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US FDA Moves To Ban Trans Fat
UnknowingFool writes "Citing growing health concerns about trans fat, the FDA today proposed measures to eliminate it from the U.S. food supply. While trans fat can still be used, the new measures now place the burden on food processors to justify the inclusion of it in a food product as experts have maintained that there is no safe level of consumption and no health benefits. Since 2006, the amount of trans fat eaten by the average American has declined from 4.5g per serving to less than 1g as restaurants and the food industry have reduced their use of it. There will be a 60-day public comment period for the new proposal."
TFA is more specific than the brief above describes.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
That's not the point of removing trans fats. Rather (from the wikipedia article) "In humans, consumption of trans fats increases the risk of coronary heart disease[2][3] by raising levels of the protein LDL (so-called "bad cholesterol") and lowering levels of the protein HDL ("good cholesterol")."
Should we not ban something that is directly linked to an increased risk in heart disease? I suppose smoking is also directly linked, but not banned, so I leave that debate up to everyone who isn't me.
Why not targeting high fructose corn syrup instead?
It is far more harmful and sugar is a better (albeit pricier) replacement.
You could at least read the first line of the FA.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
"The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday proposed measures that would all but eliminate artificial trans fats, the artery clogging substance that is a major contributor to heart disease in the United States, from the food supply."
Keyword: artificial. But because that wasn't enough, the article goes on to say:
"Some trans fats occur naturally. The F.D.A. proposal only applies to those that are added to foods."
Smoking = tax money
Trans fats = no tax money
Debate over.
Should we not ban something that is directly linked to an increased risk in heart disease?
In a supposedly free country? No, of course we shouldn't ban it.
Mandate that any product containing trans fat be labeled as such, and with appropriate health warnings (like they do on tobacco products), but outright bans of things we can only use to harm ourselves is anathema to liberty.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Vegans have diets that are so low in the LDL (bad) cholesterol that they can be too low. It turns out that you need some LDL cholesterol, or you bleed to death. It is only "bad" when you have too much of it.
Humans can produce their own LDL, but for some people that is not enough and they need dietary LDL. Partially-hydrogenated oils provide that need without requiring a vegan to eat any animal products.
Vegetarians who eat milk, eggs, or fish don't have this problem. But vegans do.
Of course, it is also true that a lot MORE people are dying of heart disease because of too much LDL than are dying of anything because of too little, so I think this battle is up a very steep hill.
The Wiki article and TFA are wrong.
LDL is not the 'cause' of heart disease. It never was. Damage to cells is the cause. Trans fats damage cell which mistake them for saturated fats. Oxidative stress is another mechanism.
LDL raises because it is being generated to transport materials to the sites of damage for repair. Persistent raised LDL is a sign of persistent damage, from things like oxidation, glycation and excess exposure to Miley Cyrus. LDL raising is a response to cellular damage, not a cause. This is why LDL suppressing statins have failed spectacularly to improve human health even while it reduces LDL.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
The original theory, as promoted by the same health nuts that are trying to get it banned now, is that because your body can't digest it, it was better than consuming actual fat. It came out of the "fat = bad, carbs = good" mentality from the 70's, 80's, and 90's. That mantra was repeated so much that today it's heresy to even suggest that fat is actually good for you, even though carbs, and the associated insulin response, have been linked with increased risk of heart disease.
They have a somewhat longer shelf life, but other then that, no, they are simply cheap to manufacture with.
On the more general topic of 'but we are a free country', while the future is difficult to predict, a trans fat ban could very well result in greater consumer choice rather then less. Right now there is an industry race to the bottom, everyone uses trans fats because any company that does not will have marginally higher prices which would hurt the company. As long as ANY company is using them, they all have to in order to be competitive. Consumers do not want the stuff, they just want a slightly lower cost the the box sitting next to whatever it is.
Part of the problem is that right now consumer demand is not the dominant factor in choosing which fat source to use. By removing one option that puts the power back on consumers to demand any particular source they want, or no particular source. For the moment, we have surprisingly little choice. And half the equation in freedom is having choices in the first place.
Uh... Transfats cause Heart disease. Not that I like government regulation, but all they are doing here is making a distinction that man made transfats are NOT food, they are an additive. Which is a fact.
So then I would take it that you are in favor of making marijuana (and other drugs) legal?
Marijuana, which is no more a drug than anything in my spice rack, yes.
