Daniel Mahoney wrote:

The arguments I've heard from Food Nazis is that it hurts the entire
country, in that the public ends up paying for the increased medical costs
associated with an obese public.

There are a lot of things wrong with this rationale, not the least of
which is that unhealthy food can be bad for you without you gaining a pound.
We see fat and thin people and we assume that the thin people are healthy,
and that they eat healthy, but it ain't necessarily so.

But also, what are poor people supposed to eat??! They depend on places
like McD's for cheap and *convenient* food. How'd you like to come home
after 8 hours at your minimum-wage job, have some kids to feed and no
spouse to help out, and you have no time or energy to cook, plus you
don't have a car and the nearest supermarket is 2 miles away. You're
going to take a bus to buy some vegetables?? Don't think so. You're going
to take your kids to Mickey D's!

I'm not saying this is a healthy scenario, but people depend on it, so
you can't just take it away from them without offering an alternative.
Because you can bet that while the gov't is happy to ban things right
and left, they're not going to spend a penny making sure that people have
other choices in its place. Oh, sorry, it's not government's job to *take
care* of its citizens - you're on your own, bub.

But I wonder if this is really going to fly? There was a major groundswell
of support for banning cigarette smoke in public places. Will there really
be support from the public for this? And what about the fast food lobby -
didn't they try to fight it?

Is this an April fool's joke that got stuck somewhere in cyberspace?

The article also says that trans fats will be outlawed in CA from 2010 on.

This one doesn't bother me so much, because it puts limits on the
manufacturers rather than on individual people. Why should companies be
allowed to put all sorts of unhealthy crap into our food just because
it's cheaper for them?

Am I remembering incorrectly that all fats become at least partially
trans fat as soon as they are heated to cooking temperatures?

Different fats become trans fats at different temperatures - it's called
the "smoke point". Olive oil, for example, has a low smoke point, so it's
not a good cooking oil. I use grapeseed oil to cook with, as it has a
much higher smoke point. There might be even better ones that I don't
know about - maybe the cooks here can suggest something?

Sure, nowhere is free of unreasonable government regulations, but I'm
still very glad to be free of California.

Meanwhile, we're still being exposed to pesticide spraying and toxic
waste, but by god, we're gonna be thin!!

--
Joyce ^..^

(To email me, remove the X's from my user name.)