Friday, September 29, 2006
to trans or not to trans...
An interesting debate is getting going about banning trans fats. Mayor "Stop smoking now!" Bloomberg is urging the NYC health department to prohibit the use of trans fats. I'm a big fan of the whole/real food dictum that says you should eat only what you can identify as edible, thus you should avoide margarine which is basically coagulated fat, lower in fat than butter though it may be. This doesn't recommend butter, of course, but if you have to eat something butter-like, you should eat butter itself which is at least what it is. (Or try the delicious and zero-trans-fat Brummel & Brown yogurt-butter - which I've just discovered thanks to you-know-who-you-are!) Anyway, the most interesting part of the debate to me is whether the government should edict our good health or good behavior. Should they ban smoking or trans fats or anything else for that matter, or should we be responsible for making ourselves sick or unhealthy? I'm awfully uncomfortable with governmental edicts, I have to say. At least one large underlying issue is that we rarely have enough information to make choices (good or bad), so if I got to influence this debate and decision, I'd spend time, effort and energy on making sure the facts were accurate and visibly available.
Labels: food
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