Suit Seeks to Ban Kids From Eating Oreos (absolutely frivolous lawsuit alert)

Yahoo! News ^ | May 12, 2003 | AP

[El Conservador]

SAN FRANCISCO - Kids in California may have to give up their Oreos, if a lawsuit filed by a San Francisco public interest lawyer is successful.

The lawsuit, filed last week in Marin County superior court, seeks a ban on the black and white cookies, arguing the trans fats that make the filling creamy and the cookie crisp are too dangerous for children to eat.

Stephen Joseph said he filed the suit against Nabisco, the maker of Oreos, after reading articles that said the artificial fat is hidden in most packaged food, though consumers have no way of knowing.

The big difference between this suit and others that have targeted tobacco and McDonald's fast food is that consumers know that tobacco is bad for their health and that McDonald's food contains a lot of fat, Joseph said.

"Trans fat is not the same thing at all. Very few people know about it," he said, explaining that his suit focuses on the fact that trans fats are hidden dangers being marketed to children.

Nabisco officials were not immediately available for comment. They have 30 days from the May 5 filing date to respond to the suit.

The National Academy of Sciences (news - web sites)' Institute of Medicine (news - web sites), which advises the government on health policy, said last summer that this kind of fat should not be consumed at all. It is directly associated with heart disease and with LDL cholesterol, the 'bad' kind that accumulates in arteries.

But the U.S. Department of Agriculture (news - web sites) said partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, which contain trans fats, are present in about 40 percent of the food on grocery store shelves. Cookies, crackers, and microwave popcorn are the biggest carriers of trans fats, which are created when hydrogen is bubbled through oil to produce a margarine that doesn't melt at room temperature and increases the product's shelf life.

The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) has tried to force food companies to list trans fat content with other nutritional information on food packages, but manufacturers have challenged the rule. Even food labeled "low in cholesterol" or "low in saturated fats" may have high percentages of trans fats.

Informing customers about trans fats on food labels could prevent 7,600 to 17,100 cases of coronary heart disease and 2,500 to 5,600 deaths per year, the FDA has estimated.

Joseph said he has targeted Nabisco because, while other major snack food makers have reduced the amount of trans fats in their products, Nabisco has not.

[El Conservador]

Can you find a more irrelevant lawsuit than this???

[Cultural Jihad]

Informed consent is such a slight, unimportant thing? I think it's a hallmark of a free society.

[CyberAnt]

The main problem is - this guy has brought this suit in one of the most LIBERAL court systems in the country. These people legislate from the bench and love to punish corporate dollars.

And ... this is another "I told you so" from Rush!!

[OldFashionedAmerican]

Can we get the email address for this jerk, so we can ask him to sue God on our behalf, because we All have to die someday, and that gross injustice inhibits our right to '(Enternal, according to these clowns) Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness'? Why stop at Oreos??? Sue against DEATH itself!

Give me a break. When will we be free of over-educated Mary Poppins like this????

[Cultural Jihad]

How about the famous McDonalds coffee scalding case? Opinions?

[OldFashionedAmerican]

How about the famous McDonalds coffee scalding case? Opinions?

To be honest with you, I'm not sure which case is more pathetic. Probably this one, on further review. After all, the McDonalds coffee case didn't actually ask to ban coffee sales, while this grandiose scheme seems, to me at least, to aim to deny Oreos to us all! We might as well outlaw Oxygen..... I think I read somewhere that it is technically a corrosive element.

[DB]

Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils may well be dangerous to one's health. Unlike the many other food nazi claims running around about Alar and the like.

I tried to avoid MSG and hydrogenated foods for years now.

Both are also known to be neuro toxins.

I think the public is very uninformed on this issue. Oreo's are pretty light in the hydrogenated oil department compared to other foods though.


I'll put my flame suit on now...

[OldFashionedAmerican]

Stephen Joseph said he filed the suit against Nabisco, the maker of Oreos, after reading articles that said the artificial fat is hidden in most packaged food, though consumers have no way of knowing.

Wrong again, oh mighty consumer crusader! What decent parent does not know instinctively that a diet too 'heavy' in cookies can not be a good thing????

[Wacka]

Saw the guy on the news tonight. Looks like he's had a few Oreos himself.

[OldFashionedAmerican]

To this guy, the only appropriate words that apply are - "Get A Life, why don't you?"

[geege]

We were just discussing tonight how I haven't had an Oreo cookie in about 20 years......well....it's time....with a nice cup of coffee...mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Cultural Jihad]

I heard a report on the local radio today about gel-based candies. Apparently, while people can and do choke to death on steak and apples, there is an inherent knowledge that such foods can be dangerous if improperly ingested or chewed. But there's a type of suit based on unknowledgable hazards. A person expects that candies will dissolve in saliva, but when a manufacturer makes and markets a candy which is a choking hazard, it becomes a litigation issue. The person being interviewed (I forget which lawyers' group he represented) explained the significance of the McDonalds coffee lawsuit. The corporation was aware of the danger of scalding, but callously decided that the costs of repairing the coffee urns would be greater than the litigation costs from scalded customers; the woman in particular who was scalded required skin grafting.

[OldFashionedAmerican]

I argue that even semi-intelligent people understand that too many cookies are not good for a person, even if they do not know every chemical reason why. Oreos have been around for a long time, and our average life span continues to go up. What kind of a danger do they really pose???

[Cultural Jihad]

Have Oreos always contained artificial fat?

[noutopia]

From my cold dead hands!!!!!!!!!!! Not my cookies.

[OldFashionedAmerican]

I think it would be nothing short of miraculous if the banning of Oreos was statistically proven to increase the life span of the average American.

[Paul C. Jesup]

You should replace the word 'Zionist' with 'Socialist' and you would be right.

[OldFashionedAmerican]

Have Oreos always contained artificial fat?

Honestly, I don't know. But how much could they have changed over the years?? I've had some within the last six months, I am over 50 years old, and they do not taste one iota different to me than they did 30 years ago.