It isn't so far-fetched — it's not such a long leap from legislating what restaurants can serve to legislating what we're all allowed to eat. According to this ABC News story:

New York on Tuesday became the first city in the nation to ban artery-clogging artificial trans fats at restaurants, leading the charge to limit consumption of an ingredient linked to heart disease and used in everything from french fries to pizza dough to pancake mix.

Right, so originally fat people were the aristocracy, then they were sideshow freaks, then second-class citizens, and now they're victims of the terrible, vicious food industry? "Oh, help us, government, the food industries are forcing us to get fat!"

...many New Yorkers were all for the ban, saying health concerns were more important than fears of Big Brother supervising their stomachs.

Right. Because people can't be expected to actually take care of themselves when it comes to eating healthfully. No, we certainly need the government to step in and police our own actions for us. Oh, please. And we don't want to hear about people who are too stupid to make these kinds of decisions for themselves. We know that they exist, but if we went around creating laws that catered to the dumbasses of the world, then no one would even be allowed to drive.

Now don't get us wrong: if KFC and Taco Bell want to take measures to "health up" their menus, rock on. That's their decision, made by the food corporations themselves, and they can see if it will make a difference in people's buying habits. And if it doesn't work out for them, they should be just as free to switch right back to the crap we all know and love. In short, the government shouldn't be involved in this decision at all.

Listen, there are certainly aspects of our nation's health and well-being that we're happy to have government help out with — for instance, widely available and affordable health insurance would be a great start. If we break a leg falling down some stairs, something which we had no control over, then hey, sure, come on in and help us out. Legislate reasonable building codes to ensure safe stairs, help us to cover our medical costs, get jiggy with it.

And while we disagree with the end result of, for example, the smoking ban in New York City — the curtailing of not just the civil liberties of patrons, but the restaurants and bars who should be able to make their own decisions on the kind of clientele behavior they're willing to allow — we at least understand that the concern there is that person A is affected by person B's actions through no fault of their own. The concern with smoking in public places isn't that people are choosing to mess with their own health, but rather that they are choosing to mess with the health of those around them. So while we disagree with the smoking ban, we can at least nod at the rationale behind it.

But fatty foods? That's your own damn choice. If you like the taste (we personally can't stand that 90% lean crap at the supermarket), if you know the risks, and if you still just really want that deep-fried trans fat, then who the fuck is the government to tell you that you can't have it?

As with too many things, the government needs to realize that the emphasis should be on education, not regulation. Let people know what they're in for. Give them the facts and figures, keep them up to date on the latest studies. And if, after all that, they still want some damn Krispy Kreme, leave them alone. Let them do it. The only person they're affecting is themselves.

The same goes for the food industry outfits. Make sure they understand the facts, give them the data that health organizations have amassed, and then stand back and let them decide if they want to go healthy or — let's make a judgment call here — delicious. Customers aren't forced to patronize one particular establishment or another. Let the free market decide. And the free market isn't about legislation; it's about information.

If a particular food company finds that their product is spreading E. coli or some other bug, they're more than capable of policing themselves and making the decision to take that product off the market. And as long as the information is out there, the average Joe is perfectly capable of taking his business elsewhere. Of course, since no one would choose to give themselves E. coli, we're perfectly okay with the government taking action to ensure that contaminated foods are not on the market; but even if they didn't get involved, the widespread provision of information should take care of the problem nicely. In the same respect, Mister Joe is also capable of going elsewhere if he's concerned about the trans fat content in his food. In addition, unlike the E. Coli example above, he may rationally choose to consume a given food product even if he knows that it contains trans fat. The lesson here is that the government should ensure that the information is freely available, and then let people make their own damn decisions.

As a great example of how it should be done, New York is also taking steps to disseminate important information:

As part of its assault on obesity, New York City's health department has a plan to require some restaurants to list the calorie content of their food on their menus.

If the rule is approved, the brightly lit menu boards that hang over the counter at McDonald's might read something like this: Double cheeseburger, $1 ... 460 calories.

...

Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said diners deserve to know up front when a meal has the potential to pack on pounds.

That's it exactly, Dr. Frieden! The diners deserve to know; they don't deserve to be told what to do. We're not sure how we can make this any more clear. And the restaurants who'll be affected by Frieden's plan?

But fast-food companies are assailing the proposal.

