Yeah, More Nannyism

[CPA]

See story here.

I know many of you will see this as a beacon of hope and triumph for humankind, but I see this as another means to an end of our freedoms and self-reliance. Thanks NYC for believing that I can't take care of myself.

 

[halik]

I think it's a brilliant idea!

Self reliance? This country has demonstrated it can't handle nutrition (comapre obesity rates to the rest of the world). So I don't see a reason why not let the gov't take care of this externality.It's better for all of pragmatically and financially, as heart disease is a cost driver in medicare.

 

[Steeplerot]

Nothing worse then getting ready to go through tunnel and someone decides to rip one right as door closes to last stop before hitting the tunnel in a sardine packed car, I say hang em high!
No mercy for fart terrorism.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: halik
I think it's a brilliant idea!

Self reliance? This country has demonstrated it can't handle nutrition (comapre obesity rates to the rest of the world). So I don't see a reason why not let the gov't take care of this externality.It's better for all of pragmatically and financially, as heart disease is a cost driver in medicare.

So, why not ban saturated fats? Oh, and high levels of sodium and sugar and sugar substitutes and everything else that is bad for you. Hell, just wipe out the whole junk food industry while you are at it because there is absolutely no nutritional value there. That would include chips, ice cream, candies, etc.

 

[Specop 007]

Originally posted by: halik
I think it's a brilliant idea!

Self reliance? This country has demonstrated it can't handle nutrition (comapre obesity rates to the rest of the world). So I don't see a reason why not let the gov't take care of this externality.It's better for all of pragmatically and financially, as heart disease is a cost driver in medicare.

HAHAHA!

Thanks, that actually made me laugh! Do you have any other good jokes?

 

[Enig101]

Seems kind of silly. On the other hand, trans fats can lead to heart disease. Maybe they feel hat the public is not aware of the risks posed by trans fats in food?

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: CPA

Originally posted by: halik
I think it's a brilliant idea!

Self reliance? This country has demonstrated it can't handle nutrition (comapre obesity rates to the rest of the world). So I don't see a reason why not let the gov't take care of this externality.It's better for all of pragmatically and financially, as heart disease is a cost driver in medicare.

So, why not ban saturated fats? Oh, and high levels of sodium and sugar and sugar substitutes and everything else that is bad for you. Hell, just wipe out the whole junk food industry while you are at it because there is absolutely no nutritional value there. That would include chips, ice cream, candies, etc.

Well knowing nutrition would be helpful - you canot prevent saturated fats, they naturally occur in meat, diary and whole lot of other places. Trans fats are synthetically manufactured and their only advantage is longetivity.

So when you look at this problem from an economic perspective, the oil producers are passing their costs onto the government / society by the means of higher -care/-caid costs. This is the definition of a negative externality; that is something that the free market doesn't address. Hence the idea of regulation.

If you disagree with this, you must also disagree with EPA, because they do the same thing, except in the real of environment.

 

[halik]

Originally posted by: Specop 007

Originally posted by: halik
I think it's a brilliant idea!

Self reliance? This country has demonstrated it can't handle nutrition (comapre obesity rates to the rest of the world). So I don't see a reason why not let the gov't take care of this externality.It's better for all of pragmatically and financially, as heart disease is a cost driver in medicare.

HAHAHA!

Thanks, that actually made me laugh! Do you have any other good jokes?

I think the more pertinent question is whether you have any more 6th grade argument comebacks... I half expected "I know what you are but what am I".

 

[imported_dna]

EDIT: nevermind, halik explained it better....

 

[jrenz]

I think it would be a better idea to give health insurance the right to discriminate based on clients' diets. As long as somebody else is going to be paying for your health care, they should have the right to charge more if you aren't taking care of yourself.

 

[GoPackGo]

You know if they were going to ban anything, they should ban High Fructose Corn Syrup.

 

[fskimospy]

I think everyone might be going a little overboard here.

Trans fats have been shown to be particularly terrible for you, going significantly beyond most other food additives. A lot off food companies and manufacturers like, KFC, etc have found or are finding ways in order to change how they make things in order to have their food taste the same but without having this crap in it. Before they were only doing it in response to lawsuits.

I just don't see why people would be mad about this. Regulation of harmful food additives has been happening for a long.... long time. It seems that trans fats are not particularly difficult to replace (I'm sure there are exceptions), and so I don't see the downside to being able to enjoy the Colonel's 12 herbs and spices without having your heart eject out of your chest. (okay fine, there's probably still tons of terrible $hit in that chicken)

 

[Craig234]

We already had a thread on this, I think, and I discussed why this is an outstanding idea, and the simpletons on the right who have no argument but 'slippery slope' to take things to some extreme that exists only in their fantasies.

To them, why have social security - if we do that, why not give every senior a million dollard? ten million? Why have medicare - if we do that, why not give them all their own personal doctor and nurse who come to their house daily to check in? Why have any pollution limits, since if we do, why not ban all pollutants period? And on on, ad absurdum.

But then again, ad absurdum is the motto of the right wing. Better arguments can come from ten year old children.

 

[jrenz]

Originally posted by: Craig234
We already had a thread on this, I think, and I discussed why this is an outstanding idea, and the simpletons on the right who have no argument but 'slippery slope' to take things to some extreme that exists only in their fantasies.

