That’s exactly right. Giraffe’s point in asking me if I want to eat trans fats is…what, exactly? Does it require a government ban for me to avoid them? Or are there other ways to be sure that the public is informed of the potential danger, and informed of food content, so that I can avoid them if I wish?
I eat plenty of foods that, if not outright harmful, certainly are not of much nutritional benefit. Others probably ARE outright harmful. Should I be disallowed from eating those, as well, “for my own good?”
As I said, if something is harmful enough, and with no discernable benefit, then it is right to ban it. Otherwise, I just can’t see it as justified.
If I ingested the same amount of lead as I have trans-fats in my life, I would have been dead a long time ago. It’s utterly ludicrous to equate trans-fats with poison.
A fair question. And the answer is “yes”, as much as I can. So, there is good randomized placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical evidence to prove to me that statins prevent heart attacks (in those with previous heart attackes and at very high risk). OTOH, the same type of studies show that for many people, lowering cholesterol with medicines to prevent a heart attack is simply not worth it. You’d need to treat hundreds of such individuals to prevent one heart attack.
To be honest, though, the best analogy may be to smoking. There are NO good, double-blind, blah blah studies to prove that cessation of smoking prevents cancer. Still, I counsel people to quit. However, in that situation there are other ill effects of smoking that ARE reduced (eg. COPD) and the weight of evidence is more than overwhelming. Not so for trans fats.
Why would it? A full nutritional analysis, sure. But they can certainly denote whether today’s deep fried prawns in a cream of coconut sauce contains shortening. They already do this with dishes that include beef, pork, eggs, and fish. (Is that a federal law or state?)
I applaud you for doing this, but I fear you’re not in the majority in your profession. And I’d much rather have transfats banned based on what you argue is speculative science than have drugs prescribed to me based on speculative science. The social cost of the former is dramatically less. I would even qualify it as trivial.
Yes, but that’s not the issue. We shouldn’t be comparing trans fats to poisons only, but to other food additives. Do we have a quantititative breakdown of the health risks for, say, the 10 most harmful food additives, and where does this one stand on that list?
John, you’re asking for something that I doubt exists. It’s difficult to reduce this to a simple table ranking everything from best to worst, just because individual consumption, and probably genetic variability, determine how dangerous a food or additive is. To me this is a question about probability of risk (high), prevalence (high), and ease of substitution (high).
I mean, are we basically contending here that the FDA’s concerns about transfats are completely groundless?
Google on “most harmful food additives”, and you’ll get a bunch of hits on this. The first one listed the top four as trans fats, refined grains, salt, and high fructose corn syrup. Other sites listed various artificial sweeteners and colorings as most harmful, but trans fats were right up there.
I’m not sure how scientific the findings are, however.
Not at all. We’re saying: Why pick this one thing to ban out of all the other food items that are bad for us, and if one is banned, why are they not all banned?
You’d have to ask the lawmakers, but my guess would be that it’s more harmful than most other additives, has negative health benefits, and no addition to flavor.
I must say that I’d support a ban on HFCS as well.
You asked “Why should I not be able to decide if I want to take the risk of eating these types of foods?” I was curious why you (or anyone) would want the choice of eating foods with trans fats, i.e. if you had any reason to prefer a food with trans fat over one without.
Many of the things that are already regulated in foods will not cause instant death, either, but merely an increased risk of serious disease down the road. I don’t see how trans fats are any different, and I think the argument that it will lead us down a slippery slope to a federally-mandated diet of tofu and fresh vegetables is pointless alarmism.