Posted on 09/26/2006 9:42:48 PM PDT by SheLion
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.
Officials said that the typical American diet now contains 5.8 grams of trans fats per day, and that a single five-ounce serving of French fries at many restaurants contained 8 grams of trans fats.
Members of the Board of Health, all mayoral appointees, expressed vigorous support for the proposal, which was drafted by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The board members said that the initiative could set an example for the nation, and that New York City should play a leading role because of its high rate of heart disease and because New Yorkers consume more restaurant meals and takeout food than most Americans.
The proposal met immediate resistance among restaurant owners, who said banning trans fats would raise their costs and change the taste of some items. “I’m wondering if there are grounds for a lawsuit,” said E. Charles Hunt, executive vice president of the New York State Restaurant Association, which represents about 3,500 restaurants in the city.
The Board of Health vote comes a year after it conducted an unsuccessful campaign to persuade restaurants to eliminate trans fats from their recipes voluntarily. It said yesterday that despite mass mailings about the hazards of trans fats and training programs for 7,800 restaurant operators, about half the city’s restaurants continued to serve trans fats, about the same as before the campaign.
Trans fats, derived from partially hydrogenated oils, became popular in the 1950’s as an alternative to the saturated fats in butter. They allow fast-food restaurants to use frying oil for longer periods and make crunchier cookies and flakier pie crust. They also have a longer shelf life than butter, olive oil, corn oil or other alternatives.
Health officials said yesterday that many healthier alternative cooking ingredients had been developed that would cost little more than trans fats, and have little or no effect on taste.
Lynne D. Richardson, a member of the Board of Health and a professor of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said yesterday that restaurant owners might still see an advantage in the long shelf life of trans fat products.
“But human life is much more important than shelf life,” she said. “I would expect to see fewer people showing up in the emergency room with heart attacks if this policy is enacted.”
If the measure is adopted in December, health officials said, the restrictions would be phased in. Restaurants would be given until July to eliminate oils, margarines and shortening from the recipes that contain more than a half-gram of trans fat per serving.
They would also have until July 2008 to remove all menu items that exceed the new limit, including bread, cakes, chips and salad dressing. The only exclusions from the restrictions would be packaged food items, like candy, that remain in the manufacturers’ original packaging when served, as well as naturally occurring trans fats, which are found in some meats and dairy products.
Health officials said that the regulations would be enforced by restaurant inspectors, who would examine kitchens for products with trans fat, but that there would be no attempt to test prepared foods.
The New York City proposal comes at a time when companies in the packaged food industry, under pressure from health advocates, have reduced the use of trans fats. A recent ruling by the federal Food and Drug Administration requires all food companies to include trans fat levels in labeling information.
Several restaurant chains, including Wendy’s, Starbucks and Subway, have announced efforts to eliminate or sharply reduce trans fats. McDonald’s, which has not, “will closely examine the board’s proposal,” said Walt Riker, a company spokesman.
“Concerning trans fats, McDonald’s knows this is an important issue, which is why we will continue to test in earnest to find ways to further reduce” their use, he said.
For the Board of Health, the trans fat plan is the latest in a series of regulations that have placed New York City in the forefront of regulating behavior and products’ content in order to benefit public health.
Three years ago, the city banned smoking in restaurants, a measure angrily protested by some restaurant owners, but it led to similar bans in several other cities. Yesterday, health officials compared the restrictions on trans fats to the city’s 1960 prohibition on the use of lead paint, years before it was banned in most of the country.
“Like lead paint, artificial trans fat in food is invisible and dangerous, and it can be replaced,” said Thomas R. Frieden, the city’s health commissioner, after the Board of Health vote yesterday. “No one will miss it when it is gone.”
----------------------------------------------------
And Chuck Hunt in an AP piece:
“Labeling is one thing, but when they totally ban a product, it goes well beyond what we think is prudent and acceptable,” said Chuck Hunt, executive vice president of the city’s chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association.
I can't wait to taste the new pies!! No lard? Time to move back to Memphis.
When will this madness end? It's things like this that tick me off. The busybodies who intrude in every facet of our lives. This will spread. Any who disagree will be labeled monsters, and will back off.
you know what? LIFE will kill you. So maybe they should just ban that too. They've got a good enough start with abortions and euthanasia.
But they'll be require to hire transexual waiters/waitresses.
Bloomberg the mayor is worse than a RINO; he's a ROC (Republican of Convenience).
I just tried doing an extensive search for everyone who claimed that this wouldn't happen. Couldn't find 'em.
I was going to shoot 'em all a little ping.
(They're probably zotted, anyway. Agreeing with a RINO like Bloomberg on FR isn't the healthiest thing to do. It tends to have adverse side effects....)
Well, I never had any intention to go to NYC ever again anyway.... But if I had, I now wouldn't.