To them, why have social security - if we do that, why not give every senior a million dollard? ten million? Why have medicare - if we do that, why not give them all their own personal doctor and nurse who come to their house daily to check in? Why have any pollution limits, since if we do, why not ban all pollutants period? And on on, ad absurdum.

But then again, ad absurdum is the motto of the right wing. Better arguments can come from ten year old children.

So basically you're saying that you have nothing to contribute, just unrelated partisan name calling?

 

[BoberFett]

As long as the consumer is aware of what they're eating, why should it be banned? No easy outs here like with second hand smoke, the only person affected by trans fat is the person who eats it. If they choose to ignore the fact that they're eating something which could harm them, who's business is that but their own? And don't give me garbage about insurance costs. Insurance companies charge more to smokers, yet people still think we should ban cigarettes, proving it's not about money but about forcing people to act like you do. Good little automatons that do what they're told.

 

[fskimospy]

Boberfett, if a substance causes significant health problems, is relatively easily removable, and does not affect the taste of the food in question.... why should it be kept around? This is the common sense regulation that is already in place for TONS of other food additives already. I don't see why this one would be different?

Note: I don't know enough about trans fat to know that it can be easily removed from all foods that it is in, however several of the worst offenders have been able to do so without much trouble... so that would suggest it's not too terrible to take out.

 

[BoberFett]

Do you support outlawing sex to prevent the spread of AIDS? "Self love" is a reasonable alternative, and babies could be made in labs.

At some point life comes down to personal choice. I'm just sick of being told what I can and can't do even if doesn't affect anybody else. Drug laws, food laws, gambling laws. It has nothing to do with how hard it is to find an alternative. It has to do with self-determination and the fact that I want to choose how to live my life even if it means shortening it by eating trans fats if I so choose.

 

[ebaycj]

Here is the problem. 99% of people are not health experts (probably more than that actually). This means that they are not as acutely aware of what is good for them and what is not as they should be. The obesity rate lends some credence to this.

The problem is that Trans fats (hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils) ARE NOT NECESSARY. In all cases, these artifically manipulated fats can be replaced with real, true fats (be them saturated / unsaturated etc..). THE ONLY REASON TRANS FATS ARE USED IS BECAUSE THEY ARE CHEAPER AND LAST LONGER ON THE SHELF THAN NATURAL FATS. Basically they are used to put corporate profits ahead of the health/lives of consumers on the priority list.

Basically the FDA failed us. It allowed itself to be lobbied by the food industry into allowing things into our food supply that are ACTUALLY VERY BAD FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. That is the WHOLE REASON that the FDA was put into existence to begin with. Instead of legislation like this, what really should be happening is that the FDA should be re-evaluating the use of trans-fats as ingredients in our food. Since the FDA will not do that (food lobby is too powerful), laws like this become the only alternative (unfortunately).

 

[BoberFett]

I don't want the FDA to protect me. Where's the opt out?

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: GoPackGo
You know if they were going to ban anything, they should ban High Fructose Corn Syrup.

What??? :shocked: and cut off the Iowa corn farmers from their Government sponsored cash cow?

That will never happen.

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
Boberfett, if a substance causes significant health problems, is relatively easily removable, and does not affect the taste of the food in question.... why should it be kept around? This is the common sense regulation that is already in place for TONS of other food additives already. I don't see why this one would be different?

Note: I don't know enough about trans fat to know that it can be easily removed from all foods that it is in, however several of the worst offenders have been able to do so without much trouble... so that would suggest it's not too terrible to take out.

Trans fats did not really have heavy use until the 60's. They are manufactured fats. Basically you take a normal fat (say soybean oil) and you add hydrogen atoms to each molecule (hydrogenation), giving you hydrogenated soybean oil. The resulting trans fat has almost exactly the same properties for cooking as the original source fat. The reason this is done, is that hydrogenation process makes the fat last much, much longer before going bad (rancid). This in turn makes the fat cheaper to use, as you have less of it going to waste because it went rancid and you had to throw it out.

So, nearly anything you see that has trans fats ("hydrogenated-xxx oil" or "partially-hydrogenated-xxx oil") could be made with "xxx oil" instead, but the resulting product would just have a shorter shelf life without the trans fats.

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
I don't want the FDA to protect me. Where's the opt out?

Move to another country?

 

[Genx87]

Heh no surprise the authortarian left is on here thinking what a wonderful idea this is.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: ebaycj

Originally posted by: BoberFett
I don't want the FDA to protect me. Where's the opt out?

Move to another country?

You're the one claiming Bush isn't your president. You move, and take the FDA with you.

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Do you support outlawing sex to prevent the spread of AIDS? "Self love" is a reasonable alternative, and babies could be made in labs.

At some point life comes down to personal choice. I'm just sick of being told what I can and can't do even if doesn't affect anybody else. Drug laws, food laws, gambling laws. It has nothing to do with how hard it is to find an alternative. It has to do with self-determination and the fact that I want to choose how to live my life even if it means shortening it by eating trans fats if I so choose.

The problem is that there are almost no "healthy" alternatives anymore because the whole damn food industry uses trans fats in just about everything. If there were a "non trans-fat" bag of chips right next to every "trans-fat" bag of chips, I don't think there would be as much outcry. This law is more to push the food companies into offering alternatives (by creating artificially high demand for "non trans-fat" chips) vs. actually limiting rights..