The Trans Fat Banned Wagon

[K8memphis]

Here's a good question. What is the advantage to having the government do this as opposed to traditional methods as described earlier that worked very well (whether justified or not).

[MarketStEl]

After reading Michael Pollan's article, which has now put The Omnivore's Dilemma on my Must-Read list, I understand a little bit better both why people on the left, who tend to take a more statist view of things, feel that way, and why (economic) libertarians have arguments that make more sense but somehow come off sounding like they're whistling into a hurricane.

His passage dealing with Sen. George McGovern's panel that was about to issue a report that urged Americans simply to eat less red meat--and the political (and nutritional) fallout from it--served as a fulcrum for his overall argument.

Pollan does not couch his argument in these terms, but this episode illustrates well why many believe the state has to stick its nose in here: Large and well-organized interests with a financial stake in the outcome can often override common sense in order to protect their own hides. Given that the individual coming into a fight like this has the odds stacked high against him in his effort to secure an outcome that benefits his own interest, the "natural" choice, as it were, is to try to enlist one of the few agencies at the individual's disposal that might have enough power to overcome those odds--namely, the state.

And yet this same episode illustrates the deficiencies of this approach, for here the state went up against a powerful business bloc and lost, and quite likely as a result, millions of Americans have become overweight and more susceptible to a host of diseases. Paradoxically, given this, the most effective countermeasure that could be taken is the libertarian one: Forget the state. The best weapon you have against those powerful private interests is knowledge and your own common sense. Pollan provides the former in this article, and you can use the latter to figure out how to behave once you are armed with that knowledge.

Which brings us to another conundrum: We got to this pass because someone--yes, the state, but someone nonetheless--tried, not to regulate behavior, but offer common sense advice that nonetheless threatened some powerful interest group, and the interest group succeeded in getting the advice watered down.

And here comes Michael Pollan, offering the same advice some three decades later in the pages of The New York Times Magazine. Score one more for the libertarian approach (the advice came entirely through nongovernmental channels). Now the challenge is to spread it to those who haven't yet heard it. This is where we come in.

Now how does all this relate to the subject at hand? It seems to me to suggest that the libertarians are right--the chief weapon we should use to combat this threat to our health is information and lots of it. However, as with labeling on food packages, we may still need to get the state involved so that those who have the information are required to provide it (remember our case study above: as with the cattle ranchers and dairy farmers, the incentives in the case of trans fat argue against providing the information because doing so would hurt business). So while the ban may be a clumsy approach, we probably cannot achieve our goal here without some state action, but of the least restrictive kind possible--one that puts the ultimate power in the individual's hands. I think those mild sanctions represent an effort to reconcile this last goal with the act itself, which heads in the opposite direction.

[shacke]

Since we are talking of Michael Pollan, this is a link to an older NYT article on the american beef industry. Interesting read then and now. Another instance where an idea spawned to improve corporate efficiency has had a far reaching health impact - this one beyond the walls of the human coronary artery and much more complex both in effect and solution than the trans fat issue which - for me at least and min you I am very much probusiness - is a no brainer.

[serpentine]

If you think it's revolting, why do you oppose the city doing something about it, that position makes no sense. Certainly municipal governments can br guilty of posturing at times but that isnt any rationale to turn a blind eye to what is a public health crisis.

I think Budweiser is revolting too, but I don't think City Council should ban cheapshit beer to save people from guzzling away empty, tasteless calories that go straight to belly flab. Banning transfats will not force residents in the city to eat more healthfully. People can stuff their faces with food fried in peanut oil, too.

And besides, this ban would presumably not extend to every product sold in supermarkets, right? The public can buy all those big bags of chips and cookies they like. And eat Cheetos for breakfast as usual.

Now, improving school food -- THAT would actually cause city residents to be more healthy. But that's a much more expensive and complicated proposition that would require forcing companies with city contracts to be more flexible or provide higher-quality food.

Edited January 30, 2007 by serpentine (log)

[K8memphis]

Crisco cuts trans fat out

By Joe Milicia, Associated Press

Article Last Updated: 01/28/2007 06:06:56 AM PST

CLEVELAND — Crisco is getting a new formula after 95 years inAmerica's pantries that nearly eliminates artery-clogging trans fats.

J.M. Smucker Co., the largest U.S. producer of jams and jellies, has reformulated its line of Crisco shortening products to contain zero grams trans fat per serving.

"The performance is the same for those tried and true family recipes that people have come to rely on Crisco for," Smucker spokeswoman Maribeth Badertscher said on Wednesday.

Doctors say trans fats — listed on food labels as partially hydrogenated vegetable oil — can raise bad cholesterol and lower healthy cholesterol, increasing the risk of heart disease.

Link then do a search for Crisco. I don't know how long the link will last so I quoted some of it above.

[Mummer]

City council voted to ban trans fats from restaurants on September 1 and at bakeries a year later.

Mayor Street is expected to sign the measure that has the weight of all 17 members behind it. One might ask, "Where's the beef?" as the measure specifies no penalties.

KYW newsradio link

I wonder what Tastykake thinks.

[serpentine]

I wonder what Tastykake thinks.

They don't think anything -- prepackaged goods are not affected. Tastykakes are explicity mentioned in the Inky article. (link)

I will be looking forward to seeing numbers demonstrating the following assertion, from that same article: "Councilman Juan Ramos, who sponsored the bill, said it would have a clear and quantifiable impact on the health of Philadelphia residents."

[Mummer]

I'm sure the hard working staff at the City of Philadelphia Food Safety Labs did extensive research in support of this important legislation.

We'll have to avoid eating 5 year old Twinkies, since they get an exemption.

[MarketStEl]

One might ask, "Where's the beef?" as the measure specifies no penalties.

←

I interpreted the absence of actual penalties as an effort to square a circle a few posts upthread.

The story you linked, however, suggests that provisions for fines might be added later, presumably once restaurateurs and vendors had had enough time to learn about the law, if use of products containing artificial trans fats remained widespread at that time.