Actual drugs, aka meth, coke, pharmaceuticals... yes, but in a highly regulated environment.
Why not "just label them?" If it's good enough for trans fats why not others? FREEDOM and all...
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
In a supposedly free country? No, of course we shouldn't ban it.
Mandate that any product containing trans fat be labeled as such, and with appropriate health warnings (like they do on tobacco products), but outright bans of things we can only use to harm ourselves is anathema to liberty.
Why do people flip out about these basic tenets of modern civilization? Sorry, most people don't want poison to be sold as food. Go ahead and sell transfats all you want, but don't tell people it's food when it is most certainly not food.
At this point, transfats seem to be harmful food adulterants. Food companies are already banned from putting terrible shit into our food. If you're calling it food, it better be composed primarily of food, not poison. This is not some huge encroachment on the liberty of Americans.
How about we go ahead and ban the transfats (like other things that seem like they might be poison) from the general food supply so nobody accidentally eats it, and then everyone who wants to eat the stuff can get some and put it into their food themselves. I feel this latter group would be a significant minority of the population.
Similar to rat poison, which food producers are not allowed to include in food, but you can buy from the store yourself and put into your own food if you like. This is comparable to the current situation with tobacco products.
You don't get to call others "nuts" when you promote LCHF diets which are unproven to be safe and totally unnatural.
I can suggest a few documentaries for you if you like... to begin with, Fat Head... it was still on Netflix last time I checked it, and most of the actual medical sources I could cite are in his bibliography.
Carbs are the energy we use, don't blame others if you eat more than you use up.
Hoo-boy... not that I really wanted to get pulled into this particular argument, but I may as well ---
1 - Carbs are *not* the energy we use... at least, not carbs as presented in foods. Yes, glucose, which is what we actually use, is a complex carbohydrate, but most of the carbs you eat are in a different form. At its most basic, sucrose, but the majority of the carbs you consume are actually fibres and starches. Your body has to expend energy to convert these to the glucose your muscles and organs can actually use, which is the same thing it does to proteins and fats. The difference is that carbs have a much higher glycemic index, meaning that it takes less energy to be converted to glucose, and it happens faster than it does with fats or proteins.
2 - Consuming something with a high glycemic index triggers a sudden increase in blood glucose levels, which triggers insulin. Insulin regulates the glucose level by causing fat cells to start storing energy.
3 - Fats have amino acids and other nutrients in them that carbs don't, and which your body needs to survive.. The reason they tend to be "worse" is because they tend to be much more calorie dense than carbs, but that's not always the case. In short, you can consume more volume of carbs than you can fats in order to get the same number of calories.
4 - Overeating and lack of exercise is the main reason people are overweight, but it's not as simple as a calculation between calories in and calories out. If you take the straight calories in/calories out calculation, you'll find that almost nobody loses weight as quickly as the numbers say they're supposed to, because of many different factors, including the body tricking itself into starvation mode. Sometimes, you will actually lose weight faster by increasing your calorie input, and increasing the amount of exercise you get.
5 - BMI is a bullshit calculation. It was originally intended to track population trends among French farmers, 200 years ago. In the intervening years, nutrition has improved significantly, and with that, peoples' general average weight has gone up. Quite aside from that, something intended to track population trends should *never* be used as a measure of an individual's health. It's possible to be in the "ideal" bracket according to BMI and be extremely unhealthy, and it's possible to be in the "obese" bracket according to BMI, and be in perfect health.
6 - Low carb-high fat was the prevailing wisdom in the 70's, before the US FDA's food guide came out. The above-linked documentary has a very good discussion of how the food guide we know today came about, but in brief, it was a fad diet promoted by a doctor in the 50's. In the 70's when the food guide came out, it was mostly a political decision, and the fad diet was used as justification for a food guide that was mostly intended to promote American grain and corn farmers, who were a very major lobbying body. It's worth noting that fat has certain amino acids in it that don't exist in carbs which the brain requires to function properly, and the doctor who came up with the fad diet in question ended up committing suicide due to depression. That aside, however, the committee in the 70's that came up with the food guide went through hundreds of doctors before they came up with one who would say what they wanted them to say -- most of the doctors at the time thought high carb/low fat was an idiotic idea.
7 - Perhaps the most damning, the current obesity epidemic started just a couple of years after they changed the