OK, I’ve had enough.
I want my transfat back!
I was at Target recently picking up a few things, and saw that HoHos were on sale. Yes, the little chocolate-like log things; when I was a kid I loved them, and I still sometimes buy them so I can be a kid again for a little while (like I need an excuse). Plus, I’ve been a good boy: I finished my book, I’ve been working on the blog and the website, and doing other things that need to get done. I want to treat myself. So I buy a box.
In the car I opened the box, got out a HoHo, and took a big bite… and almost spat it back out. It was awful, like someone had injected it with pure suck. After a moment to overcome my shock, I reached for the box. With increasing dread, I looked over the ingredients, and there were the words I knew would be there:
"Trans fat 0g"
AIIIIIEEEEEEE!
What are companies thinking? Do they really honestly think that by removing all semblance of flavor and replacing it with — I’m guessing here — toe cheese, they’ll be able to keep customers, just because they took out the transfat?
Piece of free advice to Hostess from an ex-customer: put the transfat back. That’s what makes the HoHos taste good. That’s why people buy them.
Sure, transfats are bad for you. But you know what? I’m buying a HoHo. I know I’m getting something that is not healthy for me. The same thing happens when I grab a candy bar, or a bowl of ice cream, or a piece of fried chicken. I’m not eating these because they’ll give me six-pack abs, I’m eating them because they taste good.
I am really, really tired of people making my decisions for me. Kids are getting fat eating Twinkies and HoHos? OK then, parents, here’s more free advice from another parent: stop feeding them to your kids. The Little Astronomer gets lots of healthy food in her lunch every day, plus sometimes a snack, a goodie, a treat. Three cookies, or a pudding, or some other sweet. But that’s after the banana and the sandwich.
It’s not all that hard. Moderation, folks. It’s that simple.
Transfats are bad for you, but not if you take care. Eat good stuff, walk around a little bit, bike to the store sometimes instead of drive. That way, the occasional 4 or 5 grams of transfats won’t kill you.
And to any company that takes the transfat out of their food: you can bite me. Because I won’t be biting you.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Amen.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
“I’m not eating these because they’ll give me six-pack abs…”
And we’re ALL too AWARE of how little you do on behalf of your abs.
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Anyone who goes to a lower fat diet notices less flavor. That’s because your American taste buds have been pummeled into a coma by years of fatty and sugary foods. You just need to let your taste buds recalibrate. Your heart and other organs will thank you.
I am really, really tired of people making my decisions for me.
Oh. So you’re voting Libertarian now?
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Try the “Little Debbie” Swiss Roll.
Same as a HoHo with all the trans fat goodness (at least the last time I had one).
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:11 pm
So I’m not alone to be annoyed by the no trans fat fad.
Since they fiddled with my Joe Louis (It’s a local cake brand), it just does not taste the same! It tastes like CARDBOARD! What’s with trying to make everything healthy? I won’t get fat from enjoying it here and then…
I like my trans fat… Here and then!!! I also enjoy bananas and apples and celery and carrots (I have intestine troubles so I can’t even afford skipping these!)! I’m not an idiot, so please don’t waste the taste!
(And please, PLEASE… Stop putting “no trans fat” on jello packages. Seriously, we’re not imbeciles…. WE KNOW. It’s sugar and water for crying out loud…)
ANOTHER thing that annoys me is the other new fad: small packages written “100 calories!” on it. And they sell for more than normal packages.. Ah man, whatever happened to you know… Eating just half of your chocolate bar and keeping it for later? Sigh…. Whoever is feeling better because they eat two of these 100 calorie snacks lack half their brains I guess. It’s such a lame ploy…
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Funny I see a ad for a weight lose program on the side of the page.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:13 pm
When they came for the transfatty acids,
I did not speak out;
I did not eat that sort of food.
When they came for the sodium,
I did not speak out;
I did not eat that sort of food.
When they came for the HoHos,
there was no one left to speak out.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I agree 100%. Many foods have suffered: Chickin’ in a Biskit crackers, Doritos, Goldfish. Trans-fat tastes great and there is no substitute for that flavor.
Many cities have banned use of trans-fats in restaurants. Ridiculous.
The fact is that there is a significant percentage of the population who can handle their trans fats. There is also a significant percentage who are not at risk for heart disease (because of genetics or lifestyle or whatever). Why should they suffer?
We have Jolt cola right? I think someone should step up and market a specialty food brand that has trans-fat in everything. I’m not kidding either.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Hm. Now who was it ragging on ron paul a little while ago?
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:28 pm
That’s right Phil, you fight the power! The lean, mean, hypolipidemic power!
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:31 pm
@DDDave: just because the guy has one good point doesn’t mean he’s a good choice.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:31 pm
I don’t know how it is in Colorado, but in a lot of Canadian provinces transfat are downright outlawed in certain foodstuffs. Perhaps Hostess is just trying to avoid hefty fines? I would find this to be more likley than them trying to do what’s right for the consumer’s health….unless perhaps they’re just capitalizing (pardon the pun) on the chic of hating trans-fat? I dunno.
Maybe we should have foods just for adults. I enjoy a big greasy slab of pizza every now and then, but luckily I, like you, am responsible enough to know to not eat it whenever I can. Maybe if we get kids to eat cardboard-y junkfood, it might turn them off of junk food?
A rating system for food? Where they run in opposite from the grading system in school, where ‘D’ stands for ‘delicious’?
I’m such a genius.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Yeah. WTF.
Bloody political correctness gone massively out of control in yet another area. Stupid Hostess company.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
I doubt transfats taste of much (or smell – I’m well aware of how taste works, thank you). They might have an influence in dissolving flavours, but I doubt they work different from other fats in that regard.
I guess they can influence the texture, but that’s about it.
In short – I’d like to see the rest of those ingredients before I blame the transfat on the change in taste. Did you check that they weren’t sugar-free for instance?
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I’ve read that trans fats are considered to be risky in any amount. I.e., no one is going to say there’s zero risk in eating one tans fat laden Twinkie.
From a public policy point of view, the consumption of foods known to cause disease incurs a cost that we all pay through higher medical care costs. Some of us pay it out of pocket or in the coin of no medical care, the rest of us pay it in higher insurance bills or taxes.
I’m sorry that you didn’t like your “new” Twinkie. I’d agree wih you if your trans fat consumption had no way of affecting me, but that’s not the case.
As someone will say, the good of the many outweighs the good of the one.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
BA said:
“And to any company that takes the transfat out of their food: you can bite me. Because I won’t be biting you.”
Ummmm, well, ok. How much trans-fat do you contain?
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Michelle: Jello is sugar and water and SCUM produced from the boiling of bones, skins, and hides of cows and pigs, a process that releases the protein-rich collagen from animal tissues. Look it up. Jello is nasty, disgusting stuff. I wouldn’t eat it with your mouth and digestive system, not to mention the ethical problem i have with increasing the market for animal parts. Repeat after me: Jello = SCUM. Guh.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:39 pm
You are wrong. Hohos NEVER tasted good. Ever. Your tastebuds have grown and finally realised that.
As for sugar, the only really “bad” thing it does is cause dental caries (yes, I am the son of a dentist) – that and make fat taste unbelievably good.
JC
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:40 pm
I doubt it’s the transfat, Phil. I noticed the same things with Devil Dogs and Susy Qs years ago, and they still had transfat. They basically remove as much chocolate as possible to save money.
CJSF
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Yum, scum.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Transfats are useful because they taste good, are very stable at a range of temperatures that don’t need refrigeration and they offer these properties at a CHEAP price.
You see, you can have your Ho-Hos taste great, be transfat free and have a large box of them cost $2.99. Pick 2.
If you want those properties but were willing to pay (which most Ho-ho buys are not) they could use more expensive oils like coconut or palm kernal oils. Standard vegetable oil blends that are not hydrogenated will go rancid and not taste as good.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:02 pm
You have inspired me to try every form of junk baked goods I can find. Just to see if it still tastes like when I was a kid.
Btw, my bet is that they don’t even contain sugar anymore, but high fructose corn syrup instead. Come to think of it, I bet a significant number of ingredients have changed since I was a kid.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Transfats, as in all things, in moderation…
A mantra I adopted after my last checkup and saw what my cholesterol count was…
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Ah, I’ve been waiting for a chance to talk about Ho Hos!
Forget the deletion of transfats. I am certain that the recipe for Ho Hos was changed long ago. If I had a time machine, my first stop would be a grocery store in 1969 so I could prove this. When I was a kid, Ho Hos were so good, I almost couldn’t stand it to eat them! However, any Ho Hos I’ve eaten as an adult (since, let’s say, 1990) have been yucky. Maybe they’re even more yucky now, but I’m convinced that the modern Ho Ho is nothing like the Ho Ho of my childhood.
J. D.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Re: “the good of the many outweighs the good of the one.”
Don’t you think you’re… over-reacting a bit? We’re not talking about mad cow disease or polluting our drinking water. We’re talking about a snack food.
“The many” DON’T HAVE TO BUY HOHOS. They can buy Kashi bars if they want to eat healthy, tasteless snacks.
Of course, then the few will literally outweigh the many…
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Those Ho-Hos may have tasted bad because they had been on the shelf too long. The non-trans-fat is not as shelf stable. Maybe try to find some fresh Ho-Hos. Check the sell-by date.
My kids enjoy the Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls. They claim a miniscule amount of trans fat to preserve flavor.
Girl Scout cookies have 0 trans fat, and they are plenty yummy.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Why do you think they were on sale?
You’re sick of people making your decisions for you?
Well Phil, what can I tell ya? When y’all vote for your favourite Democrat and get the Universal Health Care they are riding into office, the tyrannical majority will be making a great many decisions for you – since they will be paying for the medical consequences. So I’d get used to it if I were you.
Good luck getting your transfat Ho Hos buddy.
@billg
Thanks for proving my above point.
And if any risk is sufficient justification for regulation, then I’d like all unnecessary air travel banned, since with all those planes flying around up there my house is at risk of having a Donnie Darko engine come ploughing into my bedroom.
@Quiet Desperation
No he wouldn’t vote for Libertarians, because Libertarians are obviously all crazy.
Democrats and Republicans only want to regulate OTHER people’s decisions for them, for their own good. Which also happen to be the decisions THEY don’t personally care about.
That’s why you didn’t see them objecting when the government wanted to interfere with cigarette and alcohol consumption. I mean it’s bad for you, so there’s no debate that you should not be able to choose there.
Of course if I were a crazy Libertarian, I’d think that Phil was only getting upset now, because this transfat hysteria is infringing on HIS personal choice, like Kent Hovind getting upset about “lies in the text books”. He’s not doing it only because evolution challenges his beliefs.