When a government entity makes a rule like this, it is a government COMPLETELY out of control, and should be replaced by one that understands the rights of businesses and consumers.
most yappers don't have a clue as to what this is about....obviously YOU do. This stuff is WORSE than any fat that nature produces, and the hell of it is that few lay people know the basics re heart disease.
"Metabolic studies have shown that trans fats have adverse effects on blood lipid levels--increasing LDL ("bad") cholesterol while decreasing HDL ("good") cholesterol. This combined effect on the ratio of LDL to HDL cholesterol is double that of saturated fatty acids.3
Trans fats have also been associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease in epidemiologic studies.4
Based on the available metabolic studies, we estimated in a 1994 report that approximately 30,000 premature coronary heart disease deaths annually could be attributable to consumption of trans fatty acids.4 "
..........
Conclusion
Five years ago evidence was strong that trans fat had deleterious impacts on blood lipids; ensuing studies have confirmed these metabolic findings and strengthened epidemiologic support for an important adverse effect on risk of coronary heart disease. These data highlight the need for rapid implementation of labeling requirements that include fast foods. Because partially hydrogenated fats can be eliminated from the food supply by changes in processing that do not require major efforts in education and behavioral modification, these changes would be an extremely efficient and rapid method for substantially reducing rates of coronary disease.
snipped from:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/reviews/transfats.html
citation for the actual study publication.....not yet free @ NEJM site:
1. Mozaffarian D, Katan MB, Ascherio A, Stampfer MJ, Willett WC. Trans fatty acids and cardiovascular disease. N Engl J Med. 2006 Apr 13;354(15):1601-13.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/354/15/1601
How long have "we" (us degenerate, disgusting, insensitive, neer do well) smokers been warning all with the clarion call: "YOUR NEXT?"
I am amused and somewhat overjoyed to see this coming to pass.
Newww York City. Ha. Got to luv it.
With all of those libs there who are now on the receiving end and the thought of now having their "ox gored" is making my day.
With their favorite RINO Mayor (BloomingIdiot) supporting this, like he did the anti-smoking ordinances, its bound to be put into affect, post haste.
The smoking bans NEVER had anything to do with SMOKING.
It was always about the liberal mentality of "power and control" and for all the non-smokers who could have cared less, well, as the ol saying goes, the "the chickens (in this case the 'health Nazis') have come home to roost.
I can only hope that they take this to the same extreme as they have with smoking whereby they have the "Food Police" come into homes to make sure that parents are not "poisoning" their chilllens by feeding them fattening foods---it would serve them (all of those who had no pity on us) right.
I stopped going to restaurants a long time ago, so it makes me no never mind.
I'll continue to have extra butter on my baked spuds when I broil and nice thick porterhouse and wash it down with a reasonably good burgundy, to be followed by a pleasant smoke, in my own abode and God help anyone who tries and take my simple pleasures from me.
I'm almost 63, still work every day, (am in great health am NOT overweight) spent 18 months in Nam and I'll be damned if I'll let anyone tell me I can't enjoy the pursuits of whatever legal (the last time I checked) pleasures I wish to enjoy.
. ROC? That is excellent. Did you make that up? First I've heard it and I like it.
"Based upon actual results, it is KNOWN that approximately 40,000 "premature" deaths are "attributed" to automobile accidents EACH YEAR."
Why NOT BAN ALL CARS????
Hey, one inane statistic deserves another.
relax
Ignorance is bliss. Enjoy it.
This statement by the health commissar is technically true, but comparing lead paint on bulilding walls to trans fat in food is absolutely inane from a health protection point of view.
Poisoning from lead paint is almost entirely encoutered in very young children who would eat peeling paint without knowing any better. Lead toxicity causes severe brain damage in children. Consumption of trans fat in one's diet, on the other hand, is done with foreknowledge of possible risk by adults, and even so is just one of a number of factors that may contribute to coronary heart disease when done consistently over a long period of time. The health risk of a kid unknowingly ingesting lead constantly from peeling paint in his apartment is of a magnitude where statist intervention is justifiable; the health risk to an eater of french fries at one sitting at a restaurant is so infinitesimal that banning the trans fat is not warranted.
having the government control everyone's life.
Seems like something you enjoy.
Be gone, statist.
I would if I could, but I can't because I'm not a knee jerk, doo-doo, "gooder", in-your-face, lib--going to save us all from ourselves.
I'm someone who believes in "PERSONAL RESPONSISIBILITY" (ever heard the term) like all good Conservatives, and DOES NOT need anyone to "tell me" what I can or cannot do, as long as its LEGAL and does NOT harm anyone else.
If I choose to eat foods with trans fatty acids or drink or smoke (or drive) that's MY choice.
I know the risks. Life's a "risk." In fact, its so much as risk, that NO ONE IS GOING TO GET OUT ALIVE!!!!
No it puts lard back in to pies instead of veggie oil.
It would also make mcdonalds to go back to real french fries instead of veggie fries !
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.