FEDS WOULD BAN TRANS FATS?

[CNHT]

WHAT THE NANNY STATE WILL DO FOR YOU

Tobacco and liquor will no longer be legal products. Tattoos and piercings will be banned next. State-Supervised Weight-Loss Programs will be forcefully administered at State Diet-Control Centers organized under military guidelines. Participation in Supervised Workouts at State Gyms will be mandatory. No privately-prepared foods and beverages will be permitted to be eaten in public spaces. No more trucks or SUV'S for personal use. Access to roads will be limited to certain hours only. Drivers with even-numbered license plates will be permitted to drive Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Odd-numbered license plates will be permitted on the road Tuesday. Thursday and Saturday. No driving will be permitted at all on Sunday. Bona fide trips to Medical Treatment Centers, Doctor's Offices and Emergency Rooms will be excepted, if cleared by obtaining a special Government-Issued Pass, which may take up to six months to process. Toilets may not be flushed more than once every other day in families of more than three individuals. Singles will be permitted to flush only once a week. Government-Mandated Flushmeters will monitor all toilets to ensure and enforce co-operation.

Anyone caught participating in "Black-Markets" or "home-made devices" that attempt to outwit or circumvent these restrictions will be sentenced to a minimum of six-months in a Government Re-Education Center???such sentence subject to be extended at will at the discretion of the Director, till said Director believes a sufficient and sincere change in attitude has been achieved. Once released repeat offenders will be subjected to a life sentence without hope of parole.

And THAT, dear friends, will be only the BEGINNING of Hillary and Nancy's New NANNYMERICA.

And you probably think I'm KIDDING, don't you?

NOT! Read on!


SHOULD GOVERNMENT BAN TRANS FATS?
Bans Are Hysterical Not
- Richard Berman

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Who knew hysteria could be so contagious? Who knew hysteria could be so contagious? First there's an outbreak in New York City, where the department of health and mental hygiene is poised to ban trans fat from every restaurant in the city. Now the hysteria has spread south to New Jersey, though it hasn't stopped there; regulators in cities as far away as Washington and Los Angeles have already betrayed symptoms of the condition, while Disney has vowed to remove the fat from all its theme parks's foods by next year. Tiburon caught an early case and declared itself "trans fat-free" in 2004.

Thankfully, the cure for this hysteria is simple -- common sense and a few deep breaths. To help with the first part, it's good to remember something equally simple: While trans fat may not be health food, it's not a poison warranting a government ban. Trans fat is just the food scare du jour, having taken saturated fat's place as the dietary demon that must be exorcised.


Of course, it was fears about saturated fat that drove many restaurants to move away from butter and beef tallow and switch to margarine and shortening, which use trans fat in lieu of its saturated cousin. The foremost doomsayers of the anti-saturated-fat gospel, not surprisingly, were the nutrition activists at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. In 1988, the center published in its Nutrition Action Healthletter: "All told, the charges against trans fat just don't stand up. And by extension, hydrogenated oils seem relatively innocent."


But activists and politicians have changed their minds once again and are determined to make the new trend law, despite the whiplash eateries (and eaters) will suffer in the process. Unfortunately, hysterical bans probably won't improve anyone's health.


The reality is that trans fats really aren't too different from saturated fats. We're talking about the difference between butter and margarine here. Both should be consumed in moderation -- the key to good health and the cure for hysteria. Having a legislative panic attack about trans fat isn't moderation.


Playing up a trendy food panic does get attention (for some reason people are always dying to know what'll kill them next), but it doesn't advance good health. Even, professional food scold Marion Nestle -- no friend of the restaurant industry -- calls trans fat a "calorie distracter." A war on trans fats is a convenient excuse to divert attention from how much you're eating.


It's true the body doesn't "need" trans fat. Then again, the human body doesn't "need" fried chicken, chocolate or wine. That's not an argument for forcibly banning them.



So what's next? Ice cream? Birthday cake? Why don't we outlaw skydiving? It's not like anyone does it to commute to work, and it's not exactly the world's safest form of recreation. If the government's going to be our nanny, there's no reason to limit it to bans on food only.

Government interventions exist for times when personal responsibility isn't part of the equation. Those who justify smoking bans typically make reference to the impact of secondhand smoke on nonsmokers; saying smoking is bad for the actual smoker has never been very persuasive. But there's no such thing as secondhand cholesterol.

