Montgomery County, MD is first county to Ban Trans-Fats

Wow. If the city council had only banned idiots first, then we'd never have fun legislation like this.

The Montgomery County Council unanimously approved a ban on partially hydrogenated oils in restaurants, supermarket bakeries and delis yesterday, becoming the first county in the nation to restrict artery-clogging trans fats.

The pride factor of being the first county to ban transfats is probably causing dancing in the streets down in Rockville.

The Montgomery regulation could have a broader reach because of the county's sweeping definition of what it means to be in the business of serving food. Religious establishments, schools and grocery store salad bars are subject to the county's regulation.

Sweet, there goes your local bake sales to raise money. Bye bye scrumptious church dinners. Seriously, how is this supposed to be a real benefit to us? Regular fats, for lack of a better term, aren't much healthier (if at all) than transfats - and transfats might taste better (depending on your personal tastes). Don't think about that question too hard, the government is here to provide us the answer.

Council member Duchy Trachtenberg (D-At Large), the bill's chief sponsor, said she thinks the food industry will be able to adjust. Some Montgomery establishments, such as the Silver Diner and Marriott Corp., stopped using trans fats voluntarily.

"The goal is to protect the public health," she said. "People want to know what they are eating."

What a crock! People probably do want to know what they're eating Duchy (and isn't that name rife with irony). However, you idiots are telling people that it doesn't matter if they know what they're eating - they still can't have it.

Gene Wilkes, owner of Tastee Diners in Bethesda and Silver Spring, said the ban will force him to eliminate certain items, such as lemon meringue pie and chocolate cream pie, which he buys from a supplier. His popular biscuits, made in bulk at the diners from a General Mills mix that contains trans fats, will be a no-no. He said he'll begin making them from scratch, most likely.

Wilkes said he has begun to use healthier oil for deep-frying and grilling. And soon, butter, not less costly margarine, will be on the hundreds of pieces of toast his 24-hour establishments serve each day. But he is annoyed about the treatment of packaged foods.

Wow, it's not like butter is a super-healthy alternative. Plus, this ban eliminates two awesome pies. "Restaurateurs say that it could be difficult for them to find healthy replacements for trans fatty oils and that they might have to use artery-clogging palm and coconut oils or butter."

Listen folks, it isn't about making us more healthy. It isn't about junk science or anything like that. It's about local legislators that must appear to be doing something, anything, to justify their continued existence. When these guys run out of actual important issues to deal with, or they can't find the answer, they always, always, always end up doing something idiotic either for the general well-being of the public (like it or not), or for the children.

Let's start looking at this type of legislation for what it is. It isn't just authoritarianism or nanny-statism (though it is those things). It is something that verges on communism. The ultimate goal is to make everyone the same, only they can't call it communism or even socialism, so they just keep eliminating all our choices and our liberties until eventually the choices we get to make are the same exact choices everyone gets to make . . . and those aren't really choices at all.

You think I'm kidding or maybe going overboard? Well, now you can't have transfats or foie-gras. You can't buy toilets that really work anymore, washing machines are 35% more efficient and who knows how much less effective, CAFE standards mean you can't really get the car you might want, soon you won't be able to buy lightbulbs that don't give you headaches, you can't use ephedra to lose weight (or use in tea like the Mormons), you can't smoke, you can't drink the liquor you want in the way you want, you can't build many types of model rockets, you can't really own and carry a gun. Seriously, I could go on all day. I'll say this, unless you're Bill Gates or Donald Trump, etc., I'm willing to bet that your house isn't big enough to store the entire Code of Federal Regulations - then add in the state and local stuff, yet somehow, you're supposed to know all this stuff and abide by it. And, lest you forget, those codes ain't getting any smaller.

Kid H.

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Also thanks to commenter John on that post for getting my list started.