NEWS: NYC Eateries Kiss Trans Fats Goodbye

CULTURE: NYC Eateries Kiss Trans Fats Goodbye

Last year New York chefs had a deep-fried freak out when the City announced it was banning the use of trans fat oils in restaurants by July 2007. But as the deadline for non-Crisco compliance approaches NYC officials are saying the switch over to healthier cooking oils is going over better than expected. Even the big fast food chains are making the transition.

Trans fat is made in an industrial process that adds hydrogen to non-saturated vegetable oils, a process that leaves the oil “saturated,” giving it a higher melting point and longer shelf life-the perfect artery clogger! It made its commercial debut back in 1911 as Crisco and eventually came into widespread use in everything from hot chocolate to pizza.

Then in 2003 a consumer advocate group Ban Trans Fats took on the mighty Oreo by suing Kraft, a successful maneuver that led to the food processing giant’s removal of trans fats from Oreos and 650 other products. Ban Trans Fats then led the movement making Tiburon, California “Americas first trans fat-free city.” New York adopted the idea and then Philadelphia followed suit with its own ban. Currently their is proposed legislation to ban trans fats statewide in California.

hell ya
too bad that's not the only thing that's bad for you though.
But it's a start.

whatevah, i do what i want!

seriously: this is good. now if they can make some progress against high-fructose corn syrup we'll be in business.

that's pretty cool.

One less choice I have to make for myself.

Thanks government!

ditto d20!

I'm allergic to corn and corn products...all tis fucking high-fructose corn syrup seriously pisses me off!

Nothin' like rolling in a vat of butter though!

well, at least i still have cigarettes...

Crisco no longer has Trans Fat.

100% All Beef Patty(tm)

I am curious to know what I'm missing out then... mind explaining ?

i remember the first time i looked at a package of lipton soup and asked "what's mechanically separated chicken?"

though really, even having the option of buying hot dogs at Target is a red flag. i think they do that just to offer an answer to the eternal question of whether you can, in fact, sink lower than Orange Julius.

Apparently, mechanical separation is a process using high pressure to remove as much meat as possible from the animals' bones.

iirc, one method of mechanical separation involves grinding up the bones after the usable meat has been removed then straining the liquefied meat remnants out of the bone chunks.

it gets me hot just thinking about it.

I still don't see why the government has any right to tell me what i put in my body.

They aren't.

this isn't directed at you, but sometimes the free market is just too dumb to manage itself.

I'm pretty against the government trying to make choices for me, but I'm a lot more tired of corporations that will do things to save them a bit of money that are really really bad for everyone else. I don't know what I really think of banning trans fats, but I know there's SO MUCH shit in the foods we eat that SHOULDN'T be there, that consumers don't want to be there, but is there anyway.

Getting rid of trans fats... now if we can only get rid of the fat trannies here in SF...

(just kidding, sorry, can't resist a bad pun)...

Keep in mind what trans fat were found in....Oreos...Pizza.....fried foods....If you think that is part of a healthy diet, you deserve to be deceived by corporations....

And as far as the government dictating what you eat....do you mind waiving rights to any kind of government subsidized medical care in the chance that you may become afflicted by any kind of heart condition/ hypertension/ diabetes, and other diseases related to diet? If the US ever does reform of the health care system, I have a feeling we'll see more preventative measures such as this.

Also, as a general caveat- most companies removing trans fats are replacing them with saturated fats. That "trans free" label does not mean that you don't have to read the nutrition facts panel.
Not that I would know anything about these things.

time to start dealing original fatty Big Macs to lard asses in the financial district. I'll pay mules to ferry them in from jersey and Long Island. Mmmmm black market transfat burgers.


Watch - it's going to happen.

it's better than crack


....i guess

I'm not sure what's more frightening: the fact that they had to specify this, or the fact that they did not specify what kind of meat.

See, if only trans-fats killed people before they could breed, we wouldn't have a problem here.