That’s a gigantic, Evel Knieval-sized leap from “banning trans fats is silly”.
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Not really. It’s more like stepping across a gutter full of silly ideas.
As an Addled-American myself, I must say that I strongly object to this monkey basket propeller toast. That’s exactly what the the Obamacrats want you to think.
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It’s even worse than that.
You’ll often see a little g next to that 0. That g is for the metric gram. Under the law, companies can round out the amount of trans-fat in their products, so you’ll often see the phrase “0g trans-fat per serving” on their package to make you think it’s trans-fat free, when in reality there is still 499 milligrams (1000mg = 1g so they round 499mg down to 0g) of trans-fat in whatever they arbitrarily define as a serving.
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They also get by on the 0 transfat thing by dicking about with the serving size.
For example a potato chip bag can say it’s zero trans fat…per serving.
Because a serving contains less than 1 gram…it could be .499 of a gram and they could say zero transfats.
And they define a serving as 12 potato chips.
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Just tell him that trans fats are what caused Jenner to make her big reveal…
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Blue Bonnet is margarine, not butter.
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The obvious next step here is surely home hydrogenation kits so people can make their own trans-fats at home. Quickly, to Kickstarter!
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Worde… for a second, I was thinking, “WTF, they’re allowed to call such a product Butter?? Nooooo!!!”
People already buy poisonous alcohol and tobacco when they want. Why not poisonous food?
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Do you like trans fats? I’ve heard this argument before, but few say they truly prefer the taste of trans over cis fats, or even claim to tell them apart. I know I’m no such connoisseur; if I want to know the geometric isomers of the lipids in something, I need to read the ingredients.
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I defer to the distinguished and delightfully hypocritical Councilman Juan Ramos of Philadelphia:
Ramos, who is adamantly for the ban on trans fat and having the bakeries follow it, admitted to patronizing each bakery represented at the hearing at least twice each in a long speech about how much he loves their food. This caused Councilwoman Joan Krajewski, who sponsored the amendment to the ban, to pipe in and say, “What you’re saying is you’re willing to amend it then, right?” Ramos: “What I’m saying is, I like the cakes.”
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That doesn’t really address the question. Many people like fats without regard to type; it’s one of the reasons fast food is popular. But when for instance various fast food companies switched from partially hydrogenated oils to soybean oil or canola oil, did you - or anyone else here - like their food more or less as a result?
I didn’t address the question because the question is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if the public can’t tell the difference between trans fats and other fats, because there’s nothing really wrong with trans fats (“I like the cakes”) and thus no reason to change. The rule is ultimately arbitrary.
No, it’s very well established that there is something wrong with trans fats, namely that they are associated with an excess risk of heart disease in a way others are not. To me such a thing could be worth regulating or not, depending on the details; and that includes if it is a risk people feel benefit from, like alcohol or cakes in general, or if nobody would really mind their absence.
I’m not surprised you might disagree on how much that matters; even what daneel said, where companies should be allowed to do anything, has its proponents. But you phrased this in terms of the possibility of consumer preference - if people “like trans fats” - and I am interested if that is honestly a concern for anyone.
From your responses, I take it the answer to that is still no. People certainly like the cakes, but if they were made with cis fats instead of trans fats, consumers wouldn’t lose anything except some risk of cardiac arrest. Which to me means their preference isn’t a worry when we ask if it is worth regulating them.
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I’ve actually found that most products have fairly standard and consistent serving sizes (in the US). Potato chips (crisps), for example, typically have a serving size of 1oz (28g). This seems to be consistent whether it’s a large “Family Size” bag or a small “grab bag”.
Whether or not 1oz (28g) of potato chips (crisps) is the amount one would reasonably be expected to consume in a single session is probably up for debate.