Cluttering menus with calorie counts for every possible meal combination will slow the food lines and take the fast out of fast food, warned Wendy's executives.

"It will be impossible to decipher," Wendy's spokesman Denny Lynch said in a phone interview. "We aren't going to help them (customers). We are going to confuse them."

What the fuck is this guy smoking? Does he really think that the majority of folks are looking at the menus at Wendy's or Burger King? We go to these kinds of places because we're jonesing for a particular kind of food — the kind of food we already know is there. We can't remember the last time we didn't already know our order by heart long before walking inside a McDonald's or pulling up to a Sonic. That's just silly. And even if we did need to look at the menus, why the hell would the addition of one clearly labeled calorie count prevent us from deciphering the oh-so-cryptic menu? We're not talking ancient hieroglyphics here, folks: instead of "food item...quantity...price" we'll have "food item...quantity...price...calories." Yeah, Denny Lynch, that kind of information overload makes our poor little heads spin. Thanks for looking out for us, asshat.

Hey, we saw Super Size Me. And you know what? We still occasionally feel like having some fucking McNuggets. As with anything in this brief, brief life we're given, it's a personal assessment of "how much is too much." Do we eat a giant Big Mac and Coke every day, like Morgan Spurlock? Of course not. He did that as an experiment, an experiment that very smartly revealed the information upon which we can make our own decisions. Nobody in their right mind would be eating gobs of Mickey D's at every meal, three meals a day (at least, not without filming a documentary). And if they do, hey — it's their choice. Leave them alone.

The fact remains: information, not legislation, is the answer to problems like these. An informed customer may or may not be a healthy customer, but they'll certainly be a free citizen. The government should be providing the data we use to make decisions — not making those decisions for us.

You make some valid points. However, I think you seem to be missing a couple key element to all of this.

First off, you make it sound as though they are banning all fatty food. I am sure you are aware that this is not the case. They are banning, only from restaurants, one particular kind of fat. One that happens to be particularly bad and entirely un-natural. (Granted most of what we eat these days is not natural).

The other issue is that it is quite difficult to know what exactly goes into the food we get at a restaurant. You mention calorie count, that is only a small fraction of what should be available, in my opinion. You go to the grocery store and can see all the health info and ingredients happily listed on the container. This is not the case at restaurants. This makes it hard to make an informed decision. Common sense is a valuable tool in making a decision on whether particular food might be healthy or not, but it is not definitive by any means.

I have little faith in a company to institute reform that will undoubtedly cost them money for the good of the consumer. I would love if restaurants would opt to remove the bad stuff voluntarily. Or give ample nutritional information to help customers make their informed decisions. But most will and would not.

If there has to be legislature about this, I'd rather it be requiring nutritional iinformation akin to that in grocery stores. But, that is not the case.

When it comes down to it, I am not particularly for or against the ban. It is what it is.

I have little faith in a company to institute reform that will undoubtedly cost them money for the good of the consumer. I would love if restaurants would opt to remove the bad stuff voluntarily. Or give ample nutritional information to help customers make their informed decisions. But most will and would not.

If there has to be legislature about this, I'd rather it be requiring nutritional iinformation akin to that in grocery stores. But, that is not the case.

That's the thing with education though. If something is labelled "Contains Trans fat xg per serving" and people are aware of the health risks associated with it then it's up to the individual to assess the risks. If people decide that they want to be healthy they'll vote with their feet and go somewhere that is free of such substances.

Living in the UK I have no idea what's happening with the advertising but I imagine that KFC and Taco Bell are going to be ramming it down your throat that their food is 'healthier' than their competitors because of their voluntary removal of Trans fat on most items.

As for having full nutrition information available, in my local fast food franchises it is normally. Leaflets and posters abound, if I was that interested I could even check their website menu calculator. What that'll tell you is that 'burgers annd fries are unhealthy but don't hurt if eaten in moderation, if people need to have their hand held that badly then they have personal responsibility issues and that's what needs to be dealt with.

