Transfat Teddy with cone
Posted on 12/20/2006 5:45:09 AM PST by Hadean
Massachusetts is considering following New York City's lead and banning restaurants from serving artery-clogging artificial trans fats - a move some lovers of greasy food are giving a thumbs-down.
State Rep. Peter Koutoujian, a Democrat from Waltham, co-chairman of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Public Health, filed a bill yesterday to make Massachusetts the first state to impose the ban.
"It's basically killing people," Koutoujian said.
He said health officials have know about the "evils" of trans fat for years. He said two recent developments - greater access to non-trans-fat cooking oils and a move by major restaurant chains to get away from trans fat - now make a statewide ban possible.
"People are dying and suffering heart events all around us, and trans fat is something that is easily replaceable," he said. Trans fat is produced when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil through hydrogenation.
This month, New York became the first U.S. city to ban trans fats. Under Koutoujian's bill, no foods with artificial trans fat could be used to prepare menu items in Massachusetts restaurants, except for food served directly to customers in the manufacturer's original sealed package.
Some local restaurant owners say the bill is a sign of big government run amok. They say they want the option to use trans fat if they want - and say most diners know all too well the risk of a diet that uses high levels of the fat.
"You don't need a law to tell you what to eat," said James Grigas, owner of the popular Fill-A-Buster restaurant on Beacon Hill in the shadow of the state house.
Grigas uses vegetable oil to cook the french fries at his restaurant but says people have to take personal responsibility for their diet.
"You know not to eat hamburgers and cheeseburgers every day. That's just common sense," he said. "What are they going to do next? Tell me what to wear?"
Peter Christie, head of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association, said many restaurants have already voluntarily moved away from the use of trans fats, and he said he welcomed the public debate.
Transfat Teddy with cone
Not many more, but more nonetheless.
Follow the money.
My first thought!
You know what's really "killing people" in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? High taxes and slovenly legislators who get paid too much. You won't find a lot slim people in the Great and General Court of the Commonwealth. These sloppy solons should worry more about getting fat out of the Commonwealth's budget.
The movie was surprisingly prophetic wasn't it.
Sounds like a ringing endorsement for Romney.
But, yep, it was pretty much right on. I hope that Commercial Jingles don't become a form of pop music.
How about a ban on extramarital sex and drug use. Nah, let's hand out condoms and clean needles and look the other way.
And the beat goes on..............
It sure does, doesn't it!!!
First they came for the cigarette smokers, but I didnt smoke. So I didnt speak out
Then they came for the gun owners, but I didnt own a gun ,so I didnt speak out.
Then they cancelled health insurance for the motorcycle riders, but I didnt ride a motorcycle,so I didnt speak out
Then they banned food and no one was left to speak out.
"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."
-Norman Thomas, six-time Socialist Party presidential candidate and one of the founders of the ACLU.
"I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control of those who produced the wealth: communism is the goal."
- Roger Baldwin, founder of the ACLU
All this nanny statism is not about what is best for us.
This, of course, is fascism - government control of private property for the collective Marxist common good, as defined by the state. And the state will find more and more reasons to take control of private property. Regulation of your homes is next. America is about individual rights, not the rights of groups, the mob or the collective. The consitution is filled with dozens of examples of individual rights, but who reads documents written by dead white guys anymore?
People ought to read a bit of history to see how fascism turned out in Europe before this goes too far.
He had his chance..Ride into the sunset Mitt
But it is still shocking to see just how many actually do embrace it.
It is downright terrifying, IMO.
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