Does he care about errors in text books on the subject of aerodynamics or areas of the tongue detecting different tastes? Of course he does. That’s why he talks about them all the time. He wouldn’t feign concern about “lies in the textbooks” as if it were some kind of principled crusade just so he can use it as a smokescreen for his real agenda.
The same way Intelligent Design doofuses don’t suddenly want “open discussion” of “different points of view” in the science classroom. I mean they always exhibited exactly this kind of magnanimity – look at the Scopes Trial.
And by the way I was being sarcastic, you have girly boney arms and you smell like an elephants butt!
I don’t know your exact politics Phil, but if you’re going to cite Freedom of Choice as an issue, I hope you are applying it consistently across your own political views.
I mean, I’m sure a celebrity skeptic such as yourself would take great care to avoid jumping to conclusions based on his/her own ideological preferences without a reasonable internally consistent argument to back it up.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:13 pm
You just need to let your taste buds recalibrate.
Sure, you can get used to almost anything. I’d rather enjoy myself and die young than eke out a miserable, long existence just so I can spend my last years on a respirator.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Phil, if you like HoHos, you might want to just go into the kitchen and whip up a Bûche de Noël:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BBche_de_No%C3%ABl
Think high-quality HoHo Christmas cake.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Oh BA, let me mail you some chocolate cake or something. Ho-Hos are just nasty.
If you’re going to eat the calories, make ‘em worth eating!
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
@IRONMANAustralia
Dude, lay off the Twinkies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twinkie_defense
They do bad stuff to your brain. *twirls finger around ear*
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:38 pm
@snoozebar
I think you’re asleep at the wheel snoozeboy, the “Twinkie Defense” in no way applies to anything in my post.
I’d say, “nice try”, except that it wasn’t even that.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Don’t worry, the food scientists will eventually improve the formulation of the non-transfat so that you won’t be able to tell the difference.
In fact a while back I heard about a materials scientist who made a revolutionary new non-fat ice cream indistinguishable from normal ice using some special emulsion or something about modifying mechanical properties.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I have a PhD in epidemiology, and so I am authorized to tell you that transfatty acids are EVIL, just like soda and tobacco. You may be one of those few people who have enough self-control to limit the dosage, but not everyone can, especially since we’re living in a society pummeled with advertising promoting irresponsible eating. I’d like to thank all the consumers who decided they did not want to eat transfats and made the decision not to buy anything containing it, thereby motivating Hostess and all the other junk food manufacturers to remove the transfat from their products.
My recommendation: 1) Get over it. I think I speak for the entire health sciences community in applauding the death of transfat and hoping it stays dead. 2) Switch to chocolate, especially dark chocolate. It’s better than anything with transfat, and you’ll have a better time rationalizing eating it.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Wait until you visit England. We have absolutely no colourings in most of our stuff and basically everything is ‘fat free’. They took the colours out of Smarties and now they taste like aluminium. They banned Lucky Charms years back because of the sugar content. I know what kind of cereal you guys get over there, purple and green luminous nuggets of goodness. We only have dull wholegrain and the odd ‘chocolate’ cereal.
Ask Prof Cox when you see him, I’m sure he’s just as sickened as I am about this fiasco.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:47 pm
I actually think the newly trans-fat-free foods taste just fine. I guess I’m weird.
April 2nd, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I completely agree. It’s just like TV, folks. If you don’t want to watch it, change the flipping channel. Don’t try to dictate what is or isn’t shown, just because you don’t like it. If you don’t like adult magazines, don’t buy them. If you don’t want transfat, yeah, don’t eat it.
As the saying goes, they just don’t make them like they used to.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:02 pm
@Michelle
“@DDDave: just because the guy has one good point doesn’t mean he’s a good choice.”
Damn right. But remember the same goes for Obama and his evolution stance, (something much ado has been made about on this blog).
Politicians know exactly what percentage voters they are appealing to with any particular stance.
But remember the opposite applies too. They know exactly what percentage they will lose with a particular stance.
A rational person should decide based on the candidates entire set of policies. I mean, would you vote for someone just because they want to give billions in government grants to astronomers, but at the same time want to increase taxes to the working class, escalate the Iraq War, and truncate Free Speech?
Of course you wouldn’t, yet by looking superficially into the policies of the candidates, you may be doing just that and not know the difference.
For example, I can’t believe the number of people who liked Ron Paul’s policies but unthinkingly wrote him off based on his personal views about abortion. In the minds of these people there are only two choices – Pro-life and Pro-choice, and the candidate must want to mandate that policy for the entire country. How short-sighted can anyone be?
I expect my candidates to have personal views, to agree with abortion or not, to be religious or not, to exercises their own right of free speech to the hilt or not. What I find unacceptable is them making their personal views the law of the land.
Ron Paul, although he is religious, and pro-life, obviously has a stated policy of not making those dearly-held beliefs federal law. It takes a special kind of person to sincerely believe that abortion is murder, and yet not use the power at their disposal to prevent it.
Just as it takes a person with their head screwed on straight to realise that although transfats might indeed be harmful to Phil’s health in any quantity, (which I have no reason to believe is actually the case), that he should have the right to eat them as much as he chooses.
The rest of you seem to be looking for a candidate that will force everyone to act in accordance with your own ideals.
I’ll grant you this, if everyone agreed on one ideology, (pretty much regardless of what it is), we’d have the little Utopia you dream about. But since in reality that’s not going to happen, you’re just going to have to deal with the fact that people are going to make choices you think are stupid. And if you don’t allow your nation to degenerate into some form of fascist hell, you’ll get to do most of the stupid things you like doing too.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I think this is just capitalism at work. A lot of people don’t want it in their food. I for one will not buy anything with trans fat in it. If I see it on the label it goes back on the shelf. To all the companies who want my business; don’t put this cost cutting junk in my food. Try baking brownies. They sure taste better than Ho Ho’s.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Removing transfats have to do only peripherally with keeping people from getting fat or making the food low-calorie. Transfats are many times, perhaps an order of magnitude, more dangerous than saturated fats when it comes to clogging your arteries. Transfat in the diet is positively correlated with a higher incidence of coronary heart disease.
You’re better off using lard, which is what the transfats were supposed to be a “healthy” (or possibly “cheap”) substitute for in the first place. Or butter, which we now know to be better for you than most margarine.
But yeah, the things has probably outlived their shelf life.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:24 pm
The added regulation, if I remember correctly, was simply making companies display trans fat info on the package. That is, from what I can tell, THE single reason for this “fad”. An informed consumer is never a bad thing.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I have to agree with some others here: I do not think that the lack of transfats is the problem. I can recall trying a Twinkie long before the anti-transfats movement began but also a long time since I had one when I was a kid (when I did like them), and it was terrible. The cloying goodness I was expecting was simply overpowering, and I haven’t had another since then.
Phil, I suspect that it’s not so much changes in the manufacturing as much as physical changes in your taste, just an inevitable consequence of getting old(er).
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:24 pm
That happened with our girl scout cookies here in Ohio, especially the cookies formerly known as “Tagalongs.” Apparently, you lucky sods out west still have the good ones like we got last year. The new ones are just terrible, they’re dry and don’t taste like anything.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:26 pm
I would like to postulate that this is a two-stage strategy here. The primary stage is the poor taste to turn you off eating HoHos. If that doesn’t work, the lack of transfats will save you.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:27 pm
@Ian
Now the subjective matter of taste is a separate issue, but an interesting one. I wonder if Phil could actually tell the difference between transfat and non-transfat in a double-blind test.
I mean it is of course possible it’s all in his mind, or he just got a bad batch of Ho Hos, (they were on sale after all).
A good skeptic should at least concede the possibility they might be in error.
Plus I’ll concede at the end of the day that any kid who’s never tasted a transfat Ho Ho is probably not going to miss them. But again – that’s a completely separate issue.
@Aaron Solomon Adelmanon
Even taking you at your word, I’d still allow people to choose because there are other factors in play.
All of us make decisions everyday, and if health was our only and most important criteria we’d all be healthy. But what some people are not taking into account is that some people have different priorities.
For example: I once heard a professional jockey speak about how he wanted to be a jockey so badly as a child that he calculated how much he would have to restrict his own diet with the intent of stunting his own growth, (his parents were of above average stature). It worked, and he got the career he so desperately desired.
I personally think that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard – but I can appreciate that he did what it takes – probably at the expense of his long-term health. Whatever floats his boat.
Likewise, it’s more difficult to become the world’s greatest computer programmer, while spending 8 hours a day running marathons. You have a choice to make sometimes, and you should have the right to make it.
And what level of risk is an acceptable risk? Based on risk alone I could make the case that the government should ban recreational, or “unnecessary” use of automobiles, since I’m probably in more mortal danger crossing the street to get to McDonald’s than I am eating there, (and hybrids can kill me just as easily). But I doubt you’ll want to part with the convenience of your vehicle as easily as you want everyone to part with transfats.
On a related issue, the whole Fat Tax thing has been bugging the hell out of me. Why do I get the feeling that some people are only concerned about the health of other people because at the end of the day they just don’t like looking at overweight people and/or sitting next to them on a crowded subway train?
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:42 pm
I know some things taste different than when I was a kid, but I have been eating HoHos off and on for years. The last time I got them was a few months ago and they were fine. Then I bought this box, and bam.
Also, while Mrs. BA and TLA like Little Debbies, I think they are the snack food equivalent of RC Cola. Barf.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:45 pm
How many of these trans fat bans, smoking bans, seat belt laws, and helmet laws exist as a result of lobbying by insurance companies?
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:47 pm
There’s another possibility — the price of actual chocolate has gone WAY up over the past year or so, roughly doubling. They may have decided to use some synthetic flavoring instead of actual chocolate in order to keep the price the same. This would make it taste awful.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Trans fats have zilch to do with flavor. They are used because they are cheap and have a virtually infinite shelf life.
They also aren’t produced by any living thing on this planet, which goes some ways towards explaining why they are so dangerous to our health. But sure, leave them in the food, and after a few dozen generations, we might evolve the ability to safely metabolize them. Who cares about the health of everyone before then?
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Maybe it’s a plot – sell it as 0 Trans Fat, make it taste horrible, and force the regulators to let you put it back. Because really, trans fats have no real taste of their own.
Funny how the rest of the planet can make wonderful tasting food that isn’t full of hideous chemicals not found in nature. Aaron speaks truth – hunt down some Lindt 75% dark chocolate, especially the one with the cocoa nibs. You may never look back…
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:08 pm
“Trans fats have zilch to do with flavor. They are used because they are cheap and have a virtually infinite shelf life.
They also aren’t produced by any living thing on this planet, which goes some ways towards explaining why they are so dangerous to our health. But sure, leave them in the food, and after a few dozen generations, we might evolve the ability to safely metabolize them. Who cares about the health of everyone before then?”
