By Brandon Restrepo and Matthias Rieger, both Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellows in the Department of Economics, European University Institute. Originally published at VoxEU
Artificial trans fat is omnipresent in the global food chain, but the medical consensus is that it increases the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease and stroke. Between 2007 and 2011, New York City and six other county health departments implemented bans on trans fat in restaurants. This column presents the first evaluation of the effect of these bans on cardiovascular disease mortality rates.
The use of artificial trans fat or partially hydrogenated oil – which is industrially produced by adding hydrogen gas to liquid vegetable oil – is widespread across the world’s food production chains and service industries. Aside from the fact that it has the same caloric value as any other fat, there are no known health benefits to consuming artificial trans fat. The food industry prefers using trans-fat-containing oils to healthier oils because it is cheap, it increases the shelf life of food products, it promotes flavour stability, and it improves the texture of food. Artificial trans fat is typically found in shortenings, margarines, fried fast foods, baked goods, and snack foods (Eckel et al. 2007).
But how much do we really know about artificial trans fat? Well, we know that eating foods containing artificial trans fat increases the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) such as heart disease and stroke, because it raises bad cholesterol and lowers good cholesterol (Mozaffarian et al. 2006). Thus artificial trans fat is worse than saturated fat, which increases both good and bad cholesterol. The American Medical Association has recently supported the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendation to eliminate artificial trans fat from the US food supply (AMA 2013). Some European countries (e.g. Denmark and Switzerland) have also recently made efforts to eliminate artificial trans fat from their food supply.
What we do not know, however, is how much of an effect banning artificial trans fat will have on public health.
The Impact of Banning Artificial Trans Fat on Cardiovascular Health: First Causal Evidence
In a recent paper (Restrepo and Rieger 2014), we exploit the fact that New York City and six other county health departments implemented trans fat bans in all food service establishments that require a permit to serve food between 2007 and 2011. This allows us to assess whether artificial trans fat consumption has a causal impact on cardiovascular health and CVD mortality rates.
Using variation in the artificial trans fat content in the local food supply of a total of 11 New York State counties resulting from the policy mandate, we find that trans fat bans caused a 4% reduction in deaths attributable to CVD. We also find evidence that the reduction in mortality caused by trans fat bans is mostly driven by individuals who are at the greatest risk of dying from CVD, namely, senior citizens.
How were CVD Mortality Rates Trending Before Trans Fat Bans Were Implemented?
A natural question that arises is: Did the CVD mortality trends in counties that implemented trans fat bans differ from those in counties that never implemented them? If the trends before the bans were similar, then the counties that did not implement the bans may be viewed as a suitable ‘control group’, and as a good counterfactual for the CVD mortality trajectory that the ‘treatment group’ would have followed in the absence of trans fat bans.
We address this issue by normalising each treatment county’s trans-fat-ban implementation year to zero and plotting CVD mortality rates by treatment status. Figure 1 shows that the CVD mortality rates in ‘treatment’ and ‘control’ counties were trending in a very similar fashion before trans fat bans were implemented by ‘treatment’ counties. A clear downward break from trend is observed in the implementation year for ‘treatment’ counties, whereas the trend in ‘control’ counties appears to follow its pre-implementation-period trajectory.
Figure 1. Trends of cardiovascular-disease-related mortality per 100,000 persons by treatment status
Notes: Authors’ calculations based on Vital Statistics of New York State. These are mean CVD mortality rates by county and year. We assume that a ban is in effect if the law has been effective for at least six months in a given year. Each county’s implementation year is normalised to zero.
This figure alone suggests that trans fat bans were effective in reducing CVD mortality rates. However, we conduct a regression analysis to account for the fact that ‘treatment’ counties are seemingly ‘healthier’ (as measured by lower CVD mortality rates throughout the study period) and to rule out the possibility that the relationship between trans fat bans and CVD mortality rates is merely a spurious correlation.
How Many Lives Have Trans Fat Bans Saved?
