King County May Ban Trans Fats At Restaurants (Washington State)

KIRO-TV ^ | July 10, 2007

[Stoat]

King County May Ban Trans Fats At Restaurants

 

POSTED: 7:53 am PDT July 10, 2007

UPDATED: 2:12 pm PDT July 10, 2007

 

SEATTLE -- Restaurants and food services would be required to stop using trans fats under a proposal the King County Board of Health will consider later this month.

The ban would affect 10,000 licensed kitchens in the county. "We can see no good reason to --- absolutely zero good reason -- why they should continue to put that stuff in any food product," said Julia Patterson of the King County Board of Health.

According to a recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health, replacing trans fats with unsaturated fats would prevent 30,000 to 100,000 premature deaths nationwide every year. Some major restaurant chains have switched, including McDonald's, Wendy's and KFC.

Some local restaurants like Beth's Café on Aurora Avenue in north Seattle have changed. Dick's Hamburgers has been experimenting with alternative cooking oils, but the local chain hasn't found one that meets its standards, according to the Seattle Times.

The Health Board is scheduled to vote on the trans fat ban on July 19. The restriction would be phased in over nine to 18 months.

New York City, Philadelphia, Montgomery County, Maryland and Brookline, Mass. have all passed measures that will require restaurants to phase out their use of trans fats, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

[goldstategop]

King County liberals want to manage your diet... its their idea of eating healthy and you don't have a say in it. The Food Police at work.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[SoldierMedic]

The Nanny State Strikes Again!

[Arthur McGowan]

Trans-fat is poison—or, perhaps more accurately, a kind of plastic, not a food. It goes and lodges in arteries and fat cells and never comes out. It doesn’t belong in food. There’s nothing “conservative” about insisting on continuing to use it, or calling the public health officials who want to ban it “food Nazis.” Save the caterwauling for when they try to ban butter and sugar. Or tobacco. At least those are natural.

[Stoat]

Trans-fat is poison—or, perhaps more accurately, a kind of plastic, not a food.

But the real question is....does it TASTE good?  "snicker"

In all seriousness, it's not something that I've really studied or have passionate opinions about, other than my fear that Dick's Fries will not taste the same  :-)

Too bad this all has to be dealt with as a matter of Governmental Decree, however.  It tends to get people's backs up when The State starts interfering with their dinner.

Better to provide a bit of gentle education, in my view.....why bring out the Governor's Sledgehammer unnecessarily?

[HiTech RedNeck]

I’ve heard conflicting opinions on whether trans fats can be purged from the body. Some have told me that it would take only about a year on a non trans fat diet. At any rate, fat cells certainly do shrink along with overall caloric intake; if they didn’t no diet would ever work. I challenge anyone to find data that people who became fat on products high in trans fats will diet it off any less effectively than people who became fat on polyunsaturated fats.

[sionnsar]

Say WA? Evergreen State ping

FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.

Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.

[bboop]

I think the libs are just scared to death of death.