This. And to my understanding, a trans fat is identical to a saturated fat in every way except that your body can’t use it.
For a very nominal cost, food companies could simply fully saturate their fats and it’d be a lot healthier for everyone.
Also, a lot of these foods with “0 grams trans fat” never had trans fat to begin with. It’s just a marketing ploy. And as others have said, they use it to cut a few other more expensive ingredients to save on cash and make you think the trans fat was responsible for the good taste.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:10 pm
It’s possible that the manufacturers of these so called food products are looking to avoid the class actions that the tobacco industry has suffered in recent years.
More likely they’re thinking “My taxes are going to be paying his/her medical bills in x years time!”
Anyway, it is possible to bake your own cookies, they don’t just grow in the supermarket aisles
That way you can make them taste anyway you like, even put transfats in them if that’s what you want.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:16 pm
@Steven, Chris C. and Ryan.
Agree, agree, agree, but …
If people don’t want transfats by choice, then manufacturers will stop putting them in their products. But if you assert that then there’s no real justification for government regulation, or any unrealistic slant on the transfat issue.
This is not to say that regulation is the issue with Ho Hos specifically. Phil was not saying the company was doing so under legal duress. However, being forced to write “transfat” on your product is also a scarlet letter from a marketing perspective.
And if you want informed consumers, then they should also have a realistic view of the actual dangers of transfats along with it – and still have the right to choose based on that information. The same way smokers know the risks and still choose to buy cigarettes.
But for some people the number of consumers still making that choice will stick in their craw, and they’ll want to MAKE every manufacturer and consumer “choose” non-transfat.
And yes, I don’t think eliminating transfats is aimed at making people thinner, though I doubt anyone selling foods without transfats will do a great deal to disabuse ‘uninformed’ consumers of that notion, (a likely double-standard that bears analysis by anyone riding the “informed consumer” plank.
But at the same time, if it’s clogged arteries everyone’s concerned about, then it bears mentioning there are effective modern treatments and medical technologies to deal with that condition.
Kind of like how the AIDS virus used to be a death sentence, but now isn’t such a big deal. So again, while the risk of getting a Big Mac stuck in your coronary artery sounds like something to avoid at all costs, at the end of the day it isn’t as scary as you think.
And just as you make a point about the importance of informed consumers, some informed consumers might decide to eat KFC 24/7 and just get a quadruple bypass at the age of 35, or otherwise display a lack of concern about thieir ultimate lifespan.
The problem is that some people don’t want “informed consumers” at all, and actually want “unrealistically scared consumers”, who will almost certainly make the “choice” they want them to.
A good example of this is Fundamentalist Christians who have a choice between doing what their preacher says or burning in the firey pits of Hell for all eternity. These are not “informed consumers”.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, high fructose corn syrup, glycerol ester of wood rosin, and all the rest of the laboratory experiments th food industry has come with are not good for you and taste like crap.
Stick to lard, butter, and cane sugar.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Bad is bad; food, in its honest form with an honest zing of some interesting cooking ideas is absolutely amazing. I agree that the western diet has been sullied by sugar and fat, and now we are left wanting. I think it is a public service that trans fats are removed – what about the government protecting the people? In no way do I condone the governemnt or officials of any stature declining our rights, but I think – in alignment with smoking by laws and stamping fair trade on items – is good. Everyone is barking about moderation, but lets be honest – those who moderate are probably in the minority. I look out my window every morning at neighbours , I glance at the checkout aisle when I buy my veggies, I eat lunches with others at work, I see my neighbour tossing out tv dinner and zombie-like candy treat boxes every week…I dont see people eating well. There are unavoidable connections to the health care system, unavoidable connections to the public availability of quality foods (in one town near me it is impossible to get decent veggies, but easy to get the spectrum of deli meats to boxed dinners nutrient-sterile foods.
I teach my students, by example, that health is a personal issue and that every bite counts. Every puff on a cigarette counts.
Try making your own snacks..a whole wheat bread roll with loads of cinnamon, some raisins and a dabble of honey is delightful. It is simple, you can use real ingredients, a loaf takes 20 mins to makde and you know you are eating quality, healthy, tastey food.
I guess I have grown to dislike the buttery taste of junk food. I guess…
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
@The Bad Astronomer
I have no doubt that you believe that whole-heartedly Phil, but it’s just bad skepticism to assert it as fact just because you “know” they taste different, and feel qualified to make that determination based on experience.
Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if you could, because I also wouldn’t be surprised if changing the transfat ingredient might also necessitate and/or provide opportunity to make otherwise desirable alterations to the recipe and/or production process.
But what you just said Phil is the skeptical equivalent of asserting you know what you saw was an alien UFO because you’re an experienced airline pilot.
It doesn’t mean you or the pilot is wrong in either case, it’s just a bad argument because there are so many subjective factors in play – especially when it comes to taste.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:39 pm
I wrote a short story about this very topic, actually it was more in relation to the trans fat ban in NYC, but its the same type of issue. My story is an over the top slippery slope take on things but it was a lot of fun to write.
Be warned there is a bit of adult language in the story, but I thought it would be appropriate to share.
Check it if you want:
http://fromthegonzo.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/377/
I’m not big on fads, even less so on fads that seem to be pushed down our throats, literally.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Really they modify junk food all the time. Corn syrup instead of sugar. More sweetness, less sweetness and a bit more acidity. There are differences over time and region and no one is really saying sorry much, if market research says you’d lose x customers and gain y, well, you pull the trigger. That’s business and it’s hard to play it any other way. Is it worth saying “same ingredients as in 1907″ or would people buy the same with “favorite since 1907″ with cheaper ingredients?
But yeah, you’d think there’d be a market for crappy food. I’ve gone on a health kick right now trying to take my ribs showing classic techie look upwards in weight (which I always never wanted to do) so really I’m mostly living on lean tuna and protein supplements. Still, it’d be nice to know there was a choice if I kick the habit and go back to living like a normal geek again.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I exercise enough that, every once and a while, I want a real HoHo. I don’t sweat for hours so I can have a rice cake!
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:56 pm
On the other hand, OREOs now taste better after they reformulated them.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Yeah, well Phil, some of us aren’t as lucky as you. What are you, like 140 lbs?
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:21 pm
@bassmanpeteon: … More likely they’re thinking “My taxes are going to be paying his/her medical bills in x years time!” …
I already addressed this issue, but I’ll take the opportunity to retort by proposing a bill outlawing extreme sports for which my tax dollars are doubtless going to be paying medical bills. Nobody ‘needs’ to go snowboarding, or jumping out of aeroplanes.
Better yet, you could just do away with a system that makes other people’s self-imposed medical problems my responsibility. Ever think of that?
bassmanpeteon: “Anyway, it is possible to bake your own cookies, they don’t just grow in the supermarket aisles That way you can make them taste anyway you like, even put transfats in them if that’s what you want.”
Yeah – that’s a great idea!
Oh wait. What about people who aren’t very good cooks?
… maybe they could get their wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/significant other to make them …
… Yeah. Or maybe they could get their neighbour to do it for them – and they could just pay them for it …
… maybe that neighbour could do it for a lot of people who want the transfat recipe …
… and maybe that neighbour could set up their own company, and get supermarkets to stock their cookies …
… then get machinery and employees to make more …
… Hmmm … but they’ll need some kind of name for their company …
… Ummm … let me think …
… How about “Hostess”?
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:24 pm
By the same token, what annoys me is that it’s increasingly hard to buy yogurt that’s not fat-free (or nearly fat-free). Come on: yogurt without fat is not yogurt, it’s flavoured maize paste with bacteria. If it needs a “thickener”, it’s not yogurt.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:27 pm
A recent Skeptoid episode http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4088 talked about junk food and according to skeptoid transfats make up 2-5% of livestock fat so good luck removing that. The dangers of any fat is exaggerated. It’s only when you have too much that it is bad. Anyway that’s why we have shows like The Biggest Loser.
American sweets (colas too) taste ordinary too because they use corn syrup instead of cane sugar. Try a coke from Mexico.
And flavours of things like chocolate do change seasonally I’ve noticed. Depends on the milk I guess. I reckon NZ Cadburys chocolate tastes creamier and tastier than our own Aussie Cadburys chocolate for example whereas the cadburys chocolate from Kenya tastes… very ordinary.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:28 pm
I don’t know what a hoho is, and I’m glad.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:30 pm
I have to sadly admit that I cannot stand the taste of dark chocolate, only milk chocolate for me.
That being said, I’m trying to eat way healthier now than I did before. Actually college did that too me. Granted I still got the Freshman 15 but after that I learned how to eat healthier and exercise. I know I’m not supposed to eat an entire carton of Ben and Jerry’s, and unless I’m craving it to the point where it’s irrisistable I won’t even have a little bit of the stuff. I know what makes me cave.
That and the fact that family and friends are noticing that the exercise and eating better is working. That’s what’s good!
Wow, this went way off topic. I guess I’m saying – you can put trans fat in your food, because even without them snack foods are basically unhealthy. We need to teach ourselves to eat healthier and portion properly.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:31 pm
@IRONMAN:
Phil’s assumption is right for Phil. You said it yourself, taste is subjective. Whether an alien is piloting a UFO is decidedly not.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:38 pm
One of my favourite fatty experiences was lardo from the tiny village of Colonnata near Carrara in Tuscany, Italy. Lardo is essentially pig fat thinly sliced, like prosciutto, but it’s just the cured white fat. Delicious. Did I say dellicious? Well it is delicious especially served on a salad. We also had a rocquette salad drizzled with pig fat. Also to die for. Those Italians really know how to serve their fats.
Actually Europeans in general really have good fat based foods especially, as mentioned, the Italians, the Germans (schwein hoxen), the French (almost anything that has foie gras) and the Spanish (serrano or iberian jamon). Droool.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Isn’t that the system they have in the USA? You need to have medical insurance to get treatment, correct me if I’m wrong. But even then, other people’s medical problems affect the premiums that you pay.
I’m not a good cook in the sense that I don’t make up my own recipes – all I’ve ever done is just follow the instructions in the book. But if the people are just plain lazy there’s no hope
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I don’t people need to eat healthy, they need to eat healthfully. If anything on the store shelf was healthy it wouldn’t be there.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:50 pm
The Bad Astronomer writes:”…while Mrs. BA and TLA like Little Debbies, I think they are the snack food equivalent of RC Cola. Barf.”
Little Debbies are to Hostess Cupcakes* as Fiat autos are to Maserati sports cars. Cute, but low-horsepower, (and they rust.)
*Or better yet, “real” Cupcakes from a good bakery.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:04 pm
By trans-fats do they mean animal fats? I can say that changing from lard to vegetable oil seriously changed the texture and taste of the yummy white filling of Oreos many years ago, as well as many other foods. McDonald’s has had a very difficult time keeping their unique french fry flavor intact.
