Forbes lists worst trans-fat offenders

12-10-2006 @1:58PM Donna said... Try finding healthy food as it is - it's nearly impossible. Everything has trans-fats, too much sodium, has been genetically modified, sprayed with pesticides, filled with chemicals, artificial flavors, preservatives, etc. Any conscientious human ought to be cheering for any FREEDOM they can get to get away from this stuff that's been put into our food against our wishes. The chemical/pharmacuetical companies have been making a killing off of us $$$$ - and it's killing us!!
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12-10-2006 @2:08PM Russ W said... Are some people posting comments on here actually saying they do not have the common sense or judgement capable of making their own decisions of what or where they eat???They need more laws to abolish the buisnesses that serve "conveienence foods" because they lack the willpower to drive on by? Come on America. Start taking responsability for your own actions and quit hunting "scapegoats" and excuses for your own shortfalls. Your worried about our obese kids?? Maybe we should take jail the parents for not being responsible enough to feed their kids properly. Would that cure the problem??? Or lock up the obese and force feed them only natural health foods. The FDA approved these items in question years ago. Is it everyones fault that a percentage of the population lack the strength and willpower to not use them in moderation???????? I think we have more serious issues in this country. Hold yourselves responsible for your own actions for a change. If you don't like a big mac or whopper or deep fried french fries, DRIVE ON BY.
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12-10-2006 @2:10PM Steve Horton said... We live in the USA and as such, it's good to know that nasty little things like trans fatty acids would be banned from restaurants. This is not some third-world country, "on your own, sink or swim philosophy." Gee, think about it for a minute, do you really have the time to worry about trans fatty acids in your diet? I certainly don't, and I don't want to be notified of it while I'm laid up in the hospital with coronary artery disease, considering I live through an acute myocardial infarction. Pass the butter, please, and in moderation, you'll be just fine.
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12-10-2006 @2:16PM Emory Carroll Wyatt said... One problem is, people eat out too much, especially for workday lunches. They should be brown-bagging lunches most of the time.

sFor those who whine "But I don't have TIME to pack my lunch" I don't buy it. If you have the time to drive to McD's and wait in the drive-by line, you have time to pack a healthy lunch. Lunches are also prepared by some on the weekend, frozen, then taken to work still frozen. By lunchtime, it is thawed, and much tastier.

That would take care of one of our obesity problems. The other way would be to read the labels at the grocery store, and buy healthy. Yes, you have time, you have the same 24 hours in a day as everyone else-- it's what your priorities are for that 24 that is the big question. Only eat out on special occasion, buy 'smart' food.

As for butter vs margarine, actually I use the soft spread Start Smart, both the 'regular' for frying and the 'lite' for the table (and NO I don't work for the company!!). I only use that magarine stick in the freezer for christmas cookies, and I only eat at McD's two meals a month, at which time I don't care how 'unhealthy' my meal is. Two meals a month won't kill you. It's your daily habits that will.

Leave the restaurants alone. People already know they're eating unhealthy, they are just too lazy to change. Am I right?
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12-10-2006 @2:23PM analyst said... The ultimate future to this is liberal-wielded science imposing upon us genetic profiling. A way to determine exactly what nutrients each of our bodies need through skin shaving, spectral or laser diagnosis for mineral content, breath breakdown and of course a blood work up to get to organ performance and efficiency. All this to know what balance of diet that optimizes your personal health. If you need exercise, and haven't responded you could be issued a diet/health or "well being" citation similar to a smoker for violating a no-smoking banned area today.

Just like our automobiles need a periodic emissions test, so we will be required to go to some clinical stall and have our bodies subjected to similar tests.

It will be the state detecting your wanton and cavalier behavior which will be seen as jeopardizing and depleting our resources to maintain your foul health choices, an unusual burden, being excessive costs upon the socialistic state.

This is the ultimate goal of Cultural Marxism, the so called Progressive Secularists, the popularized name now. (Which is neither progressive nor secular..for it is a religion for them)

Otis Elevator has proposed using the technology to detect who is in their elevators by sensory detection of weight, odor, facial recog. None would traverse through a building without a database knowing the frequency and time you did so. Their offer was rejected a few years ago for it intrusive and frightening invasion. It would know when used and where you went with other forensic level info we might not want building security to gather. but then we might in some cases.

