California bans restaurants from using trans fats

Ohhh thank God for Arnold... How I long for the day when government tells me when I need to get out of bed and what to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

yup...its not just Conan. Its the whole Big Brother mentality that seems to cross party lines. Mostly democrats but a helluva lotta repubs too. Stay outta my life and go read the constitution or something.

They're interfering with the ability to severely wreck my own health. Oh God, the oppression!!!

@snwboardn sundoc You people are disgusting. I order you to do this: Don't eat the yellow snow.

Enjoy that flavour, it's the taste of GOP.

nilbud...get a life dude. when did u get the right to tell me how to live mine? why don't you try to discuss something for a change rather than yell and rant dude. grow up or go vote for Gore for something.

ayup...when the gov't crosses the line to tell me how to live correctly, what to eat, what to (not) smoke, buckle up, wear a helmet, pay half of what I earn to the taxman....that's when personal freedom loses to authoritarian control. Since when did we elect public officials to manage our daily lives? All this interest in my health, while a good idea, is massively paternalistic and in no freaking way an intention by the founders of this country.

One BIG reason this is allowed to happen....and I truly believe this is a big part...except for skinheads like nilbud...is the INSURANCE INDUSTRY. The Biggest Lobby in the US (no joke...it is)! Behind the scenes in the shady corridors of Congress...evil insurance company lobbists, prolly dressed in capes and named nilbud or something, lurk and spread nanny-ism across the globe...saving their premiums for their sinister world domination. Think about it...makes some weird sense lol.

Funny... Nobody is up in arms when a bunch of companies pre-determine what you should eat (by packing unhealthy crap into food, pesticides, growth hormones, GM) but everybody is up in arms when the government tries to take the harmful stuff to away...

k...protecting us from e.coli and salomonella same thing as making sure i don't eat trans fat
???

Both will do you no good and you're better off without them.

Perhaps some people need to be protected from their own stupidity.

Protecting people from their own stupidity? Why? So they can reproduce and teach their stupid ways to their offspring? This is just the beginning of national and, perhaps eventually, global health care. Then the only question will be, "How valuable is your life to your government?" "Well Mr. Smith I am looking at your chart here and it appears that your baby carries a 40% risk of getting diabetes, and this gene right here pretty much guarantees he will develop cancer." "Based on my chart here the government is only willing to pay up to $1,000 in medical bills before we cancel his life." "Ohhh wait a minute you ate trans fats?" "Well then you had better just leave right now."

so gregori...

when did Big Brother get the job of protecting me from myself??? izzat what it breaks down to? try this....some elitist snobs from upstate New York get together one Sunday and decide, well, you know, fast food is bad for you. Monday they pass a law and McDonny's is outta business. tuesday, they say obesity is rampant. wednesday, everyone has to jog 5 days a week. thursday, rock music and video games are too violent. friday, its a felony to possess or listen to linkin park or play halo. sounds like a good orwellian week to me!

come on pple! wake up and get a pair. its about self-determination and the right to your own life and your own decisions, not some control freaks in washington. let em worry about nat'l defense and interstate commerce. read something by milton freedman. it'll change your life.

Individual rights in the vein of Milton Freidman are indeed the bedrock of our society. However, when the entire culture has become driven by slick advertising campaigns that have lasted for decades, people come to believe the propaganda. Don't underestimate the ability of industries to manipulate what you believe.

For example, it's taken decades for social mores to turn against tobacco because the industry has blatantly lied about the effects and spent billions to shape the culture to promote its effects.

Further, we are not built to eat the "American" diet based on processed corn products (high sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc). It causes obesity. Every country that switched to that diet has rapidly developed an epidemic of obesity - even China.

Decades of work in food science have resulted in food that's very bad for you being much cheaper than food that's good for you. As a result, the poor can only afford the very cheap processed food that at the very same time is killing them.