Funny though, that some people demand that the government tell us what to eat and what not to eat, and that others say that the government should shut the #ell up. Personally, I think its stupid to make laws to protect the people from their own stupidity, but its not like that’s a new thing. (i.e. seatbelt laws, helmet laws, drinking age limits, cellphones-while-driving laws, etc.)
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:15 pm
bassmanpete said, “Isn’t that the system they have in the USA? You need to have medical insurance to get treatment, correct me if I’m wrong.”
That’s wrong. You can walk into any hospital or Dr’s office and have anything legal done without insurance – you just have to pay for it. If you can afford $10,000 elective or emergency surgery, you can pay cash. I once paid $900 for 6 stitches on my hand. I could have gone to a free clinic, or shopped around for the best deal, but it was an emergency, and I wanted it done at a good place. My insurance deductible at the time was $1000, so it was pretty much useless anyway.
Also, thanks to government spending, there are “free” clinics as well. “Free” as in there’s no cost at the door, but we all pay for it through taxes.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Greg in Austin
“By trans-fats do they mean animal fats?”
No. Most animal fats are saturated fats, not the healthiest of all fats but still digestible. Transfats are created by hydorgenizing vegetable oils: a process not dissimilar to making plastics: the human (and all other terrestrial life) has not evolved to metabolize these things – accounting for their shelf life: even the microbes won’t eat them!
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Thanks Greg, I should have added “or pay cash” to my comment. Here in Australia we can get free (ie government funded) emergency & elective surgery. The trouble with elective is that you can be on a waiting list for 2 years or more for certain procedures.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:30 pm
[...] to eat trans-fats?!?! Filed under: Uncategorized — Charles @ 9:30 pm There’s an interesting discussion over at the bad astronomy blog where the author, Phil Plait, bemoans the lack of taste in HoHos [...]
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Hey Phil,
What you need to do is to compensate by deep frying the ho ho. After all, if people can fry Twinkies, chocolate bars, pizza, and Atkins bars, you can definitely fry the ho ho… in butter.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Trans-fats (in more than trace quantities) are a byproduct of the hydrogenation of vegetable oil. Basically, someone decided butter (mostly saturated animal fat) was bad for us, so vegetable oil was the stuff everyone wanted. Unfortunately vegetable oil is liquid at room temperatures. So you hydrogenate it, and get margarine. Unfortunately, during that process you change the structure of the fat molecules, turning them into trans-fat. You can also get trans-fats by heating up ordinary vegetable oil, such as in a deep fryer.
It is very unlikely trans-fat has any taste. When it was first introduced it was believed that, because the trans forms are rare in nature, trans fat might not even be digestible. It turns out that not only does the body absorb it, but it preferentially packs it in around your internal organs. It’s also the last fat to be burned when you exercise, and has been shown to have some nasty hormonal effects compared to regular fat as well (fat is actually a kind of endocrine gland). It’s nasty stuff, and really completely unnecessary.
The alternatives? There are vegetable oil formulations that resist the formation of trans structures. They cost slightly more. Not much more, slightly more. Of course, you could just use butter (which has been shown to have fewer negative health effects than trans-fat).
So I really doubt your Ho Ho cardboard taste was due to trans-fat. Perhaps it was due to cardboard content. I don’t know about Ho Hos, but if I remember correctly, bread in the US is allowed to have a nonzero cardboard content.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Sad indictment of the US medical system where someone would even consider shopping around for emergency treatment on the basis of cost and whether or not it was a good place.
If we, in Australia and probably most of the civilised world (I include good chunks of the 3rd world here) needed emergency care we would go to the closest emergency room and get FREE adequate to excellent care (of course stuff happens but most times the care would be very good).
We do have to wait for free elective surgery but that can depend on the surgery required.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Hey, bassmanpete,
The wait time for elective surgery is much less here, with or without insurance. If I want to have teeth removed, or liposuction, or laser eye surgery, the wait time is typically less than 2 weeks. Sometimes its days. I cannot imagine having to wait 2 years for any procedure, unless I have to save up for it.
Can you have medical procedures done faster in Australia if you choose to pay for it yourself? I don’t know how your health care system works over (under) there.
The insurance companies here are just like every other company, in that they exist to make a profit. In order to make money, more people have to pay them for coverage than the number of people who actually use that coverage. If they cover a certain procedure that suddenly everybody wants or needs, then the rates for insurance will go up. That’s an oversimplification, of course, but its true for auto insurance, home insurance, flood insurance, etc.
A big issue in politics right now is the question of forcing every tax payer to pay for everyone’s health care. The costs of just the administration and paperwork for a national health care system is staggering, not to mention the costs of the medicine and hospital costs. Is the need for everyone to have “free” health care (even if you don’t need it, or can afford it yourself) worth forcing every American to pay into the system? That’s the billion dollar a year question!
Do we really need the government to tell us what not to eat or drink? Do we really need the government to bail out commercial airlines that can’t make a profit, or bail out homeowners who choose to take a high-risk high-interest loan on a home they can’t really afford? Those are also important questions.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:05 pm
DustPuppyOI,
I was introduced to the deep-fried Twinkie a few years ago in Las Vegas. I didn’t actually eat one; I just have a vivid memory of the non-stop video ad playing for the delicacy on Freemont Street. The ad consisted of scantily clad ladies merrily munching upon fried Twinkies in, shall we say, a provocative manner.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I see the problem. You shop at Target. The hohos had probably been sitting on the shelf for 5 years and become stale.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:37 pm
shane said, “Sad indictment of the US medical system where someone would even consider shopping around for emergency treatment on the basis of cost and whether or not it was a good place.
If we, in Australia and probably most of the civilised world (I include good chunks of the 3rd world here) needed emergency care we would go to the closest emergency room and get FREE adequate to excellent care (of course stuff happens but most times the care would be very good).”
How much of your tax dollars pay for your “FREE adequate to excellent care,” I wonder?
Maybe Texas ain’t quite as civilized as them thar 3rd world countries.
We’z are basakward folks here.
In my case, I did go to the closest emergency room (about 4 miles from my house). Its just also happened to be one of the largest health care systems in Texas. If it was a life-or-death emergency (which this certainly was not) then I would have gone to the exact same hospital. I don’t consider it a sad example at all. Why would I want someone else to pay for my medical expenses when I can both A) afford to pay for them myself, and B) afford to pay for insurance that covers things that I cannot afford?
See, if I CHOOSE to pay for my own medical expenses, then I don’t have to rely on any one else (other than the doctors and nurses) to receive medical treatment. On the other hand, if I chose NOT to pay for insurance, or if I could not afford the costs, then I would have to rely on someone else’s charity, or go without treatment. Personally, I was not raised to depend on everyone else (especially the government) for my medical needs.
I certainly could have gone to a lower-cost clinic, or even gone to a relative who is a nurse. Heck, I could have flushed it out myself and used some super-glue to close the wound. But I knew that the quality of service was greater where I went, hence, the greater cost. Again, it was a choice.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Tukla in Iowa: Sure, you can get used to almost anything. I’d rather enjoy myself and die young than eke out a miserable, long existence just so I can spend my last years on a respirator.
Meanwhile, beyond the boundaries of The Land Of False Dichotomies, folks live happy, fulfilling lives without a single Ho-Ho or other byndles of processed crap posing as food.
IRONMANAustralia: Oh wait. What about people who aren’t very good cooks?
Geez. Anyone can make a cookie. I was making cookies from scratch by myself when I was 12.
Kurt: I don’t people need to eat healthy, they need to eat healthfully. If anything on the store shelf was healthy it wouldn’t be there.
Yes, but- wait… what??
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Every one switching from canola and vegetable oil over to soy bean oil to save money means I can’t eat most processed foods anymore that I used to enjoy. Curse you soy allergy. Thank god for butter and grandma’s recipe book.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:41 pm
ace bit of overkill do you not think.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Heya Greg. We pay our taxes, about average for the OECD, and we also pay a medicare levy of 1 or 2% on top of that. If we take out private medical insurance the levy gets reduced. Our taxes also pay for… well everything else the government spends money on – adventures in Iraq etc. Like it or not. Medicare is just another government expense. Just another socialised medicine thing. Americans get a bit paranoid when the socialised bit gets brought up but it works. Sort of. We still have the user pays private system. You can be private patient in a public hospital. You can choose who you want to service you. You just have to pay for it (or your insurance company does).
I can’t understand the user pays attitude when it comes to basic medicine. Health care should be a right not a privilege. If you don’t drive a car how do you feel about government road building?
Anyway, we don’t see it as relying on someone else’s charity or relying on the government. We see it as a safety net especially for those who can least afford it. The fact that you can end up in an emergency ward and end up with a bill for tens of thousands of dollars is just obscene.
I’ve heard that some hospitals will turn away people who don’t have insurance in the US. If this isn’t an urban legend then that is also obscene.
BTW, doctors and clinics are privately owned and operated in Australia. They’re not run by the government on the whole. When you go to the doc they either bill medicare directly and you pay nothing or you pay the doc and then you claim a refund from medicare. For this reason medicare sets a schedule of fees for a visit to a doc. For example if a basic visit is set at say $50 and your doctor charges $50 you are either not charged or get a refund from medicare for $50. If your doctor charges $100 you, or your insurance company, have to make up the difference. Medicare will still only pay $50. I’ve pulled the numbers from my a** and they’re only used to illustrate the example.
Or I think that is how it works here in Oz.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Ya but … if you eat trans fats how will you manage all of the toxins and parasites?
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:09 am
I’ve got to say that this has been the most interesting thread in a while.
My first thought was the same as JackC, way back near the top. It’s very possible that your tastes have, uh, evolved since you were a kid, Phil, and something you couldn’t get enough of then you can’t stand now.
One thing I didn’t see mentioned, except peripherally, is that last year legislation was passed that loosened up the definition of “chocolate.” In addition to the cocoa solids, a certain percentage of cocoa butter (the oily part of the cacao bean) is required. That’s where a lot of the flavor of chocolate comes from. Without the cocoa butter, the brown food substance can’t be called chocolate, but needs some sort of marketing name. This legislation allowed the reduction (or complete replacement) of the cocoa butter with other (cheaper) oils. The result is usually dreadful. Think of the cheapest Easter candy you’ve ever had, usually those hollow bunnies. I’m not sure when this legislation goes into effect, but by Phil’s reaction its sounds like its arrived.
Ironman: I’ve enjoyed your posts and outlooks. As one libertarian to another, it’s always interesting to watch people come to grips with the fact that there are more than two poles on the political spectrum
- Jack
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:21 am
@ Greg in Austin,
It must be great to be very wealthy. As a fellow Americna with a pretty good health care plan, I can firmly attest that your evaluation of availability is utter BS.
