US FDA Moves To Ban Trans Fat 520
UnknowingFool writes "Citing growing health concerns about trans fat, the FDA today proposed measures to eliminate it from the U.S. food supply. While trans fat can still be used, the new measures now place the burden on food processors to justify the inclusion of it in a food product as experts have maintained that there is no safe level of consumption and no health benefits. Since 2006, the amount of trans fat eaten by the average American has declined from 4.5g per serving to less than 1g as restaurants and the food industry have reduced their use of it. There will be a 60-day public comment period for the new proposal."
HFC would be a better start (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not targeting high fructose corn syrup instead?
It is far more harmful and sugar is a better (albeit pricier) replacement.
Re:What about natural trans fat? (Score:5, Insightful)
Debate over (Score:5, Insightful)
Smoking = tax money
Trans fats = no tax money
Debate over.
Re:Is it working? (Score:0, Insightful)
Next to heart disease, automobile accidents are the biggest killer, will the FDA band the use of cars?
How about they add giant images of people getting mangled in car accidents on the hood.
Or make sure dealerships have opaque white covers so you can't see the cars
Re:Is it working? (Score:5, Insightful)
Should we not ban something that is directly linked to an increased risk in heart disease?
In a supposedly free country? No, of course we shouldn't ban it.
Mandate that any product containing trans fat be labeled as such, and with appropriate health warnings (like they do on tobacco products), but outright bans of things we can only use to harm ourselves is anathema to liberty.
Re:HFC would be a better start (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not targeting high fructose corn syrup instead?
It is far more harmful and sugar is a better (albeit pricier) replacement.
The reason is right in the name. Corn is a major part of the US agriculture industry. Do you know how much lobbying power they have?
Re:Is it working? (Score:5, Insightful)
The original theory, as promoted by the same health nuts that are trying to get it banned now, is that because your body can't digest it, it was better than consuming actual fat. It came out of the "fat = bad, carbs = good" mentality from the 70's, 80's, and 90's. That mantra was repeated so much that today it's heresy to even suggest that fat is actually good for you, even though carbs, and the associated insulin response, have been linked with increased risk of heart disease.
Re:Is it working? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the more general topic of 'but we are a free country', while the future is difficult to predict, a trans fat ban could very well result in greater consumer choice rather then less. Right now there is an industry race to the bottom, everyone uses trans fats because any company that does not will have marginally higher prices which would hurt the company. As long as ANY company is using them, they all have to in order to be competitive. Consumers do not want the stuff, they just want a slightly lower cost the the box sitting next to whatever it is.
Part of the problem is that right now consumer demand is not the dominant factor in choosing which fat source to use. By removing one option that puts the power back on consumers to demand any particular source they want, or no particular source. For the moment, we have surprisingly little choice. And half the equation in freedom is having choices in the first place.
Re:Debate over (Score:5, Insightful)
Smoking = conscious choice
trans fats = hidden in all kinds of stuff, even products that claim 0 trans fat* then in very small text "per serving". Restaurant food is even worse in that you never know if it contains it or not.
Re:Further down that slippery slope... (Score:4, Insightful)
.5/g per serving of Trans-fats will not hurt you. Silly point.
There is no basis for such conclusions without first knowing how many "servings" would normally be consumed.
Serving size is completely arbitrary some have been intentionally reduced to avoid having to put a number other than 0 in the trans fat column.
This has the effect of the consumer being lied to about the nutrition of the shit their eating.
Re:Artificial trans fat, not just trans fat. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people choose to consume those. Very few people consciously choose to consume transfat. That stuff is purely used to save the producer money.
Re:Is it working? (Score:5, Insightful)
So then I would take it that you are in favor of making marijuana (and other drugs) legal?
Marijuana, which is no more a drug than anything in my spice rack, yes.
Actual drugs, aka meth, coke, pharmaceuticals... yes, but in a highly regulated environment.
Why not "just label them?" If it's good enough for trans fats why not others? FREEDOM and all...
Re:Artificial trans fat, not just trans fat. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. It's "government to the rescue" after the free market has already sorted things out already. Just enforce sane and useful labeling but otherwise butt the f*ck out.
