Tuesday the New York City Board of Health banned the use of trans fats in over 20,000 city restaurants and take-out places. Cities like Chicago are considering a similar ban and there is speculation that other major cities will soon follow in an effort to clean up America's eating habits.Yes, a wise person will wear a seat belt, avoid cigarettes, wear their bike helmet and not leave guns around where children can play with them but where in the Constitution does it guarantee us to be a nation free of idiots? Let me choose to go into a smoke-filled restaurant if I want to, let the restaurant choose if they want my business, let me decide whether I want to super-size those fries. Where's my personal responsibility? What next? Will New York pass a law requiring 30 minutes of exercise a day? How about mandatory cholesterol tests for school children? A law outlawing cell phones while driving? No wait, they're working on that.
Maybe a better way to approach the mortality=danger issue is with a pilot program: designate some cities to be "Danger Free," kind of like the those "Drug-Free" school zones. If New York wants to ban trans fats, that's great--let them lead the way into a new Danger-Free Era and in addition to trans fats they could ban sneezing, child birth, driving, shaking hands, swimming, tackle football, ice, hurricanes, asteroid collisions and Shakespearean tragedies (everyone seems to wind up dead in those things). Maybe a catchy slogan like All dangers left behind. People could decide if they wanted to live in a Danger-Free Zone or not. If the idea took off other cities could join the program and we could go from there.
I don't think Anchorage would qualify, it's a pretty dangerous place. Am I off on this?
Technorati tags: Alaska, trans fats, regulation, safety
5 comments:
We already have the law preventing phone calls while driving, even on hands-free. It makes me laugh because really what we need is a law to prevent children from squabbling in the back seat or dropping ice cream on their seatbelts and screaming about it - but who's going to enforce THAT distraction for drivers, hmmm?
I love your idea of a danger-free zone. But (like you, methinks) I would never want to live in one!
This ban is so annoying. Some of us normally eat healthy, so when we go out we want a big, whopping serving of trans-fat, thankyouverymuch.
Is this really all the politicians have to worry about in NYC? Really?
Amen and Amen! I once had a friend/church elder/optometrist who railed against the settlements that the courts awarded to "victims" of cigarette manufacturers...millions of dollars for illnesses that were a direct result of an individual's poor choices (i.e. smoking)
His comment was, "Great. Next people will be suing McDonald's because they're fat! When did America become a place where people cannot take responsibility for their choices!"
I'm sure he never dreamed that NY would ban trans fats! Good grief!
Before I moved to France, I was all butter is evil.
And then I tasted French butter where dairy products are king.
OMG! Butter is awesome. Make it demi-sel and it's like you've been smote down by Zeus.
Those healthier tubs of miracle Margarine are like eating bread slicked with tasteless putty. Yuck.
BTW: Fine for talking on cell while driving in France: 150 Euros and 2 points off your driving license (French drivers license is 12 points).
Danger-free zone. Cool. Don't forget the monitoring that would be needed to enforce it.
anonymous: Heaven is honey-butter on a fresh roll.
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