Figure 2 shows Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimates of the reduction in overall CVD mortality rates, heart disease mortality rates, and stroke mortality rates caused by trans fat bans, along with their corresponding 95% confidence interval bands. We find that trans fat bans reduce CVD deaths by 12 per 100,000 persons, reduce heart disease deaths by 9.5 per 100,000 persons, and reduce stroke deaths by 2.6 per 100,000 persons. (These are estimated reductions of about 4.4%, 3.9%, and 8.5% relative to our sample means.) The estimated reduction in CVD is economically important – for instance, it is about twice the size of the mortality rate per 100,000 persons for cirrhosis of the liver in New York State in 2006.
Figure 2. Trans fat bans and cardiovascular disease mortality by type of disease
Notes: Authors’ calculations based on Vital Statistics of New York State. These estimates are based on regressions of (log) CVD, heart disease, and stroke mortality rates on the following independent variables: treatment dummy (1 if a county implemented a trans fat ban, 0 otherwise), county level unemployment rate and (log) personal income per capita, and a dummy for New York City interacted with a dummy for years 2010–2012 to account for hospital-level interventions aimed at improving the accuracy of cause-of-death reporting. N = 682, standard errors are always clustered at the county level.
To get a better sense of the magnitude of our estimates, consider the following back-of-the envelope calculation. New York State counties that implemented trans fat bans over our study period had 34,215 heart-disease-related deaths in 2006, so our estimates indicate that, on average, implementation of trans fat bans prevented about 1,300 (3.9% × 34,215) heart-disease-related deaths per year. Assuming a discount rate of 3%, Aldy and Viscusi (2008) find that the cohort-adjusted Value of a Statistical Life-Year is about $302,000. Even if fatal heart attacks cause only one year of life to be lost, the fatal heart attacks prevented by trans fat bans can be valued at about $393 million annually.
Figure 3 shows OLS estimates of the reduction in all-cause mortality rates caused by trans fat bans by age group, along with their corresponding 95% confidence interval bands. We find that the estimated effects of trans fat bans on total mortality rates are small in magnitude for non-seniors, and we can never reject the null hypothesis that these estimates are statistically equal to zero. In contrast, we find that trans fat bans have a large negative effect on the all-cause mortality rates of senior citizens, which we estimate to be a reduction of about 15 per 100,000 persons. Note that this estimate is very similar in size to the estimated reduction in CVD mortality rates we presented in Figure 2. This suggests that most of the impact of trans fat bans on total mortality is driven by its impact on CVD mortality.
Figure 3. Trans fat bans and total mortality by age group
Notes: Authors’ calculations based on Vital Statistics of New York State. These estimates are based on regressions of (log) CVD, heart disease, and stroke mortality rates on the following independent variables: treatment dummy (1 if a county implemented a trans fat ban, 0 otherwise), county level unemployment rate and (log) personal income per capita, and a dummy for New York City interacted with a dummy for years 2010–2012 to account for hospital-level interventions aimed at improving the accuracy of cause-of-death reporting. N = 682, standard errors are always clustered at the county level.
Conclusions
Our analysis reveals that trans fat bans are effective in reducing deaths attributed to CVD such as heart disease and stroke. European countries such as Denmark and Switzerland, as well as many local and state jurisdictions outside of New York State, have also passed laws restricting the amount of artificial trans fat that food production and service industries are allowed to use. In 2013, the Food and Drug Administration made a preliminary determination to remove artificial trans fat from its Generally Regarded as Safe database, which is likely to eliminate it from the US food supply in the coming years.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in New York State and in the US, and stroke is not far behind. In the US, the total cost of the major types of CVD was estimated to be about $444 billion in 2010, and treatment of these diseases accounts for nearly 17 cents of every dollar that is spent on health care (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2011). The New York experience can prove valuable for many public health authorities around the globe. Eliminating artificial trans fat – which has no known health benefits – from the global food supply has the potential to lead to substantial reductions in the loss of life and health care costs associated with CVD.
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Can’t say I’m surprised, though I wonder why this still has to be proven..
Nor does the consumption of animal transfats and sat fats. I would point out this video, which deals with the question why the role of diet is consistently underestimated in nutrition studies (the video is intended for a quasi-lay audience, but the references are all there). Short-form answer: ‘sick population’. For more, see this talk.