Historically, the poor ate more healthy than the rich (whole grains, beans, etc) while the rich ate all red meat, fatty foods, etc. Now, curiously, for the first time in history the situation is reversed. The rich switch to the diets that the poor have always used - backyard vegetable gardens, fruits, etc.

And more importantly, sundoc, who's going to take care of you when your bad habits catch up with you and you get coronary artery disease and everything else?

It's going to come out of MY pocket in either increased health insurance costs for group coverage (employer provided or otherwise, which is an INDIRECT tax), or directly out of my pocket in taxes to fund Medicare and Medicaid.

Frankly, I choose to eat in a way that keeps me maximally healthy and exercise. I don't cost the health system much money - and I admit it costs me significantly more to feed myself and my family in this manner than eating all junk food, but the farmers' market and other methods help keep cost down.

I don't have a problem with your individual choices, but don't ask me to subsidize YOUR bad choices.

Are you willing to die for your convictions? If you are, by all means sign documents clearly stating that if you don't have the funds to pay for your care that you will die.

But of course you won't. You'll depend on the generosity of hospitals, insurance, or the public fisc to save your life. If you declare bankruptcy that's another form of subsidy as well.

Follow your argument to its logical conclusion and I don't think you'll follow through.

You're allowed to make bad choices - so long as it doesn't effect me or cost me anything. But when it does, your right of choice STOPS. you need to get that through your head.

It's not about individual choice. Alcoholics and drug addicts argue that they should be allowed to destroy themselves, but society doesn't endorse or condone that. We recognize that such individuals are mentally ill and need help, even if we don't force them to get it.

As a group, people that argue Milton Friedman do NOT follow through. By your logic, you should just be allowed to die if you can't pay.

I don't support that. You need to stay alive - you have people that are important in your life.

If you aren't willing to kill yourself, you have things that want to live for. But the diet you are on and the path you are headed down are a slow route to early death.

Don't you care about your parents and your family and your wife / husband / children? Don't they deserve to have you with them for many years and not crippled by heart disease or the like?

pardon the expression, but typical of authoritarians, you're being irrational

besides the flaws inherent in absolute monetarism and/or literal interpretation of Milton Friedman...avoiding economics in this discussion is difficult...free will and self determination does not equate with absolute rejection of cultural norms. get it thru your head that cultural norms are not absolute. we as a civilization attempted to approach cultural truth with our constitution, avoiding more specific interpretations for this reason.

i applaud and even envy your personal commitment to self improvement and but frankly to quote you, "Frankly, I choose...". that is *precisely* my point. it is your decision, your own free will, your *right* to live this way.

i understand you feel bitter at the millions of ppl who abuse their own bodies, spending their own limited personal resources for drugs, alcohol, trans fats, SUV's, fried chicken, and bibles. i feel your pain. may not be right by your standards, but cultural mores don't equate to constitutional law.

what is right is not always "your" decision to make. by "your" i'm implying "the gov't", as you have taken the liberty of expressing your own viewpoint as law.

i sympathize about the health care issue, health care being my field. i am a daily witness to the consequences of personal neglect. while i encourage ppl to take care of themselves, to watch fat intake, to avoid fast/junk food, to exercise, to take their medicines, etc...i don't mandate it. what gives me or anyone else the right to enforce this? just because you might have to foot the bill in the form of higher taxes doesn't give you the right to force society to take better care of itself. i try to inspire ppl i meet, but i don't require the same of them. i blame gov't for making society dependant on others for guidance, as well as for entitlements and "free-healthcare", which is a self-perpetuating monster...but i digress.

thank you for your interest in my family. my wife and kids appreciate your consideration, and i sincerely return this.

but your well-intentioned gov't is essentially a nanny-state which will chose my menu, mandate physical fitness, neutralize my religious beliefs (for i'm sure they won't agree with yours), "normalize" my income (which i assume is again the next logical adoption of cultural norms), and will ultimately force me to adopt different cultural ideals which neither I nor my family embrace.