The Nanny State Comes To Manhattan

New York City, home of some of the best restaurants in the world, is on the verge of becoming the first major city to force all the restaurants in town to stop using trans fats:

The New York City Board of Health voted unanimously yesterday to require the city’s roughly 20,000 restaurants to stop cooking with trans fats, making New York the first major U.S. city to adopt such a ban.

Artificial trans fats in shortening and oils are the most dangerous fats in the modern diet, sending cholesterol up and increasing the risk of heart disease even as they make pie crusts flakier and french fries tastier.

Over the next six to 18 months, cooks in New York’s five boroughs will have to change frying oils, bakers will have to seek out new shortenings, and restaurant-goers may have to say goodbye to crispy cannoli and hello to doughnuts dunked in canola oil as the city moves forward with its latest initiative to make New Yorkers healthier.

Apparently, forcing street-side hot dog vendors to clean the water they cook their food in more than once a year hasn’t occurred to them yet.

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The War On Trans-Fat