AP: NYC to Ban Trans Fats From Eateries

NYC to Ban Trans Fats From Eateries


Tuesday December 5, 2006 10:46 AM

By SARA KUGLER

Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - From the corner pizzeria to high-end bakeries, New York
City's world famous eateries are preparing for kitchen scrutiny as the
board of health moves to ban trans fats.

The board was poised on Tuesday to make New York the nation's first city
to outlaw the unhealthy oils, though it's expected to give restaurants
a slight break by relaxing what had been considered a tight deadline
for compliance.

The restaurant industry argued that it was unrealistic to give eateries
six months to replace cooking oils and shortening and 18 months to phase
out the ingredients altogether.

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Trans fats are believed to be harmful because they contribute to heart
disease by raising bad cholesterol and lowering good cholesterol at the
same time. Some experts say that makes trans fats worse than saturated
fats.

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http://www.gladwell.com/2001/2001_03_05_a_fries.htm

<snip> But in 1990, in the face of public concern about the health risks of cholesterol in animal-based cooking oil, McDonald's and the other major fast-food houses switched to vegetable oil. That wasn't an improvement, however. In the course of making vegetable oil suitable for deep frying, it is subjected to a chemical process called hydrogenation, which creates a new substance called a trans unsaturated fat. In the hierarchy of fats, polyunsaturated fats--the kind found in regular vegetable oils--are the good kind; they lower your cholesterol. Saturated fats are the bad kind. But trans fats are worse: they wreak havoc with the body's ability to regulate cholesterol.

According to a recent study involving some eighty thousand women, Walter Willett, an epidemiologist at Harvard--who helped design the study--estimates that the consumption of trans fats in the United States probably causes about thirty thousand premature deaths a year.

McDonald's and the other fast-food houses aren't the only purveyors of trans fats, of course; trans fats are in crackers and potato chips and cookies and any number of other processed foods. Still, a lot of us get a great deal of our trans fats from French fries, and to read the medical evidence on trans fats is to wonder at the odd selectivity of the outrage that consumers and the legal profession direct at corporate behavior. McDonald's and Burger King and Wendy's have switched to a product, without disclosing its risks, that may cost human lives. What is the difference between this and the kind of thing over which consumers sue companies every day?