Did not see this posted yet.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/09/26/trans.fat.ban.ap/index.html
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It’s a good idea. The article makes it seem like restaurants will have to renovate their kitchens. I’d be curious to see how the fast food restaurants handle it, though.
Terrible idea.
It’s not the governments job to tell me what I should be able to eat or not.
If you cheer for this, don’t complain when your supplements get banned.
[quote]kevbo wrote:
It’s a good idea. The article makes it seem like restaurants will have to renovate their kitchens. I’d be curious to see how the fast food restaurants handle it, though.[/quote]
No, it isn’t.
If I want to eat shitty food, it is my right to do so.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
If I want to eat shitty food, it is my right to do so.[/quote]
Well good luck with that.
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What a bunch of idiots. What now? French fries and Krispy Kremes have a healthier option because they don’t have any trans-fats?!
Put down the frickin’ fries and donuts and pick up an apple.
And what’s up with all these “flammable” or “bio-hazard” bull-shit signs on some of the bottles I see laying around at work.
If I want to put my cigarette out in my gas tank and play “grab the quarter out of the sharps container without getting stuck”, it’s my right to do so.
And what’s with the govt. trying to tell me not to mix ammonia with bleach??? I mean, WTF?!
[quote]nephorm wrote:
No, it isn’t.
If I want to eat shitty food, it is my right to do so.[/quote]
Nobody could be a more unabashed limited government conservative than I am. However trans fats are damn near poisonous and looked at in that light does anyone think anti-freeze should be legal as a prepared food ingredient because it’s sweet and relatively cheap? If you want to run down to Pep Boys and grab a bottle of Prestone for this weekend’s party go ahead, but that doesn’t mean it should be allowed in food.
If someone WANTS to buy a gallon of hydrogenated oil and pour it on everything they should be allowed, but that doesn’t mean food industries should be able to include a cheap, potentially toxic substance in their food. This has nothing to do with supplements and is no different than a million other ingredients that are currently illegal in food.
At least this is my quick and dirty view after having heard this on Fox this morning and not really giving it alot more thought than that.
–Tiribulus->
[quote]SWR-1240 wrote:
And what’s up with all these “flammable” or “bio-hazard” bull-shit signs on some of the bottles I see laying around at work.
If I want to put my cigarette out in my gas tank and play “grab the quarter out of the sharps container without getting stuck”, it’s my right to do so.
And what’s with the govt. trying to tell me not to mix ammonia with bleach??? I mean, WTF?![/quote]
Somehow I think you can sense the difference.
Everyone knows about trans-fats. If they don’t, then the government can launch a public awareness campaign to educate the public.
Or not… let the government decide what is or isn’t bad for you, and watch as creatine, protein powder, and God knows what else go the way of steroids.
If this is how you make your bed, just be prepared to lie in it.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
If someone WANTS to buy a gallon of hydrogenated oil and pour it on everything they should be allowed, but that doesn’t mean food industries should be able to include a cheap, potentially toxic substance in their food.
[/quote]
Who gets to determine what is “potentially toxic?” That is a meaningless phrase. Everything is potentially toxic. Yet I can smoke and drink, both of which have a MUCH higher likelihood of affecting the lives of others.
It has everything to do with nanny government, and the powers that be deciding what is and isn’t healthy. Sooner or later, they’ll come for something that you enjoy… or, gasp, think is healthful.
I was going to comment on this… but it speaks for itself.
I would like to cast my vote for the Reverend Nephorm for president.
Just remember, if the governments starts banning one thing, they will ban everything they can. Whats even better, soon they will ban your right to vote, and take away your guns.
Which is fine with me, because in a police-state, the police fair very well.
I personally do not need the government to do my thinking for me. I can think for myself. I do not need them telling me what I may or may not eat. Furthermore, by banning this, the restaurants will replace it with something else, and America will be just as dumb as before.
Instead of the goverment making our decisions for us, the people should be educated and informed enough to make their own choices about their food and their lives.
This ban is just the same as ephedra, pro-hormones, breath spray (did you know binaca is listed as a cosmetic since it couldnt be labeled as a food product) anabolic steroids, and soon to be creatine, dhea and tribulis.
Trust me, if this happens, the government has already banned smoking. How do they have the right to ban smoking, when all the people and the owners/managers of the locations had the right to allow or not allow smoking in the first place. The government took away those peoples individual freedoms. This will be another violation of our individual freedom, and do not be surprised at what comes next.
@ nephorm:
Potentially toxic in the amounts it’s presently found in food products. Of course every single substance known to man in some astronomical amount is toxic.
According to your logic ANYTHING should be legal to include in food and any restriction whatever is evil. If that’s not what you’re saying then somewhere down the slope from grapes to gasoline there has to a legislative line drawn, unless you trust the benevolent souls in the food industries to regulate themselves which given a perfect world that’s what I’d prefer, since the dumbasses in congress aren’t too confidence inspiring either.
What else is there? Maybe it would be better to let people find out how bad it is and let market forces take of it. Maybe I could live with that, I need think about this more.
In the meantime name me one substance you think it should be illegal for companies to put as an ingredient in food. If not one that clearly has near deadly consequences from what we know so far, what? If anything?
–Tiribulus->
They can have my Trans Fats when they pry them from my cold dead hands!
Like Neophorm said, the government should not be deciding what I can and can’t eat. Leave that up to me.
I have a bunch of better ideas that the government could focus on instead of this bullshiat.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
@ nephorm:
Potentially toxic in the amounts it’s presently found in food products. Of course every single substance known to man in some astronomical amount is toxic.
