Saturday, January 17, 2009

Everything is great in Minneapolis (St. Paul, too)

Things must be, because now the push is on to protect us from trans fats. Now, I understand that trans fats have no real nutritional value and are in fact quite bad for you, but do we need government action for them to go away? Can't we as citizens vote with our feet and eat at establishments who don't use them? Won't doing that solve the problem? In a time of budget crunches, can we afford the additional costs associated with enforcing a ban? Have things gotten better health-wise in places where trans fats have been banned? Has a cost-benefit analysis of something like this been done? Can Minneapolis and/or St. Paul ever not do something that was done in New York, San Francisco, or Portland?

To me, things like this are on the level of when an city council member in Minneapolis tried to ban circuses with animals in 2007. This is silliness and not the business of government to be micromanaging restaurants.

6 comments:

Mr. D said...

Has a cost-benefit analysis of something like this been done?

Cost-benefit analysis? We don't have any cost-benefit analysis. We don't need no steenkin' cost-benefit analysis!

Just accept the dictates of your betters, good sir. You'll enjoy the muffins that taste like lint.

Gino said...

transfats are a bigger issue when compared to los angeles banning...

now get this...


something thats been sold for years, a local culinary favorite originated in L.A., with no history of ill effects:


the bacon wrapped hot dog.

Mike said...

Gino, I posted about that a while back. Then, last October, I tried one...they are wonderful.

my name is Amanda said...

Whatev, Mike, you are just biased in favor of bacon. Bacon-wrapped everything!

The ban seems sorta dumb, because restaurants are making the move anyway; trans fats have been demonized enough to make it an advertising point.

High fructose corn syrup is the REAL evil.

Incidentally, I dropped about 10 lbs when I stopped constantly eating out at restaurants, which was completely unexpected. People don't realize how truly fattening the food is. I didn't, anyway.

Mike said...

I will never apologize for my bias towards bacon...NEVER!!!

Gino said...

even God eats bacon.