I have a good dental plan as part of my wife’s insurance coverage (getting ironic, she works for a giant hospital), and I was told that my son had a cavity which needed to be treated as soon as possible. When I asked for the soonest possible appointment I was told that I could be squeezed in after only four months.
The only arguments I have ever heard against some form of socialized medicine have been of the “but I may have to be treated just like poor people” variety.
This argument is akin to the pope dismissing the Inquisition by citing the fact that he had never once been inconvenienced by it.
I don’t believe that everyone should possess the same wealth. I don’t believe that everyone should have access to the same goods. I do believe that in certain areas, the two most important being education and health care, there should not be a difference in any aspect of availabilty, cost, and impact, simply because of accidents of birth.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:30 am
This is me, cheering loudly for this blog post.
I remember when I was a kid, looking forward to growing up so I could make all the decisions for myself. It’s endlessly disappointing to find a committee have made half of them for me before I even knew what they were.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:40 am
Twinkies. Oh, god, I mourn the Twinkies. Don’t tell me about tastebuds, don’t tell me about making my own snacks. I cook, I bake, I eat real food 99.9% of the time. When I want junk food I know precisely what it is I’m doing. Thank you, go away now. Twinkies… *weep*
Once every 2-3 years I crave them, buy a box, dole them out over a month and then go another couple of years without them. The last time I bought them… UGH!!! They tasted exactly as I expected them to — sweet, sweet, and sweeter. But the texture… God. Oily, heavy, and the filling the worst! Twinkie filling used to be light and fluffy and a little bit gritty on your tongue. You could lick it out or suck it out and y’know we all did. This stuff? It’s like pure fat. Compresses on itself when you lick. Heavy and greasy. Vile and disgusting.
Because I eat them so rarely I don’t know when the swap was made but given that it’s a pure texture issue I suspect transfat paranoia.
Give me back my Twinkies, dammit!!!
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:52 am
Trans fats don’t affect taste, they probably reformulated the flavorants when they made the trans fat change. Trans-fat is tasteless, it’s just a cheaper way of giving something an eternal shelf life. So it kills you and does nothing to improve the taste, it just lets the company sell you year old crap. There’s nothing remotely lamentable about the death of this stuff.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:53 am
I think removal of trans fats is a good thing. They are not ‘normal’ (for those that don’t know, the hydrogens from unsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids flip from one side of the chain to the other – hence ‘trans’ – causing them to stiffen, raising cholesterol and increasing heart disease risk). They are worse than saturated fats, so you have to eat a lot less of them.
Also, it is worth remembering that until 2006 (I think, certainly not before then), trans fats weren’t even listed on food labels in the US; you didn’t even know you were eating them, so other people were already making your decisions for you.
Furthermore, with so many people saying “I can be sensible, I can make my own decisions”, I’m curious to know how many of those people know what a ’safe’ level of consumption for trans fats is? Perhaps I’m being unfair here, and many of you do know, but if my past experience is at all representative, most people will overestimate this amount by at least a factor of 6.
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:26 am
BA, I think you have conflated correlation with causation.
Transfats are industrially produced materials chemically distinct from anything occuring in nature, and so we haven’t had the time to evolve to digest and metabolise them. Stick to _real_ fat for flavour.
As several other posters pointed out (between the Ron Paul posts), it’s more likely that some other ingredients were changed, possibly to make up for increased cost of whatever was substituted for the transfat, that ended up spoiling the flavour. Solution: be prepared to pay more for your HoHos.
SecondTimePoster.
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:29 am
How to cook your TRANS FAT Hot Dawgs and see stars!
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/hotdogs#comments
Life insurance recommended.
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:05 am
If you are wondering why that high-fructose corn syrup was so common: It is because of the limiting of imports of the much-better-all-round cane sugar has put the price of it too high. If cane sugar was available in the US at the international price, then no one would bother with corn syrup. Everyone, including international cane producers here in Australia, would be much better off. Excepting, of course, some inefficient sugar cane growers in some electorally important regions of the states….
Bah. Democracy is such a loss – but then again, so is everything humans try. Oh, excepting rad-awesome telescopes and planetary probes!!!
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:07 am
@Gonzo: “Phil’s assumption is right for Phil. You said it yourself, taste is subjective. Whether an alien is piloting a UFO is decidedly not.”
And whether you can taste the difference between transfat and non-transfat is not either according to some of the posts here.
I don’t personally know whether you can or not, but as a skeptic I can’t just take Phil’s word for it.
You are confusing two issues here. The first of which is, that if Phil doesn’t want to eat them anymore due to the bad taste he perceives then he has every right to make that choice and needs no justification. Asking him to prove they taste bad to him is like asking me to prove my favourite colour is blue.
And hell, when it comes right down to it, I wouldn’t stop him buying gold-plated speaker cables for his stereo system if he thought it “enriched the sound”. But is his perception an accurate reflection of reality? That is – the very objective reality that there is a discernible difference?
And as I said before, there may indeed be a change in the taste that is an indirect result of switching from transfats, (for example more or different preservatives to compensate for the beneficial properties of transfats, or the rapid degradation of a Ho Ho with a reduced shelf-life) – so in that case he’d still be right in perceiving a difference even if you can’t actually taste the difference between the original transfat ingredient and the substitute.
But even if Phil was claiming that a UFO landed in his backyard, three little green men jumped out, and took him to the planet Venus for the weekend, I still can’t just take his word for it. It may have actually happened, or he might be stone-cold freakin’ nuts, but that doesn’t help me much when I hear it secondhand.
As I said, a perceptible taste difference may, or may not, be an objective fact – and we could test that, (pity we can’t catch a bunch of aliens and put them in a police line-up and do the same). And assuming you can actually taste the difference – whether you personally like the old taste or the new one better, is of course, entirely a matter for your palette.
And consider what you would conclude if Phil could not tell the difference in a double-blind test.
All I’m saying is he’s jumping the gun to blame transfats, (directly), for the bad taste he perceives – not that he doesn’t subjectively perceive it, or his subjective perceptions require objective justification.
But there are two issues here, and you’re obfuscating one with the other. Your basically confusing the difference between a person seeing a light in the sky, and them jumping to the conclusion that it’s caused by an alien spacecraft without adequate grounds to do so.
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:48 am
Wow, the kooks really came out of the woodwork for this one.
Yes, this is just another food fad. Americans love their food fads. “You eat too much, and you don’t exercise enough” isn’t an acceptable answer to their problems. So, a “better” (that is, false, but more palatable) answer must be found. This has led to a succession of different ingredients being blamed for what is actually a simple lifestyle problem. The result is a population who are convinced that if only they eat the “right” things they can stuff their faces night and day and not suffer for it.
Simultaneously you have corporations looking for an economic edge. If the population thinks “sugar” is bad you can put “corn syrup” into your product instead. If you can buy one white fatty substance for less than another, why not switch? But the industry has no economic interest in harming your health, perceived or otherwise, so if Americans all decide that water is dangerous and they don’t want it in their food, the industry will just sigh and figure out a way to remove all the water. There’s no point telling the American consumer “Water isn’t bad for you” he doesn’t want to hear that. Get on with the job of removing it, before he’s distracted by pretty lights or a loud noise.
Meanwhile you have a further group trying to make themselves rich by pretending that food’s much more complicated than it really is. This is the group selling you expensive “supplements” and telling you that your existing food isn’t nutritious. A brief meditation on what we know about our fellow animals would suggest that you can probably eat more or less any type of food, since other animals have adapted to do so. Sure enough, when we look at the science this is true. Nutrition isn’t difficult. You need some energy, some protein and a few vitamins, all of which are found in thousands of “bad” processed food products in the freezer at your local supermarket just as much as in the gourmet food aisle and the “natural foods” section. Would it taste better if you killed a cow, butchered it yourself and made roast beef with home-grown roast potatoes and carrots? Maybe. The feeling of achievement might contribute something to the experience. Is it actually better for you nutrition-wise than the store-bought frozen meal? Not really.
America’s problem with food is quantity, not quality. That’s the result “Super size me” papers over with its relentless focus on McDonalds. Morgan eats too much, feels ill and gets sick. McDonalds is just wallpaper.
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:11 am
BA, what has probably occurred is not that the trans-fats supply the flavour, but that the process used to remove trans-fats has also removed many of the flavour components.
I am not aware of any molecules where we can taste the difference between a trans- double bond and a cis- double bond.*
*OK, here’s the chemistry. Single C-C bonds are free to rotate about the axis of the bond, but double bonds are not.** Thus, because each carbon atom has four covalent bonds connecting it to aother atoms, a C=C double bond in a long-chain molecule can have one of two geometries. Either the rest of the long chain is connected to diagonally-opposite bonds either side of the C=C double bond, or it will be connected to bonds on the same side of the C=C double bond. The former is called a “trans-” double bond (also called E, from the German word “entgegen” meaning “opposite”), the latter is called a “cis-” double bond (also called Z, from the German word “zusammen” meaning “together”).
**Hey, there is a reason, but do you want to get into molecular orbital theory?
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:26 am
Long Time Listener said:
“Transfats are industrially produced materials chemically distinct from anything occuring in nature, and so we haven’t had the time to evolve to digest and metabolise them. Stick to _real_ fat for flavour.”
Not quite. Cis-fatty acids are more usual, but trans-fatty acids do occur in nature.
From the website of the British Nutrition Foundation:
“Trans fatty acids occur seldom in nature but can be found in ruminant fats and milk”
Source:
http://www.nutrition.org.uk/home.asp?siteId=43§ionId=603&parentSection=324&which=undefined
Trans-fatty acids are found in many processed foods, particularly if cis-fatty acids have been hydrogenated (the conditions of the hydrogenation reaction also permit isomerisation of the double bonds). We are quite capable of using trans-fatty acids as an energy source. (If we were not, they would not be fattening!). Why trans-fatty acids are considered bad I do not know, unless they influence the ratio of blood-borne HDL and LDL (high-density lipoprotein and low-density lipoprotein, otherwise known as “good” and “bad” cholesterol, except I cannot recall which is which).
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:27 am
Are you sure they haven’t always been transfat free, just now labeled because of the fad? Ho-Ho’s have always sucked. Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls are about a thousand times better.
Actually, all of the Hostess line fails in comparison to Little Debbie, though the cupcakes are passable and Little Debbie doesn’t have a Twinkie equivalent.
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:29 am
I mention the labeling because it always cracks me up to see things like candy corn or soda labeled “fat free” or something like lard labeled “sugar free”.
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:41 am
@sirjonsnow “Actually, all of the Hostess line fails in comparison to Little Debbie, though the cupcakes are passable and Little Debbie doesn’t have a Twinkie equivalent.”