It's easy to dismiss banning trans fats as a small issue, and for good reason. Trans fats make up a very small part of anyone's diet, and research conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health in 1999 indicates that the amount of trans fat in the typical American diet hasn't changed since the '60s. But it's an issue that opens the door for ones that are a lot bigger, such as the politics surrounding obesity.

CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson has already laid out what this legislative future could look like: "We could envision taxes on butter, potato chips, whole milk, cheeses, [and] meat."
On the other hand, we could also envision an America that treats its citizens like responsible adults.

Richard Berman is the executive director of the Center for Consumer Freedom, a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/18/EDG6PKDVPS1.DTL

[Fluff and Stuff]

I don't think this is possible.  We just don't have the tech out there to make many of the foods taste and last as long as they do without some trans fats.  Maybe in 10 years or something the Feds could ban trans fats but the way 1000s of foods are made would have to be changed.  This is not something to even worry about.

[CNHT]

I don't think this is possible.  We just don't have the tech out there to make many of the foods taste and last as long as they do without some trans fats.  Maybe in 10 years or something the Feds could ban trans fats but the way 1000s of foods are made would have to be changed.  This is not something to even worry about.

Just goes to show you though, how some would try. I guess there might be someone here thinks it's a good idea on the other hand.

[JonM]

The recommended daily intake of trans-fats is 0.  Some trans-fats occur naturally in beef and other products, but I do not believe in very large amounts.  The stuff created when you create it tends to be rather large in amounts.  While saturated fats are merely "bad" for you, trans-fats are downright destructive.  Tropical oils can replace trans-fats in most cases, and thanks to the new labeling laws you're going to see a lot more palm oil in products.  Of course, if the amount of trans-fats in a serving is less than .5 grams, they get to say 0.  Look for impossibly small servings in products with hydrogenated vegetable oil.

Trans-fats have the lovely ability to lower good cholesterol while raising bad cholesterol.  Given the exact same calories in a diet (including those from fat), the one higher in trans-fats will make you fatter, may increase the chance of diabetes, and just isn't good for you.

This is not a real food.  Trans-fats of the type they are talking about are a byproduct of a manufacturing process created when someone wanted to get into the candle making business and didn't want to deal with Big Fat.  Nobody should have to eat trans-fats if they don't want to.

That being said, it's not much different than smoking, except most people consuming trans-fats don't know it.  Public pressure should be put on food makers of all sorts to disclose if they use trans-fats and how much.  That alone will cause many of them to switch.  Those of us who care about what we eat should have a chance to know.  After that it is up to us to decide.  Laws are big clumsy things.  A group of angry consumers is a far more precise tool.

[CNHT]

Usually the ingredients of things are printed on the container or posted on the company's website.
For those who want to control the intake of trans fats, the information is there.

On the other hand, those of us who indulge in some french friends from Mickey D's from time to time, know full well what we are doing even without reading the labels and probably know enough to limit our intake of those items.

[JonM]

If you eat at a regular restaurant, you might be consuming dozens of grams of trans-fats without knowing it.  Until this year nobody was required to disclose in products how many grams of trans-fats were in it, but thanks to the FDA requiring it, and not a consumer group's pressure, we have the little < .5 gram out.  I called up the manufacturer of Crisco to ask what the total amount of trans-fats were contained in their new 0 grams trans-fat per serving shortening; since the serving size I tend to use is well in excess of the portion they deem to have 0 grams trans fat.  They claimed that was proprietary information and would not tell me.

You have the right to play russian roulette if you wish.  I have the right to know if I'm playing or not.  I still think laws aren't the way to go, even if in this case these nutjobs are actually right for once.  These are the same geniuses who railed against coconut oil in movie theaters.  The movie theaters caved and switched to oils high in trans-fats.  Good job there.  Coconut oil actually has some redeeming benefit, even if it is high in saturated fat.  Trans-fats have none.

Consumers are the ones who buy and eat this stuff, they are the ones who should demand it stop if they don't want it anymore.  I don't eat my favorite microwave popcorn anymore, because it has way more trans-fats than I ever thought it did.  Hopefully Pop Secret will get crushed in the sales dept and re-formulate with some tasty coconut oil.  Heck, I had emailed them about it before the labeling law took effect and received not much of an answer.  Perhaps I should follow up.

[CNHT]

Right now I pretty much can't eat anything, so, when you find out the answer, let me know in case someday I will ever be able to enjoy some nice shoestring french fries from Mickey D's again (Oh I would give $100 for a bag of those right now!) 