Today, the elevator could even say, "Mr. smith, would like a lozenge for your sniffle?" Or " Miss Welch, I believe you forgot your cell phone, your total weight is 4.3 oz less than 5 minutes ago and I survey no evidence that you visited the restroom." Or even "George, you might consider a breath freshening mist as you go to your scheduled presentation".

But the botton line is the imposition upon us of absolutes. Those moral absolutes that are now being rejected for being so by the CM'rs, the ones that have helped us all by simple free adoption and practice, those that build this great nation from the founding fathers to know, to be replaced with their physical absolutes and yes even health fixations. Traditional American culture is under attack and it is more fragile than we realize sustaining serious damage. Our public schools are where it is being rammed into our kids morphing them into insensitive hordes, a kind of gross arrogant mindset that serves to welcome invasive threats such as these health related and cultural diversity fixations.

It wasn't what was really good for us, it is WHO has the power to impose the selected, "acceptable" absolutes and to exchange them for the traditional ones mostly rooted in religious conviction that are so abhorrent to the CM or PS mindset.

This is the season to ponder how even Santa Clause has been banned from Kensington Md by these people through the progressive power of the ACLU. They are reaching into everything to exert their cultural engineering, their social architecture, to defeat America's traditional values, trying to hide behind the noble cause of civil liberty when it is really the loss of it they are bringing like an avalanche.

I miss being able to puff a cigar, sit with others of like desire in my favorite restaurant. To see them come in and peer around then go file their complaints to the “health” dept. They didn’t frequent the place, the busy-bodies; they just wanted to impose their Cultural Marxist power. I had a nice talk with the inspector who filed a $50 citation to the establishment. How valorous these people are. Caring for us the way they do.

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12-10-2006 @2:45PM Emory Carroll Wyatt said... Liberal-wielding? Cultural Marxism? Oh, pul-EASE!! Why do some people have to find an extremist government conspiracy in every little thing? And what about the RIGHT-wing extremists? I see you didn't mention them.

This blog is about people too lazy to avoid what they know they should avoid eating, and too lazy to shop right- even when feeding their children; and not yet-another conspiracy story.

And don't forget economics. If you daily eat out, put the $ amount on a slip of paper and put it in a jar, for one month. After a month, count the total amount. YOW! If that's doesn't get you to eat healthier, then I guess nothing will!!

But I'll agree with 'analyst' on one thing. NOT ALL restaurants should be FORCED to go smoke free. It's already known that in smoking/non-smoking sections, many non-smokers prefer to sit with their smkoing buddies. Give restaurants incentive$ to go smoke-free (and advertise it as such) and if they still think their business is more lucrative allowing smoking, post that on the outside of the entrance doors as well.

Why can't we all just get along???

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12-10-2006 @3:10PM Laurie said... I have my Bachelors and Masters Degree in Nutrition and I have been reading about the dangers of trans fats (hydrogenated fats) for 20 years. I think that banning the use of trans fats in America would be one of the better choices they could make for the American public. It is NOT that they are taking away your choices, believe me donut shops will still be around, and so will potato chips and french fries. They will probably even make margarines. (They make one now with cholesterol lowering effects.)

Food manufacturers will be forced to find ways to produce the foods we want with health promoting ingredients instead of health deteriorating ingredients. Believe me, many of these food manufacturers will not do it by their own choice, they NEED to be forced. This is because hydrogenated fats have a much longer shelf life than natural fats and cost less. Banning trans fats may make things a little harder for the food manufacturers and cost a little more for us but believe me, it will be worth it. You will appreciate it in the long run. Americans will be that much closer to eating real food, not synthetic. "Real" food is what our bodies need!
Imagine ordering buttered popcorn in the movie theater and having real butter poured on top. Imagine eating french fries in ANY restaurant and resting in the fact that you are not eating a "cancer stick" (Sally Fallon). Imagine it to be commonplace that the elderly in America be healthy, vital and beautiful. (One thing you may not know is that eating trans fatty acids promote wrinkles). I would greatly respect this decision of the New York board of health and it is my hope that the decision is contagious and spreads throughout all of America.


