Jonesing for partially hydrogenated oil? You’ll have to shlep to The District, Virginia or PG County to score. As of Jan 1, most Montgomery County restaurants are off the trans-fatty juice.
A new rule forbids most county eateries from using partially hydrogenated oils on their grills or in their deep fryers, or from shmearing partially hydrogenated margarine. Joints that use such oils to fry either cake batter or yeast batter get a pass until 2009.
The reason for the ban: Partially hydrogenated oils and margarines contain artificial trans fat, which boosts bad-cholesterol levels while lowering good-cholesterol levels in the blood. According to researchers at Harvard, more than 200,000 heart attacks could be prevented each year by eliminating trans fat from the nation’s food supply.
While the ban is easy on the heart, it pinches the wallet. Gene Wilkes, who owns Silver Spring’s Tastee Diner, told The Washington Post that customers might pay an extra 5 cents to have their breakfast toast buttered with actual butter, instead of partially hydrogenated margarine.
“Things are going to be a little less tasty and a little more expensive, but we’ll survive,” Wilkes said.
On a related note …
January is chock full of opportunities to get active. The Willow Street Yoga Center (8561 Fenton St) offers free classes this week, and Pacers Running Store (8535 Fenton St) leads free fun runs through Silver Spring every Tuesday evening.
Also, Discovery Communications once again hosts the National Body Challenge, which offers tools to better health and fitness. Register online for free, and Discovery hooks you up with a free 8-week membership at Bally Total Fitness. (There’s one in Wheaton.)
Updated Jan 1, 2008, at 11:02 p.m.
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Boxed wines and rosés are back in vogue. Just ask The Penguin's sommeliers.
Butter is LESS tasty?
Later in the article, I think it’s the same person who suggests that you’ll have to go to PG county for a good slice of pie – because, tragically, the places here will have to make them from scratch instead of buying them from Sara Lee!
Q:If MoCo is so concerned with our health, why don’t they ban tobacco?
A: Unlike trans-fat, tobacco is easy to tax.
My Question: Can I die from second hand cholesterol?
Alcohol & tobacco “kill” innocent people, and I’m opposed to banning either one, so, why are we electing people to regulate how we eat?
You could tax trans-fat pretty easily, really. Have restaurants submit a list of dishes with trans-fat in them. Every time they serve said dish, tax them like 50c per gram of trans-fat, something like that.
The libertarian in me bristles at such a solution – I’d prefer mandatory labeling of foods with their health information, and to make this more easily available.
Add me to the list of people opposed to this law. I agree that labelling foods is a good thing, but eating trans-fats harms only the person doing the eating; if people want to eat junk, let ‘em.
I’m big on regulations where they are necessary, but protecting people from themselves strays too far into nanny state territory.
Why didn’t the county exclude independent restaurants from the transfat ban the way they are doing with labeling? They’re driving up the cost of operation forthe businesses they claim to want to save (and that a lot of people don’t seem to think sell “unhealthy” food) rather than simply driving the “corporate” side crazy.
I don’t buy the concept that consuming trans fats harms only the person doing the eating. Trans fats has been shown to increase the risk of coronary artery disease, the treatment for which ultimately increases the cost of health care, insurance premiums, and medicare/medicaid expenses.
I don’t know that a ban on trans fats is more onerous or intrusive on businesses than a labelling requirement. Maybe the County should instead have required that any business who wanted to continue serving food with trans fats contribute to a public health fund to offset the costs associated with treating heart disease.
The heck with principles! We need MORE laws that make restaurants bake from scratch!
“I don’t know that a ban on trans fats is more onerous or intrusive on businesses than a labelling requirement.”
It is _plenty_ more intrusive. One thing simply requires you to inform the public of what you’re selling. The other actually interferes with a private deal between you and a business.
That’s one of the problems with socialized medicine – people who take risks jack up the costs for those who don’t.
Re: Intrusive policies. If restaurants were required to inform the public that some of their food contains partially hydogenated oils, I assume they would need to place some kind of note or sticker next to items on menus or on the products themselves. Then, in order to ensure compliance, someone from the County would need to come by unnannounced to make sure the menus are properly labelled and test the food to ensure that items did indeed contain no transfats.
Maybe this policy would be less burdensome on businesses than the costs of switching to cooking oils without transfats, but it seems like micormanagement to me. Better to give the public some confidence that trans fats are not allowed and let a restaurant advertise its products the way it wants.
Lots of activities contain risks whose costs are ultimately borne by society. Driving is a prime example, though there are countless others. If we’re to regulate behavior based upon the costs to society, we’ll never stop doing so. That’s why, IMHO, regulating personal behavior which directly harms other people (secondhand smoke being a prime example) is the way to go.
That said, we need Single Payer national health insurance. Sometimes “socialism” is the most effective solution.
I agree it would be a bad idea to attempt to regulate the many behaviors whose effects are borne by the individual and no one else. At the same time, we have laws requiring safety belt and motorcycle helmet use the self-inflicted consequences to individuals can be disasterous.
When it comes to the health effects of diet, public education about the benefits of some foods and the harmful effects of others is usually the best way to go. In the case of transfats, where there is no clear minimum level that can be established as safe and there is a clear alternative to frying with partially hydrogenated oils, I think a restaurant ban makes sense. Folks who are dying (so to speak) for food cooked with transfats can always buy a bottle of crisco and make their own meals with it.
I can’t smoke cigarettes on any property. I can’t eat junk food with transfats by the pound. I can’t get wine & beer in my favorite grocery store. God, it sucks to be unhealthy in Montgomery County. We have a right to pollute our bodies and feel like crap all of the time.
I have to buy some Twinkies and wash them down with some Busch beer now. Later.