Yes they do:
http://www.littledebbie.com/products/GoldenCremes.asp
Although these are 1000x better:
http://www.littledebbie.com/products/BostonCremeRolls.asp
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:00 am
Oh, hell. Not only are you starting to sound like Penn Jillette, you’re going to start looking like him, too.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:09 am
Obviously the obesity rates in the states show that most people don’t have the same sense of control and understanding of what trans fats can do to a person. I think its still important to ban trans fats, if not for the sensible people then for the ones who don’t care and are putting stress on the health systems with thier heart attacks and other complications of obesity.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:16 am
HoHos are terrible, and I’ve thought that since long before the anti-trans-fat fad. Maybe they were good way back when, but I’m betting the change had more to do with replacing real ingredients with high-fructose corn syrup.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:25 am
Craig:
No, I don’t think I’m making too big a deal, especially if we look at the broad transfat bans some cities have put in place. Transfats make people sick. If people get sick because corporations sucker them into eating unnecessary and dangerous food, then we all bear the cost.
IronMan:
No “tyrannical majority” involved here. Your right to injure yourself ends when your behavior affects someone else. Eating transfats makes people sick. If you end up in getting a bypass because of eating transfat, the rest of us help pay for it. My medical insurance premium goes up annually, whether I file a claim or not. Most of that increase comes from something other than malpractice insurance costs.
(Yes, you have a right to eat transfat, or a pound of bacon daily, or whatever. And I have a right to do whatever I can to stop you.)
People who try to scare other people about the costs of “Universal Health Care” need to admit that we already pay far too much for health care, and we pay it to fat corporations. The free market does not exist in American health care, and, even if it did, could not provide health care for all. The existing corporate dominated system has amply demonstrated it is uninterested and incapable of providing adequate health care for everyone.
The notion of personal control of health care in the U.S. is a chimera. If you are hospitalized, your care is ultimately in the hands of the corporations paying for it, not you.
Sensible folks (like me, of course) who support the idea of a market need to recognize when the market cannot provide necessary services. Health care is such an instance. To continue to argue for the “free market” as the fix for our health care woes is either to accept millions of unecessary illnesses and deaths or value support for an ideology over the actual wellbeing of people.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:27 am
What is all the fervor about? Science has proven that transfats are bad, like cigarettes and CO2, it must go in order to save the children. It is a small sacrifice for the benefits expected. We must move to a substainable lifestyle that will require many more small sacrifices in ‘Western’ lifestyles to save the Earth.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:27 am
I’m apalled that BA won’t get behind this all-American concept. Transfats are singularly responsible for ALL of the obesity in the USA. The fact that there is no longer a deferred gratification concept (moderation — HA HA) in our populace means that big government must take the place of common sense. Remember — large-ettes outnumber you & your skinny friends by a huge margin…. Taste means nothing QUANTITY is now the name of the game. [Big government is probably ahead of this & working on portion control legislation]
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:32 am
Okay, I give up. Will someone please explain to this Old Fart just what the “teh” in “teh suck” means. Is it an acronym, or nonsense sound like bah! or phooey! or … ?
I guess I’m just not up to snuff when it comes to this, so please help!
Mikel
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:52 am
Maybe they were past their expiration date. Sometimes stores put things on sell just before they expire.
Besides, the best snack food EVER is Ding Dongs. Creme filling, surrounded by chocolate cake, encased in a chocolate shell. MMmmmmm.
http://www.hostesscakes.com/dingdongs.asp
Though, their description kinda creeps me out- “bite right into that creamy center and get a mouthful of chocolate goodness.”
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:52 am
I have to agree about the evils of regulation “for the public good.” I think food companies should be able to color foods red using lead chromate, like they did at the turn of the previous century. Customers who don’t want lead in their diet can simply avoid those foods. Similarly, I think companies should be able to put chalk dust in water and sell it as milk, another common practice 110 years ago. Customers who don’t want cheap milk won’t buy it.
Taking this line of argument to its logical extreme, I think companies should be allowed to put lethal doses of potassium cyanide or nerve agents in food. People who don’t want to die suddenly just won’t eat those foods. You can leave these things to the American consumer without a lot of stifling government regulation by fascist New World Order bureaucrats.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:56 am
Billg said:
“Eating transfats makes people sick. If you end up in getting a bypass because of eating transfat, the rest of us help pay for it.”
Hang on a sec there, Bill.
What do you mean by “eating trans-fats makes people sick”? Is that in comparison to cis-fats, or in comparison to saturated fats, or in comparison to less fat altogether?
IIRC, too much saturated fat and too much cholesterol lead to the formation of atherosclerotic plaques, which are implicated in heart diseases. So, what is the basis of your assertion?
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:56 am
@billg:
“No “tyrannical majority” involved here. Your right to injure yourself ends when your behavior affects someone else. Eating transfats makes people sick. If you end up in getting a bypass because of eating transfat, the rest of us help pay for it. My medical insurance premium goes up annually, whether I file a claim or not.”
Well, my right to injure myself would not affect you if instead of relying of insure to pay for everything from emergences to typical checkups, we instead either (a) purchased cheaper health care that only covers emergencies or (b) saved our own money for emergencies instead of spending it all on needless consumer electronics. Perhaps if we all paid our own bills, we would be more observant about the $300 asprine and do something about it, instead for just giving the bill to the insurance company to pay for it.
But if want to play that gave, then perhaps people who get X amount of additional welfare dollars for each child they have should be limited to one child since their right to have children is affecting me in the form of higher taxes.
Someone else mentioned earlier about people being turned away for not having insurance. I’m not sure about private providers, but an emergency room, by law, is not allow to turn away someone who cannot pay for service. I’ve spent plenty enough time in the emergency room during my wife’s pregnancy to read that sign several times.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:59 am
Greg in Austin writes:
[[Also, thanks to government spending, there are “free” clinics as well. “Free” as in there’s no cost at the door, but we all pay for it through taxes.]]
Is that bad?
Here’s my take on national health care — I’m for it, even though I know it’s grossly inefficient compared to a free market. You know why? Because free markets ration things by the price mechanism. With socialized medicine, I have a much better chance of actually getting the health care I need, or at least more of it than I get now.
My wife has chronic polycystic kidney disease. She cannot get health insurance. So when (not if) she needs a kidney transplant, we have two choices: 1) Let her die, or 2) go into debt for the rest of our lives.
So I’ll vote for whoever gets the Democratic nomination, because it just might save Elizabeth’s life. I’d prefer national health care to national health insurance, but I’ll settle for the latter.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:01 am
Mikel, “Teh suck” as in “to suck”.
To learn internet/gaming lingo, simply play a few hours of online games such as WoW (World of Warcraft). You can also learn a lot about Chuck Norris.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:01 am
Mikel said:
“Okay, I give up. Will someone please explain to this Old Fart just what the “teh” in “teh suck” means. Is it an acronym, or nonsense sound like bah! or phooey! or … ?
I guess I’m just not up to snuff when it comes to this, so please help!”
“Teh” is a misspelling of “the” that has become so widespread in the internet that it has sort of become a word in its own right. In its strictest sense, it actually means “the”, but it has far wider uses than as a definite article. In conjunction with a “nounified” verb (in this case, literally, “the suck”) it allows the verb to retain its verb status but without any conjugation (i.e. it means that the users no longer have to recall that the third person present indicative requires an “s” at the end of the verb form, as in “it sucks” as opposed to, for instance, “they suck”).
Does this help?
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:03 am
I need to do some reading, because I can’t remember where in the US Constitution it says we have a right to health care…
To autumn, I never said I was wealthy. I will say I am healthy, in that I see a dentist twice a year, a regular doctor about once every two or three years, and only a few times in my life have I needed some kind of surgery or emergency care.
In your case, if your son needed dental work, could you not have gone to a different dentist? When I needed a root canal and my regular dentist could not schedule me in, they referred me to someone in Round Rock (a town close to Austin) who could get me that day. All of my orthodontics (which I did not get until I was in my late 20’s) were paid for out of pocket. It was expensive, and I could only do that at a time when both my wife and I were working and making enough money. I was driving a piece of junk car at the time, and instead of fixing it up, I had my teeth done.
Again, its all about a choice. Some families choose to have cellphones for their kids, cable tv or satellite, 2 cars, internet access and more, and yet complain that they cannot afford medical insurance or services. To me, THAT is BS. Its not always about being born rich or poor (and I was definitely NOT born rich. Quite the contrary.) Its about choosing where to spend your hard earned money.
As to your comment about heath care and education being equal, again, if its in the Constitution, then I’ve made a mistake. If not, then, well, we either DON’T get a federal health care system for everyone (we do have Medicare for retired folk) or we have to vote for an Amendment. Personally, I would not be in favor of government health care. If they handle it like they do public schools, then that would be scary.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:04 am
Barton Paul Levinson said:
“Taking this line of argument to its logical extreme, I think companies should be allowed to put lethal doses of potassium cyanide or nerve agents in food. People who don’t want to die suddenly just won’t eat those foods.”
No, that’s just poor business sense. How would you get brand loyalty?
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:13 am
Phil,
Your sample size may be too small to warrant the strength of your conclusion. I recommend eating more HoHos from a larger variety of suppliers and different expiration dates.
I have noticed considerable variance in the quality of HoHos. Sometimes they have been better, sometimes worse. I wouldn’t characterize the trend as a decline necessarily. I would say the quality reliability is low.
Try this: Set up a post office box in Boulder and we’ll send you boxes of HoHos from all over the country.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:14 am
Barton Paul Levinson said:
“Here’s my take on national health care — I’m for it, even though I know it’s grossly inefficient compared to a free market. You know why? Because free markets ration things by the price mechanism. With socialized medicine, I have a much better chance of actually getting the health care I need, or at least more of it than I get now.”
Here in the UK, we have the National Health Service, which has good points and bad points. For dealing with acute problems such as sudden illness or injury, my understanding is that the service is usually very good. However, for chronic problems, or non-urgent treatments, the general reports are poor. The present Labour government introduced a system of targets into the NHS to make it look like they cared about performance. All this has done is cause the NHS administrators to care more about meeting targets (by whatever means) than about patient care.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:17 am
When everybody went scrambling to remove trans fats from food they had to replace them with something else. SO they wound up replacing them with Palm Oil. Which turns out isn’t by any means better for the individual individual than Trans Fats (at least in the realms of developing heart disease). Also another point of interest is that Palm Oil comes from Palm trees which like to grow in tropical environment. So I’ll give you a clue as to what part of the world is further being raped thanks to the lack of Trans Fats. It starts with an ‘A’, and ends with a spider monkey stealing some farmers tractor.