Re:Debate over (Score:4, Insightful)
She would not know, she did not make it.
I am not a vegetarian, but I have days where I do not eat meat. I have ordered items that I was assured were vegetarian and turned out not to be. If the waitress did not notice the ground beef in the 3 bean soup what are the odds she knows if trans fat is in the fries?
Re:HFC would be a better start (Score:5, Insightful)
Once sucrose is cleaved in to fructose and glucose a few ms after hitting the stomach,
Wrong. [uwaterloo.ca]
there is no chemical difference between HFCS and Sucrose.
Wrong again. HFCS is high-fructose corn syrup. The ratio of fructose to glucose is higher in HFCS than in sucrose. That's why it is called "high fructose".
The problem with HFCS is that it first bypasses the metabolic pathway that sucrose must go through, thereby creating a rush as the simple sugars are directly absorbed by the blood. Second, it puts a stress on the liver where fructose is metabolized, which causes more fructose to be converted to storage forms since there is more available at one time than can be used. The rush of glucose also stresses the glucose regulatory systems and can lead to diabetes and near-diabetes.
Gary Taubes [wikipedia.org] has dealt with the "HFCS is just sugar" myth in his books. He points out that the common factor in aboriginal peoples who adopt a western diet and earn an obesity epidemic with it is the use of HFCS and other processed carbs. They eat fats and sugars in their natural diet and do fine. It's when they pick up the HFCS and white bread that they start to bulk up.
This stuff about HFCS being just like sugar is marketing hype by the people who make HFCS products, aimed at people who are ignorant of the metabolism of sugars. "HFCS is just like sugar" is about as true as saying "drinking from a firehose is the same as sipping a glass of water through a straw."
Re:Is it working? (Score:5, Insightful)
In a supposedly free country? No, of course we shouldn't ban it.
Mandate that any product containing trans fat be labeled as such, and with appropriate health warnings (like they do on tobacco products), but outright bans of things we can only use to harm ourselves is anathema to liberty.
Why do people flip out about these basic tenets of modern civilization? Sorry, most people don't want poison to be sold as food. Go ahead and sell transfats all you want, but don't tell people it's food when it is most certainly not food.
At this point, transfats seem to be harmful food adulterants. [wikipedia.org] Food companies are already banned from putting terrible shit into our food. If you're calling it food, it better be composed primarily of food, not poison. This is not some huge encroachment on the liberty of Americans.
How about we go ahead and ban the transfats (like other things that seem like they might be poison) from the general food supply so nobody accidentally eats it, and then everyone who wants to eat the stuff can get some and put it into their food themselves. I feel this latter group would be a significant minority of the population.
Similar to rat poison, which food producers are not allowed to include in food, but you can buy from the store yourself and put into your own food if you like. This is comparable to the current situation with tobacco products.
Re:Artificial trans fat, not just trans fat. (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people choose to consume those. Very few people consciously choose to consume transfat. That stuff is purely used to save the producer money.
Almost. It's also used to make the producer of the transfat money, not just save money for the restaurant or prepared food processor who uses it. Most of that stuff is soy or canola, both of which are GMO (specifically Monsanto) and massively subsidized. But they produce so much as a result that they have trouble finding places for all of it to go. One place for the excess soy to go in particular is into oil, but as a high-acid oil it doesn't keep very well. Hydrogenating it makes it keep much longer.
This is also why we have so many products made out of milk these days, like recaldent gum. Hormones (again, produced by Monsanto, what a coincidence!) increase milk production; anyone who doesn't use them is left behind by the competition. But the demand for milk has not kept up with the production, so in order to stay in business milk processors have found new markets for milk and milk-derived products. Meanwhile, this reduces the quality of milk consumed by the average customer; rBGH/rBST has been proven to lead to reduced quality of milk.
Both of these are examples of corporate subsidies where a substantial portion of the profits flow to Monsanto, which has under Obama has secured itself a truly staggering number of important posts in our government... Not that it wasn't going on before him.
Re:Artificial trans fat, not just trans fat. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like a reasonable situation to ban a toxin that the majority of producers have proven is unnecessary to provide their goods and services.
Lead paint is still banned, even though essentially nobody last year used it to paint their home. And, that's a good thing.