Saying NO to Trans Fats in NYC

Following up on an FDA report stating that there is essentially  no safe level of trans fats acceptable in a healthy diet, the New York City Health Department is asking local restaurants to voluntarily stop using the chemically-concocted glop New York Times reporter Marc Santora ( August 11) calls " America's most dangerous fat."  NYC health commissioner Dr. Thomas R Frieden ranked the artificial fat right up there with lead and asbestos as a threat to human health.

The FDA is requiring labeling of trans fats as of January 1, a move that has sent some food companies racing to remove the t-f's from their products. Denmark  legislated a ban on the fat in processed foods in 2003.

Trans fats turn up in many commercial baked goods, and thousands of other products including many frozen dinners and entrees. And, of course, in French fries served in fast food restaurants.

Comments

[Cynthia]

I sure hope they comply voluntarily, because I dislike the idea of government control of restaurants even more than I dislike trans-fats.

I will say that I have been delighted by the recent vindication of my ongoing use of butter. I always knew that anything that tasted that good, not to mention that was natural, had to be better for you than that other stuff.

[Foodie]

Yes! the real thing is best--real yogurt, cream, butter, olive oil--and eating the real thing satisfies, deeply, with less.

[KathyF]

Wait...didn't I just read in the NY Times that too much emphasis had been placed on transfats, when there was just as significant risk with saturated fats? They're both equally bad, this article said, but saturated fat is far more prevalent.

This has always been my thinking. Saturated fat is bad for me, and even worse for the animals it comes from. Plus it's accompanied by cholesterol.

[KathyF]

Yes, I DID read that...here...http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/14/weekinreview/14kola.html

[Foodie]

Thanks for the link, Kathy--I know almost no one who eats huge amounts of butter--most butter folks, like me, eat butter modestly. And full fat yogurt or cheese, too. Yet trans fats occur in thousands of processed foods, cookies, baked goods, snacks, frozen dinners et al, foods that people who care about food virtually never eat. These "convenience" foods are eaten by many many folks who never touch butter or good quality yogurt.
No?

Olive oil remains the sacred fat.