Jesse — we understand that the ban applies only to trans fat and not to all fats. We also have no problem conceding the fact that trans fats are particularly unhealthy. However, in contrast to E. coli-contiminated food, we are not willing to concede that there is no place for trans fats in our diet. In addition, we know that not all fatty oils are created equal when it comes to taste and texture. Some of us quite like a little trans fat — or at least, the taste sensations that happen to contain it — and like many of life's pleasures, moderation is the key to health. We should be free to choose what we eat, and to balance that against our health, as we see fit. This legislation takes that choice away from us and hands it over to the government. We find that just plain unacceptable. All that said, we're a bit fuzzy on what points you think we missed, mostly because your comment seems to be largely in agreement with what we were saying.

We absolutely agree that it is not easy to get information on the nutritional content of food that we get in restaurants, and, as we said in the Rant, we believe that making that information readily available should be the aim of any government intervention. Rather than banning something that is unhealthy, why not simply legislate that the information must be easily and freely available, and then let people make their own choices? You seem to agree.

Not only does this legislation fail to get more information out there, it seems to do the opposite:

The calorie disclosure rule will apply only to restaurants that serve standardized portion sizes and make nutritional information available voluntarily. About 1 in 10 of the city's restaurants are expected to be affected. Companies that don't wish to comply can simply stop providing any nutritional data.

So if, say, McDonald's doesn't want to "clutter their menus" with calorie counts, then legally their only recourse is to remove their nutritional information from their stores? That's a step backwards, by any sane standards.

As a note, the reason we were discussing calorie counts wasn't because we think it's the be-all end-all measurement of nutritional value — it's because we were addressing the specific proposal to add calorie counts to fast food menus. Making full nutritional information available is more important, but we imagine the addition of just calories to the menu (as opposed to full information in, say, a three-page pamphlet) was meant to make one aspect of nutrition incredibly obvious to anyone at the counter. We have no problem with a plan to stick calorie numbers on the menu, but we also believe that complete nutritional information should be made easily available as well. And if the government is looking for something to legislate, that's their answer.

And like you, we have little faith that any corporation will voluntarily institute reforms that cost them money for the good of the consumer. But then again, we don't think they should have to do so. Just make the information available. If you want to serve food high in trans fats, let us know and we'll decide when and if we want to eat at your establishment. If you want to remove trans fats from your menu, let us know that and we may decide to eat your food more often than your competitors — but then again, we may not. Just give us the information, and let us decide. Don't decide for us.

One part of your comment really throws us, though:

If there has to be legislature about this, I'd rather it be requiring nutritional iinformation akin to that in grocery stores. But, that is not the case.

Exactly! No, that's not the case...but, as you seem to agree, it should be, and that is precisely our point. Yes, the government should be able to place regulations on the food industry, but those regulations should be aimed at ensuring the availability of information, not at making our choices for us.

As we said, other than the fact that we seem to be more upset about this than you are, we seem to agree on the proper approach, and we seem to agree that this crap isn't it.

I agree with Two Percent on this. Piss off. Leave me alone. I know fast food is bad for me. I know it's fatty and salty and full of calories. And I know I like it. That's why I'm overweight according to those lovely health sites. Thing is, that's my choice. I've chosen death by food, thank you.

Everyone chooses their own vices, and therefore their own probable cause of death. You can't legislate out everything that might be bad for people. Even if you could, that's not Constitutional. Do trans fats constitute a threat to public safety?? No. So leave it alone.

Oh, and lets not forget, it's pointless to remove the crap. The real problem with obsity in America has nothing to do with trans fats. It's conspicuous consumption. Fatty foods. GIANT portions everywhere you go. IS that next? Restaurant portions must be no more than X ounces and X calories? If so, Americans will just order 2.

You CANNOT legislate out stupidity. And why would you want to?

Having just had a discussion about this issue with my wife, her contention is that no foods are being banned, only certain frying mediums, and that there is no difference between frying mediums which do and do not contain trans fats except that the latter are cheaper. Her exact words:

"If he can tell the difference between a french fry fried in canola oil and one in shortening seven out of ten times AND if the canola oil one is significantly less tasty, then he's right. Think he can?"

She has a point - if there is no difference between trans fat-containing foods and other fat-containing foods, you may as well ban the trans fats with no impact on consumer choice.

As tactfully as we can put it, Eric, your wife is just incorrect when she says:

...there is no difference between frying mediums which do and do not contain trans fats except that the latter are cheaper.

That's just not true. Now, bear in mind, if cost really was the only difference (along with the unhealthy nature of trans fats, that is), then we still wouldn't support the NYC ban for various reasons, but we probably wouldn't have been quite as pissed off about it.