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12-10-2006 @6:14PM Lynda said... Trans fats, what they are: a man made product that the body can not process or breakdown, It is stored in the blood stream= Arteries.
A man made product made in 1911 in crisco. I am sure food did not all taste bad prior to 1911. However, the shelf life was in fact shorter.They used to only be found in animal fats like those such as the cow and the sheep. But Man, what a great brain we have developed away to alter fat structures and change the shape of the molecule. Another word for trans fat is partially hydrogenated. Because so many food items contain trans fats that have been added it has increased the overall American population to have higher risk of health issues that can develope. If it saves a few lives to eliminate and decrease a non necessary item from our menu then why the heck not? No one has said you cant hit the drive thru three times a day, they are just saying they are sparing you a few more years of life before you may possibly die of CAD. Shoot that means you spend less money at the hospital and on medications because last I checked the price of plavix or any other cholesterol lowering drug or water pills, and oh did we forget beta blockers? well shoot those cost a hell of a lot more than your dinner you won't cook at home. So why not embrace the fact that the food industry is for once thinking of the future of parents and children and promoting happier healthier lives! YAYE to kids with normal body weight, no type 2 diabetes, and hoorah for kids who don't have high blood pressure!
Imagine you could invest in thier college education instead of thier health problems that usually only found in the older adult! Education is power, but what good is the mind if the body can't function with it.
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12-10-2006 @6:19PM Emory Carroll Wyatt said... On blog 82, Betty, you should be ashamed of yourself. I stand against the Mexican invasion, but even our own home-bred citizens sometimes get short-shrifted on a decent high school education. What if Michael has a (unidentified) learning disability, like dyslexia, and quit high school because everyone told him he was just too stupid?

You and I may never know, but Michael still has a constitution right to express his opinion. If you find his english so repulsive, maybe you should volunteer to help teach him.

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12-13-2006 @12:27PM Vesna Vuynovich Kovach said... Jeff,

Right on! I can't speak for other posters, but when I mentioned "education," I wasn't referring to "indoctrination into pop-Americanism." (Viz. the books I recommended -- they go way against that grain!) Probably a better choice of words would have been "develop your faculty of critical thinking."

Cuz, yeah, like you said, coffee in 1999 = bad. Coffee in 2006 = good. Margarine in 1999 = good. Margarine in 2006 = bad.

And the wool they pull over people's eyes on product labeling! Like the nerve of calling a spray can filled with fat "0 grams of fat per serving," because they make the serving sizes so (unrealisticaly) small that they legally round down to 0.
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12-13-2006 @1:44PM Vesna Vuynovich Kovach said... An addendum to my recent comment (90) -- Jeff's comment was 14. My original comment was 2. Also, I agree with some but not all of Jeff's points.
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2-08-2007 @4:36PM Alison said... Margarine and trans-fat essentially are UNnecessary. If the hydrogenated oil is a horrible ingredient that could be changed, it should. This should not evoke uproar. I have been apalled by the use of hydrogenated oil, for years now. I avoid it and many of my friends do too. Many people I know still do not avoid it.
For those that do NOT avoid hydrogenated oil, the only way the ban WILL effect you, is that with every bite you eat, your good cholesterol won't be shot down and your bad cholesterol won't skyrocket the way that trans-fat does it. You can relax! Be happy! Thats ONE LESS WORRY that YOU will have to deal with while eating your restarant food! Relax! Be happy!
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2-08-2007 @4:35PM Alison said... By the way, what will you be missing when your restarant starts using a different oil? Its not like they are switching the fettucini alfredo sauce to red sauce! Why are people so clingy to hydrogenated oil? I understand smoking gives one a high, good feeling, whatever. Cigarettes are on demand for a REASON. Hydrogenated oil? I have NEVER heard of it doing anything like that. HYDROGENATED OIL....No purpose, IT NEEDS TO BE ERASED FROM EXISTANCE. IT WAS A BIG MISTAKE being created. NOBODY WILL SUFFER WITHOUT IT. NOBODY.
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