What are you doing for your fats? Olive oil and avocados? Maybe some flax and nuts? I’ve alkalized a couple times to rid myself of medical problems and making sure I got enough fats was a bit of a challenge. Yes, I realized this is an “unproven” health practice but it got rid of my Lyme so that was proof enough for me.
To answer your questions from the other day (no one reads comments day after): yes, if at the end of their lives I were going to put one of my pets down and someone was interested in eating it I would be all for it. I couldn’t do it myself but would feel better if they weren’t wasted. Also, raising chickens you do get a fair amount of males which most people butcher at the end of their first year if they aren’t your breeders. Is it okay if you turn them loose in your fields or the forest to live life freely for them to be eaten by nature? Or are you in the camp that wants to kill all the carnivores too? Last question, what makes plant life less valuable than animal life? I try to have a reverence for all life. When male gamete meets female gamete does it matter whether the result is a chicken or an apple?
“I’ve alkalized a couple times to rid myself of medical problems”
What kind of medical problems do you mean? If you eat a more or less correct diet, there is no reason you should need to alkalize it.
The Lyme disease that I mentioned in the sentence following. I felt better after 2 weeks but kept up on it strictly for 4, semi strictly for 2 more after that (I missed cheese). I also drop all grains (except quinoa and oats), sugars, the little meat I do eat, coffee, and dairy whenever I start feeling illness approaching. Haven’t been sick since. This includes taking care of my 10 yr old nephew for the past 2 years and dealing with all the germs he brings home from school. I eat exceptionally well normally (fresh, local veggies, little meat, lots of quinoa) but this is more or less my variant of antibiotics.
This is not a rigorous way to analyze the effect of a diet change on Lyme disease, but if you do feel better, why not.
I take care of germs by doing nothing; it works quite well usually.
There is no question many people consume too much antibiotics (and other drugs) and should adopt a better diet, but your diet don’t replace antibiotics.
No, a rigorous way to analyze would be to have hundreds or thousands of people do the same thing and see. I qualified my original statement saying it was unproven. I made no change in my life except diet. There before, gone after. I have no idea exactly how or why it works, but it provided the same effect to me as those who did take antibiotics. It may have just boosted my immune system to a point where it handled it all on its own. My wife had Lyme twice and the second time the antibiotics didn’t work but alkalizing did. She was the model that led me to try it before antibiotics as I would rather spend extra money on even better food than I usually eat than give it to the health care industry. With the rise of supergerms (antibiotic resistant) now, it’s not like our antibiotics will be good much longer. R&D in that sector is in trouble.
nuts, seeds if I want extra; don’t really care for avocados. I hardly use oils in my cooking. I would point out, though, that most plant foods contain small amounts of fats, and that you don’t really *need* all that much fat in order to be able to function. If you want more specific dietary advice, though, I’d refer you to this book.
I am not interested in what happens in nature; I am interested in the human context. There is no need to breed animals, and by doing so you are, by your actions, deciding that the life of the pet you decide to bring into the world is worth more than the life of other animals (that other people bring into the world in order to kill, or the animals hurt/killed by your pet while it is hunting in case of cats or aggressive dogs). None of this is necessary, and as such, I see none of it as justifiable.
I suppose if you’re talking about mom&pop farms; on factory farms they are just killed and/or shredded outright because they don’t grow quickly enough — not that it is much of a difference.
Sentience, mostly. Plants cannot suffer, cannot respond to environmental challenges except via reproduction/mutation. Even if you don’t find that a satisfactory answer, consider that an animal eats its weight in plants many times over by the time you kill it; so indirectly you’re consuming far more plant life by eating animals than you would be by eating plants directly.
Plants don’t suffer? That is the purest sort of Animal Chauvinism. You have no idea the unbearable volume of Plants’ Silent Screaming at the hands of their Vegan Torturers.
Run along now, little troll.
That is out of line.
Can I ask why? The implicit ‘argument’ is that those who consume plants directly somehow cause more “plant suffering” than those who consume animal products. As I had already indicated in the post he’s responding to, even if this is something that bothers you, the opposite is the case. In other words, there is no argument, only an attempted ad hominem.
