It’s official. California’s governator yesterday signed a bill that will outlaw trans fats in the state’s restaurants starting in 2010, and from some packaged foods in 2011. The news came out yesterday and I held off posting about it because I wanted to wait for a comprehensive write-up. Today’s San Diego Tribune delivered an outstanding piece on the subject, and here’s a choice excerpt:
The ban will have a ripple effect far beyond California because it doesn’t make economic sense for restaurant chains to use different types of oils in different regions, Johnson [a lawyer spearheading the anti trans fat campaign] said.
“California is so big and so important that you can’t have twin supplies,” he said. “It’s kind of the end of the road for trans fat.”
Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said that “great big sucking sound you hear” is the sound of partially hydrogenated oil leaving the American food supply.
One parting thought: this was a campaign that no reasonable person could argue against. Thousands and thousands of lives will be saved, and the cost to industry is absolutely trivial. And yet the bastards behind the restaurant industry did everything possible to oppose this initiative.
So when it comes to future legislation protecting farmed animals, and the significant costs that such legislation requires, you know our friends in the restaurant industry can be counted on to vehemently oppose whatever cruelty bans come along. What a swell group of people. Link.
