Today, as N. and I were driving to the library, we heard on the news that trans-fats are being banned in New York City. All kinds of questions immediately came to our minds:
Are New Yorkers going to be sneaking across the New Jersey state line to get their supply of Crisco?
How are Jews who keep kosher going to make Kugel to go with meat without parve margarine?
If some buys a Big Mac with fries in New Jersey on their way to work in New York City and the fries are not eaten by the time they go through the Holland Tunnel, are they guilty of transporting a controlled substance across state lines? Will the FBI get involved?
When we researched the question, it became apparent that the reality is much more boring than our imaginations. We were thinking there'd be a movie like "Escape from New York II: Addicted to Oreos." However, Oreos are now trans-fat free. And you can buy trans-fat free Crisco, too. Kosher bakers will have to go back to palm oil. Oh, and we did find out that the food industry did it to themselves. People want the choice of whether to eat the nutritionally value-less but somewhat unhealthy trans-fat. The food industry did not want to label it. Last year, the FDA began to require labeling but if a product has less than 0.5 grams of trans-fat, they could put O grams trans-fat on the label. So, since people can't know how much trans-fat they are getting if they eat one serving or less, they started a movement to ban the stuff.
I tend to think the government should keep out of John and Joan Q. Public's business as much as possible. Still, you can't make a choice without having information. If information is incomplete or deceptive (and saying zero grams when you should say less than 1 or trace can be argued to be deceptive) then people will find a way to assure themselves they are not getting small amounts of something they'd rather not eat at all.
McDonalds, you shot yourself in the foot!
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