(If this was intended to be a joke, I apologize, but I have met too many people on the internet who use this as an “argument” to last me a lifetime.)
Actually, it is an argument and very likely a correct one. It is clearly one to which you have no answer. Some experimenters have begun to explore the issue of perception and response in plants. Interested persons can read a book called The Secret Life of Plants by Tompkins and Bird.
In one of the books in the “tracker” series by Tom Brown ( I forget which book), Tom Brown recounts how as a young boy being trained and guided by “Grandfather”, an Apache elder living close to his military-serving son in New Jersey; he was instructed in the art of following a small deer family including young post-fawn deer for several days in order to get all these deer used to his presence. After which he was supposed to kill the trusting young deer up close and personal, which he did; then bringing the corpse back to camp. He writes that he was very upset over what he had done and deeply furious with “Grandfather” for having led him into this place of moral disturbance. Then it was that “Grandfather” said in serious voice . . . ” when you can feel as much regret for one blade of grass as you feel for that deer, then you will have become one with all things.”
You are not one with all things. It is a consciousness you will never develop. You do not have the spiritual capacity within you.
I will give up my hamburger when you peel my cold dead teeth from around the patty.
Run along now, little veganazi special pleader.
Excuse me?
Different clue:
I am not interested in your narcissistic fantasies about “becoming one with nature“, and “developing a consciousness” — a psychological experience. What disturbs me is that people are frivolously killing sentient beings — which is happening to the tune of 56 billion land animals as well as a trillion fish per year, for no reason other than that they’re used to it/they like the taste. So anyone who thinks it wrong to frivolously harm any type of nonhuman, should realize that just about all harm inflicted on animals is inflicted frivolously, and that — by your own lights — you should become vegan. Because I’ll say it again, there is no nutritional need to eat animal products.
Aside from that, even if you care as little about frivolously causing harm to sentient beings as you do about the grass they eat in order to reach their slaughter weight, there is still the fact (as I pointed out in my OP) that eating animal products is the main reason for the health crisis most of the developed world finds itself in.
“I am not interested in what happens in nature; I am interested in the human context.
Those two things are inextricable. You cannot create anything in the universe without destroying something else. I cannot create a piece of furniture without destroying a tree. You can’t create a farm without destroying animal habitat. Destruction of habitat is increased competition and increased death. Your yearning for vegetables indirectly kills animals. You argue against breeding animals that happen to kill other animals. How should we accomplish pest control in agriculture? You dislike my cat who eats the moles/mice, my chickens and ducks who eat everything else, and probably the snakes I make homes for because I am encouraging breeding of killing machines. Even when I leave weeds that draw beneficial predator insects I am breeding animals to kill other animals… for the sake of my vegetables. I do grow tobacco to make nicotine sprays for serious insect problems but isn’t that more indiscriminate killing? I am doing my best to work within nature’s natural cycles because I know that I am just as much a part of them as everything else and fighting them is useless. In that same vein, I am voraciously against factory meat farms as I am against the ecological dead zones that are monocropped fields.
” Plants cannot suffer, cannot respond to environmental challenges except via reproduction/mutation.”
Have you never seen a plant grow toward the light (phototropic growth)? Plants can suffer heat stress, water stress, stress from mineral deficiencies, pH stress, light stress, and so on. Is stress not suffering? Reactions to stress include things like wilting, yellowing, stunted growth, and massive outpouring of seeds (genetic hail mary).
Plants can *react* to environmental stimulation, yes. They cannot respond. That’s why a plant will kill itself if you turn it around too quickly.
You’re ignoring the bigger picture. Of course my “yearning” (i.e., physiological need; there is no physiological need to eat animal products) results in habitat destruction. But eating animal products — besides requiring the unnecessary use, abuse and death of animals — results in far more habitat destruction than eating plants does. As the 2006 FAO report Livestock’s Long Shadow showed, 30% of the world’s arable land is currently in use to house and feed food animals, as opposed to 10% for direct human consumption. Animals eat anywhere between 4-16x their slaughter weight in plant protein. If we stop doing this, a far smaller portion of the earth’s land surface will be used for these purposes.