Funny how life works.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:35 am
“Also, while Mrs. BA and TLA like Little Debbies, I think they are the snack food equivalent of RC Cola. Barf.”
That’s it, now you’ve gone TOO FAR. Dissing RC Cola? What flavor of crazy are you, anyway? RC is far superior to Coke and Pepsi, anyone with discriminating tastes knows that! I’m dropping this blog from my Favorites list!
(I may have overreacted just a tad…)
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:36 am
Mikel,
“Teh” = the. It’s a deliberate “slang” misspelling, courtesy of teh Interweb Culture.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:53 am
Skimming over the posts, no one’s seemed to address whether the trans-fat substitutes are detectable by all the population or a subset. BA may be able to taste a difference that most others can’t. If so, the company’s R&D department may not realized their new recipe tastes awful to some, or the company realizes some people can taste it, but figures enough can’t that it won’t seriously dent sales.
This assumes, of course, that Hostess has changed the HoHo recipe and BA’s not dealing with a case of product that’s old or has gotten too hot at some point. I was going to ask Hostess, but their contact site insists on personal info I’m not keen on giving out just to find out if they’ve changed their recipe.
Assuming they have, the history of junk food is littered with substitutes that had drawbacks. Anyone else remember those low-cal potato chips cooked in an oil the body wouldn’t absorb, and why they were taken off the market? Or the high-fiber bread taken off the market when it was learned the recipe contained cellulose? Some people who ate products sweetened with cyclamate (before it was taken off the market because of links to cancer in mice) could detect a petroleum aftertaste. Some people can taste Aspartame, others Saccharine. And there have been many other products that seemed to do well in the labs, but flopped when subjected to the taste buds of the population at large.
All very interesting.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:56 am
Aerimus:
I make a decent middle-class income and no amount of realistic savings from that income is never going to cover the costs of any serious ailment requiring serious hosptial time. Trust me, I know.
How many people do you know who paid cash for their home? Surgery and a long stay in a hospital can easily cost as least as much as an average home.
I have a fundamental right to receive health care, regardless of income. A health care system that skews the quality of delivered care based on income is fundamentally inadequate and immoral.
A market, free or otherwise, will only provide the goods and services it can sell at a profit. When there are things we want that the market cannot sell at a profit, then we have to find another way to delivers those goods and services or go without them. Health care in this country is in that position.
Corporate health care providers function don’t function in a legitimate free market, anymore than any other large corporate oligarchy. The only way they maintain their deliveries of health care is by raising prices. In turn, that means fewer people can actually afford health care. Unless something changes, we are on the road to a nation in which adequate health care is available only to the wealthy.
Preaching about choice is pointless in the face of reality, especially a reality in which the corporate players have taken most of those choices away from us.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:57 am
Well, as far as the laws regarding it go, it’s stupid. Some laws (ie – cell phone while driving, smoking in indoor public places, etc) are to protect people that aren’t making the choice. The guy on the phone while driving is endangering his own life, but he is also potentially endangering the lives of others. Same deal with smoking in public. Eating trans fat will not hurt anyone but yourself, so it should not be under government control.
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:20 am
@billg:
“I make a decent middle-class income and no amount of realistic savings from that income is never going to cover the costs of any serious ailment requiring serious hosptial time. Trust me, I know.”
So do I. I’m the sole source of income in my family. And we currently don’t have insurance (I’m a contractor, so I can’t get it from work). Yet we’ve managed to pay for my child’s visit to the pediatrician, my wife’s counseling sessions, her visit to the cardiologist, and for the heart monitor that she had to wear. And we paid for all those services, despite that fact that in any given month, only about $300 or less is not going to some bill or debt payment (and some of that goes back into the food budget, since a family of three living off of $70 a week for food, diapers and other necessities is tough). we’ve done it by cutting back our cell phone minutes, by drinking more tap water than tea, kool-aid or cokes, by putting off some desirable expenditures, such as a kitchen table, and have eaten a lot of rice and pasta the last three months. But we’ve managed, and thankfully we haven’t had an emergency these last three months. Of course, if I’d been wiser about money in my 20’s, I’d have a lot more than the extra $300 at the end of the month and I’d be able to get insurance.
I’m about to start a new job and we will be getting more money, but I’m still a contractor, so we will be getting insurance for emergencies only. But personally, I’d rather the government but out, cut my taxes, and let me used that money and do my own research into the company I want to have insurance with, or decide on the type of insurance I want – without the government telling me what I must have or that I must have it in the first place!
The same applies for education. I pay $800 in property taxes to go to a school that my child will hopefully never set foot in. I’m sure that $800 could be used in our house to lower our debt, so that we in turn could donate more to the causes that we support, or so that we could have a better chance of retiring without relying on the SS that I’ve paid into for 15 years and will probably never see a dime of, or, if we want to stick with education, maybe it could pay for the books and supplies that we’ll need while homeschooling our daughter. And I love the idea of public education, but if the crap we have now is the best that the government can do, than I’d rather take my money elsewhere.
If you want mandatory or government funded healthcare, be like Mass. and let your state deal with it. Last time I heard on NPR, they weren’t doing so hot as far as money was concerned (of course, that was about 8 months ago, it might be better now, but I have my guesses that it’s not).
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:21 am
I agree with the post, although I have to say I’ve never been partial to HoHo’s. It does, however, go well in line with what I’ve been saying for a while about McDonald’s french fries. The originally fried them in beef tallow, and became an international phenomenon because of them. Then they switched to a vegetable oil and they weren’t as good. They were okay, but not as good. Then someone found out that there were still trace amounts of beef tallow in the vegetable oil, and they changed it again so it was completely vegetable oil. And they were still okay, but no longer quite as good. Now they’re using completely transfat-free oil, and they pretty much suck. They would never have gotten as large as they are with the fries they serve today.
BUT! I have a solution. Bring back the original, unhealthy, vegetarian-unfriendly beef tallow fries, and call them, oh, I don’t know… Classic Fries. And also serve the new, transfat-free, untasty fries and call them New Fries (coz they won’t sell as well if they’re called Nasty Fries).
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 am
Aerimus:
Please show me a list of diseases you and your family do not plan on getting.
If someone in your family needs major surgery, followed by several weeks of hospital care, then the bill to you will be in the six figures, or more. Will your savings pay for that? For cancer treatments?
I’ve had the experience of seeing bills mount as a family member spent weeks and weeks in hospitals, eventually including a discharge against doctor recommendations because a corporate insurance company decided to stop paying. Unless our family had a million-plus sitting in the bank, there’s no way we’d have paid those bills. We would have declared bankruptcy, and the costs would have been passed along to the rest of the country via higher premiums and higher doctor bills.
As long as 30 years ago, I knew a couple whose child was born with a host of problems, requiring more than a month of hospital care. When they took him home, they also took home a bill for $250,000. Eventually, they declared bankruptcy.
As I see it, anyone who argues that we should let the market decide who receives health care and who does not is simply saying they are prepared to let people suffer and die.
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 am
@Justin
Thanks for your post. As I read through others’ comments, I kept wondering that no one brought up that aspect.
Yes, there are higher medical costs, potentially, as a result of trans-fats, which in turn drive up market prices for insurance and other health care. However, arguing that this economic factor is a reason to ban trans-fats, one should also argue that, as noted earlier, any other risky behavior (walking anywhere near where cars are allowed, driving, riding a bicycle, using the stairs rather than an escalator or elevator, using an elevator rather than stairs, playing sports, etc.).
Regarding the tastes, while the actual flavor of trans-fat might not be detectable, its replacement very well may be. Also, keep in mind that texture plays into the perceived flavor of foods. A nice steak tastes really good, but a pureed steak….not so much. Substitutes for trans-fat may have a similar, though clearly not as extreme, effect on the texture and, thus, the subjective perception of flavor. And, as others have noted numerous times already, variations in other ingredients may also have affected the taste, in addition to how long it’s been on the shelf and so on.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:01 am
HoHos without fat = HoNos
-j
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:04 am
Just another thought. Why ban trans-fats? Why not require manufacturers to offer a trans-fat-free alternative? This puts the choice on the consumer, and allows for taste comparisons. If people like what the trans-fat does for the product, then they can buy it. If they want to stay healthy-ish, they can buy the trans-fat-free version.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:06 am
Todd:
>>”…arguing that this economic factor is a reason to ban trans-fats, one should also argue that, as noted earlier, any other risky behavior…”
No. Some element of risk is involved in everything we do. Use of transfat, however, is wholely unnecessary. People who want their Twinkies to last 30 years have no more right to complain when we take the transfat away than do people who like to hit themselves with hammers when we take the hammer away.
Societies make choices between permissible behaviors and paying for the costs of those behaviors. Regarding the behavior of putting transfat in food, I’ve made my choice. I think the benefits to all of us from banning transfat outweigh the right of any individual to eat the stuff.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:24 am
I envision speakeasies popping up with trans-fat products smuggled into the country.
@billg
There is no reason to play sports or to ride a bicycle, any more than there is a reason to eat a Twinkie or a Ho-Ho. Recreational driving is not necessary, either. Should all of these things be banned or regulated? Should people only be allowed to join in sports if it is for the objective benefit of the greater population? Or should riding a bicycle be allowed only if a person does it for health or environmental benefits (i.e., no riding your bike if you do it just because you like to)?
A benefit from trans-fat in stuff is that a person who, albeit subjectively, enjoys the trans-fatty food more than others. This enjoyment leads to greater quality of life. Greater quality of life can potentially have other positive health effects.
Another example. UV light has been shown to lead to eye problems. Should we mandate that everyone must wear UV-protective eyewear every time they venture outside or look out a window? There are certainly health costs associated with the risky behavior of not wearing protective eyewear.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:24 am
Well, everybody agrees that transfat makes (commercial) products taste great. But I can assure you, my mom, sister and brother, all great cooks, and myself, just fairly good cook, never used transfat. Just real butter, milk, cream, sugar, eggs and so on, and no commercial product can beat home made cakes, tarts, desserts and the like. Let’s be sincere: lazyness is what makes us buy transfat candies, isn’t it?
The problem lies on self control. Millions around the world are becoming overweight. That’s why transfat is being banned.
I agree with Quiet_Desperation: reprogram your taste buds!
Regards, Phil.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:27 am
Just wait ’til they make you stop exhaling greenhouse gasses!
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:27 am
@billg
“I have a fundamental right to receive health care, regardless of income. A health care system that skews the quality of delivered care based on income is fundamentally inadequate and immoral.”
So then you have a fundamental right to force someone to labor for you for free? The logistics of that seem rather difficult and immoral to me.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:27 am
@billg
One more thing about trans-fat being wholly unnecessary, other than to make something last for 30 years. It has already been noted that the texture and, potentially taste, can be affected. These subtleties may not be discernible to every single person in the population, but it might be to some.
