California is now the the first state to ban restaurants from making food with trans fats, which can clog arteries and raise the risk of heart disease.
On Friday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the legislation, which also includes keeping trans fats out of retail baked goods. The law does not apply to packaged foods.
New York City and Philadelphia are among cities in the U.S. that have passed bans against trans fats, but California is the first state to do this.
The law goes into effect January 1, 2010, for oil, shortening and margarine used in spreads or for frying. Restaurants could continue using trans fats to deep-fry yeast dough and in cake batter until January 1, 2011.
Do we need food laws?
This month, New York City went trans-fat free as well as started requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on their menus – a first for a U.S. city.
Health inspectors can fine fast-food and casual-dining chains up to $2,000 if calorie counts are not displayed on their menus in the same font and format as the name or price of food items.
What do you think of these new laws? Do you think we need them… or should we be able to decide for ourselves what we eat, even if it’s not healthy?
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I don’t think we need to ban the trans fat, but we should require that every-’thing’ that goes into all food products should be listed on the label.
That gives the consumer a chance to make an informed decision.
Ingredients, country of origin, etc…
This should also be applied to drugs, supplements, make-up, shampoo, etc…
Hi,
Yes, I think trans fat should be banned. Not for the healthy people who know better but for everybody else who is going to eat it anyway!!
Well. Hello. Free country. Do we need an amendment that says we should be able to choose what we eat? …
I do agree with the calories with the menu items though. A lot of people are on diets that require them to count their calorie intake everyday. This is a way to encourage that.
I would also make better choices at restaurants if dishes were labled with calories. Then again, we need to keep in mind that healthy food is not neccessarily food that is low in calories!!!
I think making it a law that restaurants not use trans fats fine. There are other fats that can be used to achieve the same goal they just don’t use them because they are more expensive. People could still have their french fries without the risk of clogged arteries
If WV passed such a law I would find the largest trans fat lunch I could find and set on the state house steps and eat.
I personally don’t mind them banning trans fats. I definitely believe that restaurants should list the calories and ingredients of their food so that everyone can make an informed decision about what we put into our bodies.
n*
I’m thrilled with this law. Many low-income families eat fast food because it’s inexpensive. They should not be subjected to unhealthy foods just because of their financial situation. Yay for California!
What will happen now is that restaurants will either substitute saturated fat, which is every bit as bad as trans fat (in excess), or substitute some of these new Frankenfats that have been engineered to technically not be trans fat, but still are nothing seen in nature. Restaurants, especially fast food restaurants, need stable, consistent fats with reasonable shelf lives and predictable behavior even when used by unskilled staff, and that’s what trans fat gave us. The problem is not really the fats, but the fact that everybody eats out way too much. If they did their own cooking most of the time, then a bit of trans fat from a splurge on a good French pastry or the like wouldn’t hurt them.
What’s next? Chocolate? Or just Chocolate with hydrogenated oils?
Transfats are bad–but so is booze—and some would say so are choices lost.
HB