To answer your other question: I don’t know how we should accomplish pest control myself, but I would point out that the overwhelming majority of the cats and dogs in existence only exist to serve as companion animals, rather than as pest controls. They serve no purpose except as entertainment for their owners, who may treat them as they wish, without (meaningful) repercussions.
React and respond mean the same thing (check definition 4, re: physiology), maybe you mean something different? Plants do not perform a 180 degree turn in nature. If some unnatural force came and reversed the direction you are set to get your flow of energy from I don’t think you would react/respond very well either.
I am on board for a massive reduction in the consumption of meat and horrible practices. But you are ignoring that some animals are raised (grazed) on land that is no good for farming. Do you think you will be more productive food wise trying to farm the tundra or raising musk oxen? What about cattle in Montana and the badlands, grazing where farming is impractical? Swiss alpine cows? Many heritage breeds of farm animals did a fantastic job of getting their own food in a niche that didn’t affect (or even helped) their human companions. What about the biodensity increase when my birds symbiotically co-exist with my plants in my garden?
The main problem here is that humans are unique in living out of equilibrium with their environment. The only reason we have as many humans as we do is petroleum. Soon it will no longer be feasible to have massive food transportation chains and people will be back to eating a more geographically sensible diet. We don’t need to encourage human “growth” as it is only destructive to our environment and thus ourselves.
As I see it, to react is something you do reflexively, whereas a response is something that you mull over and craft. What I mean, in any case, is what I said in the first post: Plants cannot learn, are incapable of meaningful intergenerational behavioral change, they have no CNS, and they aren’t sentient. Animals (including humans) do/are.
All of the animals that are regularly eaten are invented by humans, and pretty much all herd/pack animals except the turkey and bison are imports to NA. We create disequilibria, and I doubt that’s going to change any time soon.
No I’m not. There is no shortage of arable land and no “world food shortage”; the problem is that enormous swathes of land are reserved to use to produce fodder on. The african land grab that’s underway now is happening for similar reasons; as is the deforestation of the amazon. Pretty much none of that is happening to produce produce intended for human consumption.
Sorry, but in what sense are we their “companions”? In the sense that we unnecessarily use them for a few years and then eat them? Doesn’t sound very companionable to me.
“Plants cannot learn, are incapable of meaningful intergenerational behavioral change, they have no CNS, and they aren’t sentient. Animals (including humans) do/are.”
Okay, so what about invertebrates, are they on the menu? Do a couple ganglia count like with snails, crabs, and lobsters? What about starfish? They have no brain so are clearly not sentient (they do have a nerve ring). If you are counting right down to a nerve net do the trillions of hydra killed everyday for water filtration bother you? Octopi are incredibly smart and are also invertebrates. So where exactly are you drawing the line?
All of the animals that are regularly eaten are invented by humans and pretty much all herd/pack animals except the turkey and bison are imports to NA.
Should read: Many land farmed animals were selectively bred by humans. Some are still very wild, like mallard ducks, and will fly away and (possibly) come back. Are we abusing them if we use their eggs and don’t eat them? My neighbor raises bison on land that has no more than 3″ of soil on it, do you call that arable? Should we let the bison come back to the millions they were and let them tramp through their old stomping grounds in the mid west?
We create disequilibria, and I doubt that’s going to change any time soon.
So why bother trying, right? In reference to arable land there is quite a difference in soils. Most farms still in operation are clustered around the best soil. Different crops grow better in different soils and different climates. You can’t just chop down a forest and start growing. Soil building is a process. There is also a marked difference between good soil locations and areas of high population density. This is fine as long as you have the crux of your argument, petroleum (fertilizers, pesticides, mechanical planting/spraying/harvesting, and transport). How is extracting/consuming/burning more of that good for the world’s sentient beings? Would the Amazon be destroyed at the rate it is if the world didn’t have a hunger for bananas year round?