[Ruger Mason]

Trans-fats have the lovely ability to lower good cholesterol while raising bad cholesterol.  Given the exact same calories in a diet (including those from fat), the one higher in trans-fats will make you fatter, may increase the chance of diabetes, and just isn't good for you.

I've seen a lot of "junk science" lately.  So forgive me if I'm skeptical.  I no longer believe any of these hystical "public health" scares without learning about it for myself.  Can you show me the actual study that proves the claim above?  Can you show me the actual studies that say trans-fat is much worse than other types of fat?  Because apparently many of the studies that claim to do this are fraudulent, as scientists aim to make a name for themselves.  After all, its much more interesting to discover a monster under the bed than to find nothing.

What do you think of these articles?
http://www.junkscience.com/feb05/transfat.htm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,86989,00.html

[CNHT]

Trans-fats have the lovely ability to lower good cholesterol while raising bad cholesterol.  Given the exact same calories in a diet (including those from fat), the one higher in trans-fats will make you fatter, may increase the chance of diabetes, and just isn't good for you.

I've seen a lot of "junk science" lately.  So forgive me if I'm skeptical.  I no longer believe any of these hystical "public health" scares without learning about it for myself.  Can you show me the actual study that proves the claim above?  Can you show me the actual studies that say trans-fat is much worse than other types of fat?  Because apparently many of the studies that claim to do this are fraudulent, as scientists aim to make a name for themselves.  After all, its much more interesting to discover a monster under the bed than to find nothing.

What do you think of these articles?
http://www.junkscience.com/feb05/transfat.htm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,86989,00.html

Without even reading the articles I would agree with you Ruger, since one minute a substance is supposedly bad for you, and the next minute it is good.
I think the way to go is moderation, because too much of anything can be bad! So yeah if you feed your kids nothing but french fries, that's not wise, but taking them out for McD's once in a while, well in the long run I don't think it's gonna hurt anyone.

It has also been proven that some people, no matter what they do, have cholesterol production in the liver that has gone wild, and even being on the strictest diet doesn't help lower it. So in part that is a hereditary condition or caused by some other thing.

I mean wine has been proven to be healthy for your heart in reasonable amounts but then if you are an alcoholic and drink 'til it rots your liver, well you see what I mean!

I also think Salt gets a bad rap. I LOVE MY SALT.

When I was in the hospital, due to be upset and in pain my BP went up to 170/120
But once I calmed down, it was my normal 124/60...

And I eat a lot of Sea Salt - apparently it has done me no harm.   

[JonM]

Salt only is bad for people who have a problem with salt, it isn't bad for anyone else.  We need salt in order to survive, and your body will pretty much tell you when you're getting too much.  Try drinking a crap load of water and no salt, fall over dead.  Happens to marathoners more than it should.  Drink some gatorade people!

Trans Fats of the type discussed DO NOT OCCUR IN NATURE.  When you take a liquid fat and add hydrogen to it, it becomes solid at room temperature.  This process was discovered in the early 1900s.  Proctor and Gabmble were looking for a way to eliminate their need to buy lard and invented this. Some of the history of that is here: http://www.motherlindas.com/crisco.htm

A bit more scientific explanation
http://www.thesoydailyclub.com/SFC/MSPproducts501.asp

and

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/reviews/transfats.html


Even a blind pig finds an ear of corn once in a while.

[Dreepa]

The recommended daily intake of trans-fats is 0. 

Recommended by whom?  The Fed?

[JonM]

The recommended daily intake of trans-fats is 0. 

Recommended by whom?  The Fed?

People who understand what trans-fats do to you.

[Dreepa]

The recommended daily intake of trans-fats is 0. 

Recommended by whom?  The Fed?

People who understand what trans-fats do to you.

EVERYTHING in moderation.
A little transfat is probably not going to kill anyone.

[JonM]

The recommended daily intake of trans-fats is 0. 

Recommended by whom?  The Fed?

People who understand what trans-fats do to you.

EVERYTHING in moderation.
A little transfat is probably not going to kill anyone.

A little rat poison probably won't kill you.  Do you want to have that in your food without knowing?  You can eat all you want, I want to know where it is so I can avoid it.

[KBCraig]

A little rat poison probably won't kill you.

Millions of people depend on daily doses of rat poison to stay alive.