Posted on 12/20/2006 5:15:05 AM PST by Molly Pitcher
New York City has ordered restaurants to stop selling food made with trans fat. "It is a dangerous and unnecessary ingredient," says the health commissioner. Gee, I'm all for good health, but shouldn't it be a matter of individual choice?
A New York Times headline about the ban reads: "A Model for Other Cities."
"A model for what, exactly?" asks George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux (LINK: www.cafehayek.com). "Petty tyranny? Or perhaps for similarly inspired bans on other voluntary activities with health risks? Clerking in convenience stores? Walking in the rain?"
Trans fats give foods like French fries that texture I like. They are probably bad for me, but Radley Balko of Reason points out that "despite all of the dire warnings about our increased intake of trans-fats over the last 20 years, heart disease in America has been in swift decline ... So, if they're killing us, they're not doing a very good job."
But that's not the point. In a free society the issue is: Who decides what I eat, the government or me? It's not as though information about trans fats is hard to come by. Scaremongers like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) are all too happy to tell you about the dangers, and they have no trouble getting their declarations of doom on television and into newspapers.
Unfortunately, CSPI is not content to tell you avoid trans fats. It sues restaurants like McDonald's and KFC for using them, and urges governments to ban them.
But why do the health police get to take away my choices? Adults should be expected to take responsibility for their own health.
Often the health police say they must "protect the children." But children are the responsibility of their parents. When the state assumes the role of parent, it makes children of all of us.
The food prohibitionists don't understand that there are ways to influence people's behavior without resorting to coercion -- remember, coercion is the essence of government. The public fuss about harm from trans fats has already induced many food makers to remove them. It's suddenly become a competitive advantage to boast that your products are trans-fat-free. Such voluntary action is the best way to move toward healthier food.
Why isn't that good enough for the prohibitionists? Why must they enlist the iron hand of government?
I think they dislike freedom of choice. They know the right way, so it's only right that they force everyone to follow them. That's the philosophy of prohibitionists.
The Center for Consumer Freedom is running ads saying: "Now that New York has banned cooking oils with trans fat (the same substance as margarine) ... it opens the door to banning so much more! Using the same logic, let's get rid of New York style pizza (seriously, do you need all that cheese?), beef hot dogs (tofu dogs almost taste the same), corned beef (turkey breast is much leaner). ... "
Yes, I know the center's sponsors include restaurants and food companies, but still, it has a good point.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, who died a few weeks ago, would have agreed. He was the author of "Free to Choose" and "free to choose" sums up Friedman's philosophy. He would have cringed at the banning of trans fats, just as he objected to the earlier banning of products like the sugar substitute called cyclamates.
Over 25 years ago, Friedman wrote, "If we continue on this path, there is no doubt where it will end. If the government has the responsibility of protecting us from dangerous substances, the logic surely calls for prohibiting alcohol and tobacco. . . . Insofar as the government has information not generally available about the merits or demerits of the items we ingest or the activities we engage in, let it give us the information. But let it leave us free to choose what chances we want to take with our own lives."
people like him like to say they're conservatives, but theyr'e what I like to call situational socialists or situational statists. They'll complain one day about some government interference in their favorite activity, but turn around and call for the government to ban or regulate whatever they don't like.
Yes, everything you need... but nothing you want.
WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH!
When one focuses, clear-eyed and in literal detail, on the centrality and depth of the behavioral changes necessary to improve health does the immensity of the task become apparent. We are not talking about peripheral or infrequent aspects of human behavior but about some the most basic and often experienced aspects of life: what one eats, how often and how much; how long, how regular, and how peacefully one sleeps, whether one smokes or drinks and how much; even the whole question of personality. Health, then... is a product of innumerable decisions made every day by millions of people. To over see these decisions would call for a larger bureaucracy than anyone has yet conceived and methods of surveillance bigger than big brother. The seat-belt buzzer that screeches at us if we do not modify one small bit of behavior would be but mild harbinger of the restraints necessary to change bad health habits.
George Orwell couldn't have said it better........
Soylent Green.......is people!!!!
Yes, the mean food companies made us stop exercising and forced that darn TV upon us...against our will!
Excellent post. Almost thought I was reading Ayn Rand for a moment. Your ideas of freedom are well founded. You don't have to be a Randian Objectivist to believe in freedom and sanctity of the individual.
Well everything that some government bureaucrat deems that you need. Your actual needs and wants are pretty much irrelevant to the government.
What I said.
Saturated fats and carbohydrates can also be unhealthy. Shouldn't they be banned too? As a matter of fact, most foods can be bad for you if they are overconsumed. If you overcook bacon, powerful carcinogens are formed. If you under-cook burgers you're at risk for e coli. Should the state force the food industry not to make crispy bacon if a customer wants it? Should we be forced to eat burgers that are only cooked well done? There is solid scientific evidence to back all of this up. We could save lives. Where does your doo gooding end?
When it comes to food, the state could regulate just about everything consumable for our own good. That might help impact the obesity epidemic. Or, they could leave us the hell alone instead of making decisions based on ignorance and highly questionable scientific evidence.
A book on basic nutrition could save you from making silly statements like this in the future.
If they're toxic/poisonous TFA's should have an LD50. They don't.
The health benefits from their elimination will be looked upon 20 years from now as a great step forward for the well-being of Americans.
We've been consuming increasing quantities of TFA's for about 20 years now. Where is this poison manifesting itself in our population? You should have said this will be a great leap forward since it's about collectivist control of society based on someone else's determination of what's in our best interest.
Thanks for the ping!
Nonsense. TFA's also add texture/flavor, offer a higher melting point, greater stability under high temperatures and are lower in cost. There are many benefits to using TFA's that restaurants enjoy. In a restaurant setting, banning TFA's will ensure that oil becomes rancid more rapidly. Rancid fats contain high levels of free radicals. Cis fats are more susceptible to oxidation and therefore rancidity, than trans fats. You can bet that consumers will be ingesting a lot more free radicals due to this stupid legislation. How is that good for the public health?
All that without even beginning a discussion about personal freedom...or lack thereof.
Excellent post.
Thanks.
Your ideas of freedom are well founded. You don't have to be a Randian Objectivist to believe in freedom and sanctity of the individual.
The thing about freedom is that it's limitless. For most people the only real boundary is an after thought: Don't initiate force against anyone. That many are sheeple is not of their own design. Yet it severely limits them. Sadly, Radian Objectivists erect unnecessary fences to in effect retain a cult-like membership -- a group-think mentality of their own design. Ayn Rand was distraught by it/them.
Summer of last year I finally got around to reading Atlas Shrugged after having it sit on my bookshelf for ten years. I'll probably read some of her other books. I've heard good things about The Fountainhead.
Their life sucks and they won't bwe happy until yours sucks, too.
"Once the government starts providing health care, it becomes a state interest how well you take care of yourself. Your behavior becomes a factor in government expenditure. If you smoke, drink, eat fatty foods, don't exercise, you are costing the government money, and therefore, subject to government sanction."
I've long held the belief that those wonderful little 'super saver' cards and key fobs we all use at our local grocery store provide a great infrastructure for the gov't to track and enforce our eating habits if gov't health care ever comes to pass.
If we're going to ban those things that are bad for us, I suggest banning liberalism immediately.
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