What on earth are you talking about? The earth’s current population level is a given (unless you want to argue for selective extermination, which I do not). As such, the only question from that perspective is how that population can be fed as efficiently as possible. Furthermore, given that a plant-based diet is adequate during any stage of life, the only reason to eat animal products is because you derive pleasure from doing so. Both behaviors are unnecessary for survival, so as far as excuses go, there is no difference in rationale between kicking pets because you derive pleasure from doing so, and killing or exploiting animals because you find the taste of dairy products, eggs, or meat pleasurable. Both are equally unjustifiable. If that were to stop, we would have 56 billion fewer land animals in need of food and transport every year; and 18% of the yearly GHG emissions would ‘evaporate’. So where do you get the idea that abolishing this practice would lead to increased fossil fuel use and GHG emissions?
If that were to stop, we would have 56 billion fewer land animals in need of food and transport every year; and 18% of the yearly GHG emissions would ‘evaporate’. So where do you get the idea that abolishing this practice would lead to increased fossil fuel use and GHG emissions?
Fossil fuel use doesn’t have to increase to be damaging. It has to stop or climate change will be doing our selective culling for us. You haven’t put up a viable alternative to commercial, transport heavy, petrochemical heavy agriculture yet. I am putting forth a model based on sustainability and environmental harmony (or should I say balance since you will dispute killing things is harmony?). I have repeatedly said I am for a massive reduction in meat. Your grain production and population centers are still geographically distant and require massive energy inputs for distribution.
One other topic you haven’t breached is the natural population explosion of herbivores. Do you realize what a pest deer will be? Since hunting them is obviously out in your view are you okay with packs of wolves coming in to roam suburbia to deal with the issue naturally? Otherwise, many of them will have a prolonged death due to starvation when they population surpasses its food supply. That brings another issue: is it okay to eat a deer that a pack of wolves has freshly killed? I mean, we didn’t kill it or raise it to be killed – we’re guilt free – so is there a reason to waste it? What about roadkill? It’s unfortunate but again, why waste it? In our state there is a waiting list for deer hit by cars if the person hit doesn’t take it.
BTW, what was your line on the invertebrates? Nothing with a nervous system? What about sponges? Technically an animal, no nervous system to speak of, but does withdraw slightly from contact. Not really a source of food but wondering what a vegans take on that is.
MtnLife: all you are arguing for is a different kind of ‘harmony’ with one’s surroundings. But the shape of yours is every bit as dictated by ‘man’ as the current one is. Secondly, again, your model is irrelevant for at least 50% of the world’s population, if not more. I am uninterested in fantasizing about ‘the structure of the world under ‘sustainable’ system X’, as it a waste of time (unless you have a plan to impose your ideas, top-down, on everyone on earth. In which case I’ll also pass). I don’t *have* a “system”; all I have is my voice.
As for ‘deer running rampant’: It fascinates me that ‘man running rampant’ is something you (grudgingly) accept, while ‘deer running rampant’ seems to keep you up at night. What I am interested in, is getting people to see that killing and using (farm) animals for meat and dairy/eggs/fish production is frivolous. If it turns out, once the world is vegan, that deer take over the world, it may be that we’ll have to think about that. Until that is the case, I see no real point in dreaming up a response to that hypothetical.
As for invertebrates: I already answered that question. It is unnecessary to kill them, so why not let them live?
Machaelle Small Wright’s books have much to add to this discussion. For example, the 3rd edition of her first book, “Behaving As If the God In All Life Mattered”.
On a practical basis, the most recent “Garden Workbook” is recommended for anyone wanting to live with a closer connection to nature, regardless of location (urban or rural).
The blurb for Behaving sounded like something I would really enjoy. Thanks! I’ll check it out.
There is another book you might wish to read, called Meat, A Benign Extravagance, published by Chelsea Green. There is also a book you might want to read called Cows Save The Planet. You might also want to read about deploying herd animals for grassland bio-restoration carbon suckdown-restorage being carried out by Alan Savory and others.
I think most people here missed the critical analysis, responding to various diets and “what do you do’s.” Without seeing the study in toto, this is sketchy science. Or cherry picked info.
1. How do you call a region that did not undertake the ban a control. There are so many factors that are present that this is most likely an invalid assumption.
2. The data presented shows CVD rates were trending down in all areas before the ban was in place.
3. there is no real discussion on how lifestyle in an area that bans transfats differs from areas that do not. Maybe there are other lifestyle issues that are responsible. This is just a poorly described look at data
4. a true study would take people with the same habits/lifestyles and fee them the different fats. Then, report over an extended time period. One year? Really?