However, it just isn't the only difference. Here's a quote from BabyFit.com, a site writing on children's health, that discusses the switch some time ago from animal and other saturated fats to hydrogenated trans fats; a switch which, at the time, was thought to be a healthy move:

Hydrogenation makes oils more stable and solid at room temperature. This improves the baking characteristics of the liquid oil as well as the taste and texture of the end product. Partially hydrogenated oil provided a good alternative when it came to taste, texture, and stability, and manufacturers started using these oils instead of animal fats.

And here are some tidbits from a New York Times article:

Experts say eliminating trans fats need not change the taste of foods, but chefs and restaurant owners say it is hard to replicate the taste and texture of some items without them.

Demonstrating an awareness of this difficulty, the ban will actually give certain foods more time to become compliant:

But under terms adopted yesterday, some foods will fall under the later deadline, including doughnuts, fritters, biscuits and deep fried items that the board said were particularly hard to prepare with a trans fat substitute.

So in a nutshell, some foods can make the switch from trans fats to alternatives easily and with no appreciable change in taste or texture; but for some, it's not so easy, and no viable alternatives exist at this time. It likely follows that, for some foods, no adequate alternative may exist. Maybe this is one reason why, for example, Wendy's has switched to alternative oils so quickly, but McDonald's has not. The point is that some foods do benefit in taste and texture from the use of trans fats, and that fact apparently isn't being disputed — not even by those who fought for this ban.

We'll add another log to the fire, though: foods made with trans fats also tend to have longer shelf lives than foods prepared with alternative fats. Here's a statement from the American Heart Association, a group that we can all probably agree is not pandering to the food industry, to tie it all together:

Hydrogenated vegetable fats are used by food processors because they allow longer shelf-life and give food desirable taste, shape, and texture.

So not even the American Heart Association appears to dispute the following differences between trans fats and other fats:

• Trans fats impart distinct, desirable tastes and textures to some foods which cannot easily be replicated with alternative cooking oils.
• Trans fats provide better baking characteristics than alternative fats.
• Foods made with trans fats have a longer shelf life than foods made with other fats
• Trans fats are cheaper than other alternative fats

So could we tell the difference between a french fry cooked in shortening and one cooked in canola oil? Speaking as people who have eaten our share of shortening-fried foods, we have to say that the likelihood ranges from "very possible" to "more than likely." But even assuming that we couldn't pass the french fry test, it sure sounds like there are foods out there in which the difference would be very obvious indeed.

Goats author Jon Rosenberg reveals the real reason why New York is banning trans fat. Who knew?

Yes, baked goods are a different creature. That's a huge exception and I should have noted it. If the wife has any response I'll let her do it herself.

The most common transfats in use are shortening and margarine. Both can reasonably be replaced by butter, at least in baking, though butter does not have the same shelf life. Shelf life really isn't an issue at a restaurant; it's more of a packaged food thing.

It is true that butter tastes different from shortening, so if you really want a shortening-flavored food, then you're pretty much stuck with shortening. But I would think it unusual for somebody not to prefer the flavor of butter in baked goods. In any case, the primary reason butter is replaced with shortening and/or margarine is cost.

Deep-frying is another matter. You could fill a fryer with butter, but that would be sort of weird for french fries, etc (though perhaps not untasty, if butter-smothered baked potatoes are any indication). Having said that, I'm not entirely certain I could tell the difference between canola- and shortening-fried foods. In theory, shortening-fried foods should be somewhat crispier.

The other common use of trans-fats is to stabilize things like peanut butter, so they're not oily at room temperature. I don't think there's any substitute to trans-fats available for that. Presumably the NY ban does not extend to which brands of peanut butter they are allowed to serve.

I don't think anybody is arguing that trans-fats make you fatter than natural fats. They're just harder on your cardiovascular system.

I agree the NY trans-fat ban could have been and probably should have been replaced by a requirement to inform customers as to which menu items are prepared with transfats. On the other hand, I'm not particularly perturbed by a forced switch to butter in baking and canola in frying. As substitute goods go, butter and canola taste pretty good. It's not like they're forcing us to drink near-beer. I guess I might feel differently if trans-fat were a naturally occurring substance. This topic just doesn't light up my outrage receptors I guess. Though I did feel compelled to post a comment. Hmm...