[/quote]
Arsenic and cyanide are toxic. Saying “potentially toxic” means that you don’t yet have enough evidence to make the case for it. Either that, or you are saying that it has the potential to be toxic in an individual, but it is not deterministic. Either way, it’s a pretty poor term.
Transfats are made by hyrdrogenating vegetable oil. Vegetable oil is a food product. We are not talking about gasoline, or even aspartame. We are talking about applying a chemical process to an existing food product… and deciding that it is so unhealthy that people can’t possibly make up their own minds.
Bingo. This is the ideal solution. Food companies aren’t going to put gasoline in their food, because people will get sick, die, and stop eating their food. They might put other questionable substances in there (aspartame, transfats, whatever), so all we can do is require them to list what’s in the package. There’s no such thing as 100% safety.
Sure. I’d have no problem with listing cyanide… it causes instant death. Anything else, like transfats or aspartame, isn’t going to kill you all at once and in a hurry. It does it over years and years and years… during which time all sorts of people can make a fuss and let you know how bad it is.
I’m not even opposed to making non-food items go through FDA approval (aspartame). After all, when creating artificial substances, something MIGHT be so toxic that it would kill a normal human being before too long. But we’re talking about a food product that is prepared in a certain way, and let’s one live a long, long time before any permanent effects.
@TrainerinDC :
This is a huge topic and the more I take time to think this through the more I’m inclined to recant my original position though I’m not quite there yet.
The voice on one side says “it’s people’s own resposibility to learn about what they put in their bodies and to not do it if it’s bad for them. If they’re ignorant enough to do it anyway ph**k em. I know about this, if they give a shit they can find out too”.
The voice on the other side is still saying though “there has to be some civilized limits based in sound science, not limiting what the individual can do, but limiting what businesses can do to a yet unsuspecting populous who every reason to have confidence that they won’t be outright poisoned by eating publicly available food”.
Unhealthy in certain amounts is one thing(white flour, high fructose corn syrup for example), but having no maximum safe level is another. I do think the sound science thing is a major sticking point. So much legislation is based on anything but(tryptophan, ephedra among many others). They were never sold in food though.
I don’t know. I’ll have to give it some more thought.
–Tiribulus->
Nephorm: one word for you - externality.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
kevbo wrote:
It’s a good idea. The article makes it seem like restaurants will have to renovate their kitchens. I’d be curious to see how the fast food restaurants handle it, though.
No, it isn’t.
If I want to eat shitty food, it is my right to do so.[/quote]
The NY government is seeking to regulate restaurants which is very different from preventing people from eating trans fats at all. As a previous poster pointed out you’ll still be able to personally buy and eat buckets of trans fats.
Typically there is quite a lot of government regulation in the restaurant industry, a lot of it for public health reasons. This does involve a double standard which I am thankful for. Restaurant hygiene is the most obvious example: If I want I can go to the bathroom, not wash my hands and then make chicken sushi in my filthy kitchen. Fortunately, due to government regulation, restaurants aren’t allowed to do the same thing. I could use the same trans fat arguments against government health inspectors. Poor hygiene isn’t guaranteed to kill anyone, it is merely “potentially harmful.” Much like the use of trans fats, a dirty kitchen is cheaper for the restaurant and those savings could potentially be passed on to consumers. The free market would surely sort things out as the invisible hand guided consumers away from restaurants that killed or sickened a lot of their customers.
I personally prefer some level of government regulation of the food industry over the theoretical purity of complete libertarianism. Of course I’ll probably be the first one taken to the workcamps…
My issue here isn’t the trans-fats. My issue here is our individual freedoms. The government gets a hair brained idea, and acts on it, and the people pay the price for it. Lets use historical examples.
The prohibition banned alcohol.
Every Tom, Dick and Harry made booze.
The booze was more available and less safe.
The public paid the price.
Automatic weapons were banned for civillian use.
High Powered rifles were banned for civilian use.
Soon they will be coming for my pistol.
Steroids got banned.
1-test got banned.
Ephedra got banned.
Creatine, DHEA And tribulis are up for banning.
Whats next fish oil?
Every time we, as the people, surrender a liberty without fighting, we allow the next liberty to be taken more easily than the last. If the US Government now tells us what we can eat, what’s next?
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
@TrainerinDC :
This is a huge topic and the more I take time to think this through the more I’m inclined to recant my original position though I’m not quite there yet.
The voice on one side says “it’s people’s own resposibility to learn about what they put in their bodies and to not do it if it’s bad for them. If they’re ignorant enough to do it anyway ph**k em. I know about this, if they give a shit they can find out too”.
The voice on the other side is still saying though “there has to be some civilized limits based in sound science, not limiting what the individual can do, but limiting what businesses can do to a yet unsuspecting populous who every reason to have confidence that they won’t be outright poisoned by eating publicly available food”.
Unhealthy in certain amounts is one thing(white flour, high fructose corn syrup for example), but having no maximum safe level is another. I do think the sound science thing is a major sticking point. So much legislation is based on anything but(tryptophan, ephedra among many others). They were never sold in food though.
I don’t know. I’ll have to give it some more thought.
–Tiribulus->[/quote]
[quote]skor wrote:
Nephorm: one word for you - externality.
[/quote]
Again, there is a difference between regulating something like the car industry to prevent pollution (since it affects all of us, and no one is asking to be polluted anyhow) and regulating what people can knowingly put in their own bodies.