This study is bad science but good newspaper entertainment.
It has been known for many years Trans Fat are a big contributor to CVD. Our food chain is complex, large, and backed by strong monied interests.
A little background. Like many industry sectors, the food manufacturing industry has a only a few very rich global players. I am talking about companies that extract corn, wheat, beets, etc to their components. The reason no one ever hears about these very important players is because they are privately owned family or farmer coops. They control food chains globally. The whiskey or cookie you buy, for instance, has many components which are manufactured not by the company on the label but by the privately owned food manufacturers.
Here in Europe we like to fashion ourselves as the model for food safety. Well, in the court of public opinion at least. We rail against American chlorinated chicken or GMOs or hormone injected cattle. I would say 100% of the angst is not backed by science. None. I surmise the argument against American crops and meat product imports has more to do with a long standing practice of protecting French farmers. It has morphed into a much larger call to arms over the years with TTIP on the horizon. There is even a grass roots online campaign to stop the TTIP and the Canadian free trade agreements, part of which is to block the import of American foods.
With all of our vitriol about American food imports we are silent on Trans Fats, a known killer. Food manufacturers use them all the time because they are cheap and provide the texture in the end product. Nevertheless, an incident occurred several months ago in France where a small grocer chain advertised they sold organic foods — minus the trans fats — and their products were superior. This could not be tolerated. Behind the scenes the food manufacturers sent a team of lawyers after this grocer and silenced them with potential lawsuits.
I double checked…. the lawsuit still may go through. The French grocer has a marketing campaign and thinks it will win the day.
By the way, there is a high demand for agricultural engineers. If anyone is interested.
I’m not sure I agree with this assessment that our food conglomerates are little known family or farmer coops. ADM may not be on the tip of the public’s tongue for instance, but they are a huge player who were covered on this blog for their price fixing schemes on global commodities.
The story of the grocer in France is interesting and surprising to me. As an American, I have a vision of the French caring about the sanctity of food above all.
When I think of all the people I’ve known, friends and family who lived well into their late 80’s to late 90’s with a cigarette in one hand and a tub of crisco or stick of oleo in the other I don’t know what to believe, my lying eyes or yet another survey.
In one pre caffeine morning thought I can ask if New Yorkers live a little longer since their economics improved in this same survey period? I’m not a fan of artificial foods at all, but I’m much less of a fan of stress. And could I create a survey to support my question/answer either way?
Personally I try and stay away from eating stuff that is synthesized in a unit operation that belongs in a petrochem plant based on the notion I haven’t evolved to consume it as a food source anymore than eating a bowl of plastic chips. Other than that I should be given the opportunity to eat it if I want w/ the caveat that I am warned if it is being served to me so I may choose to decline.
I agree wholeheartedly. I know of very few people who shop in the middle of grocery stores anymore to avoid the over processing and added chemicals. I too am against wholesale bans on personal choice matters. Instead of a ban, I think the legislation could have called for a mandatory, same price, trans fat free option for all menu items containing trans fats. This way the public is free to make their choice without being motivated by price or being forced into a scant few trans fat free options on the menu.
I don’t know if it was organic chemistry or physiology that I first learned about “chirality” — the fact that organic molecules have a “handiness” i.e., just like your hands have five fingers (hopefully) and are mirror images of each other, therefore just like you can’t put your right hand in your left glove, the bodies enzymes are designed for molecules made by nature.
http://www2.chemistry.msu.edu/faculty/reusch/VirtTxtJml/lipids.htm
I remember learning about transfats and asking the above question – none of the professors actually knew, but the thought was, it must be OK or the government wouldn’t allow it…
as well as the fact that people who ate it didn’t immediately fall over dead.
Can’t wait for the double blind study with the headline: BULLETS IN THE BRAIN… BAD. I hated oleo margarine with a passion from the first time I tasted it as a child. It registered 10.0 on the ‘this tastes like total crap’ meter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/health/a-lifelong-fight-against-trans-fat.html