Just to be clear, we aren't saying that the NYC trans fat ban is the worst thing to come down the pike since Bush got re-elected. Not by a long shot. We aren't saying that it's the worst miscarriage of justice imaginable — what we are saying is that the government has no business regulating our food choices, any more than they have any business regulating whom we fall in love with or whether we use condoms in the resulting throes of passion — either of those choices could lead to health problems, too, or even death. But as far as we're concerned, personal choices like these should be ours to make, to our own benefit or detriment. That said, do we get a little more upset than the average person when things like this occur? Probably, yeah.

We can all agree that trans fats are bad for us. We can also all agree that there are differences between foods prepared with trans fats and foods prepared with other types of fats (cost and shelf life seem to be universally accepted differences, and most of us seem to agree that trans fats impart tastes and textures to some foods that may be difficult to replicate with substitutes). But even if the only differences were cost and health (an assertion we don't support), shouldn't it still be our choice whether to spring for the ritzy canola fries or whether to chow down on the cheaper trans fat fries?

It simply isn't the government's place to make personal choices for us, including what to eat. They can make suggestions (though with this administration's track record on most scientific subjects, we might not want to listen), and they can and should insist that we are informed (or at least that the information is readily available). But they shouldn't force their choices down our throats — quite literally, in this case.

Look at the NYC smoking ban. We disagree with that ban for roughly the same reasons that we disagree with this one. However, at the end of the night, when we come home from a NYC bar not smelling like smoke, our disapproval of the ban doesn't mean that we aren't happy about not having to toss our clothes into an isolation hamper destined for urgent laundry detail. But by the same token, our glee at not smelling like a week-old ashtray doesn't mean that the ban was right. The fact that a government policy ends up helping us in some ways doesn't justify the fact that the policy tramples on our personal choices, as far as we're concerned.

What we're trying to say is simple: to us, it's not about the trans fat, it's not about the differences in cost, taste, health, or shelf life. All of this is, er, food for thought (sorry), and makes for an interesting conversation; but if, as we mused above, Eric's wife were dead-on-balls-accurate about the differences between trans and healthier fats being limited to health and cost, it still wouldn't change our position. In the final analysis, it's all about the government legislating our personal choices for us. And that — no matter what the issue we're discussing — is something we strongly oppose.

I've been thinking about this thread. Not sure why, since I've already stated that I'm not particularly exercised about the transfat ban. But while I generally agree that government should stay out of our private lives, I'm not so certain there isn't some public health cost angle that makes sense here.

I think the transfat ban is more analogous to a seat-belt law or helmet law. I know both of those raise the ire of a lot of Libertarians, but if you step back and look at the public cost of health care for people with head and other injuries requiring expensive long-term treatment, I can see the argument that it is, in fact, the government's business to step in and protect the commons. In other words, some personal choices have larger societal ramifications. The reason it's illegal to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel is because of the enormous cost of rescue or recovery after the fact, inspiration of copycats, etc.

As for the smoking ban, I'm strongly in favor of that. I don't actually care much about the public health considerations of second-hand smoke (though it seems perfectly within OSHA's perview to implement a workplace smoking ban for the benefit of employees, if nothing else), since my exposure in restaurants and bars is limited. My reason for supporting the ban is that smokers just don't freaking understand simple etiquette. Nothing ruins a tasty meal like cigarette smoke wafting over from the smoking section one table away, separated by a fern.

The right to smoke, precisely like the right to swing your fist, ends at my nose. Period. I don't really care what you do to your own lungs (again, there is the cost of public health argument that may incline the government to step in on behalf of my insurance premiums), but please don't inflict your smoke on me and my enjoyment of my night out. Since I asked nice, and smokers didn't listen, well, maybe the legislature can ask less nicely.

I suppose I would go along with smokers'-only clubs, but I think it's amazingly short-sighted of most bars and restaurants to cater to the whims (or addictions) of a mere 25% of their potential clientele. I think it would make simple business sense to ban smoking. I'd rather lure 10% of the 75% who don't smoke than 20% of the 25% who do.

But if businesses are too short-sighted or stubborn to act in their own best interests, and smokers are too oblivious to etiquette, I don't have much difficulty with the majority protecting the commons. And to be clear, air is part of the commons, even if you're inside a restaurant.