standard serving size (making it half a candy bar for example), and as long as that number comes in at less than 20 calories, it's less than 1%. Apparently, the law allows a company to claim 0% in that case. So "0% trans fat" does not mean "no trans fat". It means that, at 9 calories per gram, the "standard serving" could still contain slightly less than 2.2 grams of trans fat (2.2 grams x 9 calories per gram = 19.8 calories).

Oh, and what about high fructose corn syrup? It's deadly too... And long been illegal in Europe.
and also... trans fats have been outlawed in Europe and Canada for decades. We're running behind here.. Only having done it in NY so far.

Anyway- these are some quick grabbed cut and pastes from a site i've been reading. There is alot of information on it and I've been passing it around to friends for quite some time. Take a few hours and read stuff...
http://www.treelight.com/health/
specifically check out topics:
# Trans Fats: Metabolic Poisons
# What's Wrong with Partially Hydrogenated Oils?
# What's Wrong with Trans Fat Labels?
# Boycott Hydrogenation!
#The Role of Trans Fats in Disease and the Possible Effects of Fasting
#The Facts About Fats (One-page poster. Freely distributable) read this one if you just want the "facts" as stated here
there are other topics there too, but these deal with the subject at hand.
 
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