Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

N.Y. eateries face fines under trans-fat ban

By Frank Vitale

Collegian Staff

When you go to New York City, you can find the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and Times Square, as well as over 8 million residents. What you can’t find, however, is any form of trans fat, or at least that’s what the NYC Board of Health is hoping for.

Last Tuesday, the Board of Health voted to make New York City the first city in the nation to ban trans fats in all restaurants. This includes pizzerias like Lombardi’s Pizza, the first in the country, bakeries like the famous Magnolia Bakery, and even chain restaurants like McDonalds and Taco Bell.

The ban gives restaurants until July 2007 to stop using most frying oils containing artificial trans fats, and until July 2008 to completely remove trans fats from their menus. It does, however, allow restaurants to serve foods that come in the manufacturer’s original packaging.

The restaurant industry was less than pleased with the Board’s decision.

“We don’t think that a municipal health agency has any business banning a product the Food and Drug Administration has already approved,” Dan Fleshler, spokesman for the National Restaurant Association, told the Associated Press.

Thomas Friedan, NYC Health Commissioner, told the AP officials had “seriously weighed complaints from the restaurant industry,” especially those that claimed it was unrealistic to expect restaurants to replace all their cooking oils and shortenings in six months and all their ingredients in eighteen.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, seen as health obsessed by some (in his first term he banned smoking in bars and restaurants and he maintains a weight loss competition with one of his friends in order to stay slim), dismissed claims that NYC has crossed a line in attempting to legislate diets.

“Nobody wants to take away your French fries and hamburgers-I love those things, too,” he told the AP. “But if you can make them with something that is less damaging to your health, we should do that.”

Formed when liquid oils are solidified into fats by the addition of hydrogen (a process called hydrogenation), trans fats are used heavily in frying and are present in foods like cookies, crackers, or pizza dough in the form of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Trans fats are also favored because of their long shelf life, and are therefore present in things like pancake and hot chocolate mix. On the down side, trans fats raise your LDL cholesterol (the bad kind) and lower your HDL cholesterol (the good kind), which may lead to heart disease. It is also believed to have adverse effects on the lining of your arteries, and is linked to diabetes. The average American eats about 4.7 pounds of trans fats a year, according to the FDA.

So is it possible to really eliminate trans fats from a city of over 8 million people? Many are skeptical.

“There’s a lot of specifics of implementation that might get complicated,” says Nancy Cohen, head of the Nutrition Department at the University of Massachusetts. “One issue is detection: routine health inspections don’t test for trans fats. The only way most people know [the levels of trans fats] are from the labels.”

“It’s better to reduce the number of French fries you eat, not the amount of trans fats that are in them. People should focus on portion size, total fat, and number of calories. And food safety, that’s very important.”

While most health organizations have applauded the ban, the American Health Association warns that restaurants may have to revert to ingredients high in saturated fat (such as palm oil) if not given enough time to make the switch.

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