There is also a cost-savings for the company. Lower cost means lower prices means potentially higher sales. This in turn contributes to jobs and the greater economy as a whole.
There is more at issue with trans-fats beyond the preservative quality and health risks. Not that I’m saying trans-fats are good at all, just throwing out some other points to consider.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:31 am
Todd:
>>”Should all of these things be banned or regulated? ”
No. That’s why I said societies make decisions on these issues. Some behaviors are banned, some regulated, some left alone. The fact that we reach those decisions does not mean that 100 percent of the population agrees.
Transfat serves no purpose I’m willing to bear the societal costs of; that’s why I’ve made my decision. Others will make their own.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:31 am
@Patricio Cruzat
“Millions around the world are becoming overweight. That’s why transfat is being banned.”
While trans-fats may contribute to obesity, that’s not the only reason. It can have a negative health effect on the slender, as well. It’s not necessarily the fat that you see that is bad. Someone who is overweight, but exercises and eats decent foods is likely healthier than a skinny person who does not exercise and eats crap, just because their particular metabolic makeup keeps them thin.
Obesity has more to do with genetics, quantity of food intake, and exercise behaviors, not so much with the fat content of foods.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:34 am
lagomorph:
>”"So then you have a fundamental right to force someone to labor for you for free? ”
Show me where I said that.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:38 am
@billg
“Transfat serves no purpose I’m willing to bear the societal costs of; that’s why I’ve made my decision. Others will make their own.”
That, I can accept. Perhaps, rather than banning trans-fats, adjust insurance so that engaging, knowingly, in risky behaviors, such as eating trans-fats, leads to higher premiums for those customers only. The greater the risk, the higher the premium…ranging up to lack of coverage for any resulting health problems.
Government shouldn’t need to be the parent when it comes to choices that primarily affect the person making the choice. If they want to screw up their own life or health, then that’s their concern, i’n'it? If it has a direct negative impact or harm on others, then government can step in to ensure the rights and protection of the victim. The BA’s eating a Ho-Ho laced with trans-fat does not have a direct impact on anyone other than him. It might have indirect effects, but no direct harm.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:39 am
@billg:
“That’s why I said societies make decisions on these issues.”
Funny, I don’t vote for no trans fat…and I’m certain that, at least for now, I’m part of the society, as is Todd. And judging from BA’s reaction, I don’t think he got much of a say in the no-trans-fat decision that society made.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:43 am
I don’t think the trans fat change altered the flavor. All they needed to do was switch to oil crops that contain less of certain oils that can generate trans fats during hydrogenation, and more of the oils that don’t. I would look to other recipe changes for the difference in flavor.
Interestingly, there is a fat that is linked to good health, but it happens to be a trans fat – so much for the wisdom of blanket bans.
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:47 am
@billg:
Oh, and I still have much and many reservations about national health care. I’d have no problem paying for a *well manages* system that takes care of catastrophic issues or emergencies. But I refuse to quietly pay taxes for routine checkups which people should be able to schedule and save the money to pay. And I’m so tired of paying (in the form of the aforementioned higher hospital fees and insurance premiums you mentioned) for gang members and drug dealers to be treated for free in emergency rooms for shotting each other, that quite frankly, I don’t care to spend tax dollars on paying for their routine checkups too. *IF* you can get a well managed government system going for those needs you mention, than I’d go along with it in the end. But “federal government” and “well managed” are two phases that don’t pop up often without a “not” in there.
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:31 am
transfats are partially hydrogenated oils — they can be replaced with a mix of fully hydrogenated oils and unsaturated oils. This does not affect the taste and the molecular chain is longer, so the body can process the fat.
the fats were replaced because they were cheaper to manufacturer in the 60’s (crisco, margarine). Not because there was a health benefit.
Social pressures are starting to hit smaller manufacturers, but most will not comply until they are forced to. Like the candy makers who send out trans fat free food to all the world, but the USA. there is a possibility that the demand for partially hydrogenated oil will go down, and the price could go up, but currently, the new mix of oils is more expensive then the trans-fatty oils.
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:38 am
Aerimus:
>>”Funny, I don’t vote for no trans fat.”
Neither did I. But I voted for my city council and if they want to ban transfats in local restaurants, that’s just fine with me. When societies make choices, via voting or otherwise, some folks win and some folks lose.
>>”Well-managed” health systems: Having dealt with both the federal government and the corporate medical and insurance bureacracy, I’m of the opinion that the latter has nothing to teach to the former.
I’d prefer a poorly managed health care system paid with taxes that ensures people get the care they need regardless of income over a well managed system, private or government, that ensures that millions of people don’t get care, suffer, and die needlessly simply because that care is priced beyond their means.
It is much more important to me that everyone has access to health care than it is that health care be well managed, or that my taxes are reduced. In other words, I don’t want a health care system in which something other than need for care determines who gets it.
AS you acknowledge, we’re already paying the costs for everyone who gets treated at an emergency room beccause they have no insurance. I’ve spent some time in emergency rooms and I know (as do you) that a bleeding gang member is a rare sight.
Look, I wish you well. If you think you can avoid facing six- or seven-figure medical bills down the road, I hope you’re right. But, I’ve found out that stuff happens. I believe in a lot of things pretty passionately, but I’ve also decided that no one should sacrifice their health or their life just so I can impose my opinions on them. Being alive and healthy trumps everything.
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:52 am
Kudos to BA for triggering some of the most interesting dialogue on nutrition, healthcare & government. Would that our legislators had comparable dialogue and invested similar energy in their efforts…. perhaps we would see some changes from them other than proposing constitutional amendments re: flag burning & gay marriage (I guess they think that both are of serious import to the well-being of the nation).
Huzzah for Phil!
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I am really disappointed. I have the utmost respect for Phil, but this is a classic non-skeptical look at the issue. He has no evidence that the trans fat itself had any effect on the taste. I can’t find a definitive resource, but from what I can see it doesn’t look like humans can detect trans fat compared to other fats that are healthier. If he wants to show evidence that he can tell the difference between trans fat and healthier alternatives, or show evidence that the change in the flavor of the hoho’s is due even in part to the change from trans fat, then I will be convinced. But so far it sounds no different than “I took the homeopathic pain pill and I feel better”. Sorry, but anecdotes are not evidence.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
What the heck. Don’t legislate trans-fats, just leave it up to an informed public what’s good for them and what’s not.
And while we’re at it, I like my wine sweetened with lead. And I want formaldehyde in my peanut butter, and melamine in my protein shake. I find arsenic gives my drinking water a nice tang, and mercury rounds out the flavour of my salmon.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Amazing how a hoho can spark a political debate. Cudos to all involved – this has remained a mostly civil conversation. That being said, I tend to side with the people who don’t want trans fat banned. I personally have not noticed a difference (either before or after trans fat removal) in flavour, but it is a choice in personal health and would be a basic violation of rights to ban it. I am in favor of avoiding trans fat, but that doesn’t mean everyone else should as well – it’s their choice.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I meant kudos…my bad.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
“Pure suck” made me spit coffee out of my nose this morning. Great line, I must use it sometime.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I should add something. So far we haven’t even established the the Ho Ho’s Phil had six months ago contained trans fat. The labelling requirements went into effect two years ago. In fact, we have not established that Ho Ho’s ever had trans fat for that matter. If they used animal fat they would have always been below the labelling threshold.
Also, I should add that trans fats are only banned in a few cities, and only in restaurants were there are no ingredients lists and thus no way for consumers to easily check whether they contain trans fats or not. The reason they were removed from Ho Ho’s, if they were ever in there to begin with, is for advertising purposes. There is no law banning trans fat in store foods in the U.S., at least that I am aware of. I am, of course, open to being corrected. The FDA regulations only apply to labelling, allowing consumers to determine whether they want to buy foods with trans fat or not. Considering there is no evidence of any health benefit, apparently no taste benefit, and only a very small cost benefit, consumers seem to be largely selecting such foods.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Phil, to put it simply, you’re confusing “trans-fat” with just plain “fat”. You want some kind of fat in your snacks for flavor. It doesn’t have to be, and should not be, trans-fat.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Beachmaster: “What is all the fervor about? Science has proven that transfats are bad, like cigarettes and CO2, it must go in order to save the children. It is a small sacrifice for the benefits expected. We must move to a substainable lifestyle that will require many more small sacrifices in ‘Western’ lifestyles to save the Earth.”
OK, fool me once… I’m calling you out, Beachmaster. You’re just playing the part of a hyper left touchy feely type, right? I’d even guess the misspelling of substainable (sic) was intentional.
Sadly, he (?) could be for real. There was a guy on Los Angeles radio yesterday proposing more billions for another couple subway stops (how many of you even knew LA had a subway?) to reduce pollution (less cars, you see).
When confronted by the stupidity of spending billions to probably eliminate 15 cars from the roads, he fell back to the “think of the children” position. It’s a good thing I’m not a reporter because I’d clock any politician using that trite crap with me right in the jaw.
I swear, most of these proposed “solutions” cost more than just buying people free high mileage cars. And people wonder why I gave up on the system. They NEVER back down from a position no matter how many facts are against them, and hence my “political ideology = religion” hypothesis.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:13 pm
i’m very surprised no one posted this article, in light of all the ” people eating transfats and smoking cost me more money in inurance premiums.”
WRONG. you healthy people cost ME (the smoking, transfat eater) more money!
on average, those living healthy lifestyles live 4.5 years longer than the obese, and 7 years longer than the average smoker.
your extra 5-7 years of declining health are a heck of a lot more expensive to insurers than the heart attack that will most likely take out the smoker/obese.
but nice try trying to make me feel badly for being less than healthy.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18711498
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
HO-HO CAKE
1 chocolate fudge cake mix
First, make 1 chocolate fudge cake mix per instructions on the box, and spread in a large greased pan, 12 x 18 x 3/4. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Cool.
FILLING:
5 tbsp. flour
1 stick butter
1 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. shortening
Cook 5 tablespoons flour and 1 1/2 cups milk until thick. Let cool. Then put that in a mixing bowl with one stick butter, 1/2 cup shortening and one cup sugar. Beat on high speed until light and fluffy (about 8 to 10 minutes). Then spread this nice white fluff evenly over the top of the cake to about 1/4 inch from the edge of the pan. Chill.
HO-HO FROSTING:
1 stick butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
3 sq. semi-sweet chocolate, melted
2 1/2 tbsp. hot water
1 egg
Melt one stick butter and cool slightly. Add 1 egg, 3 squares semi-sweet chocolate melted, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 2 1/2 tablespoons hot water and 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar. Beat smooth by hand. Spread immediately over cake, clear to the edge of the pan. Keep in the refrigerator until served. Cut into squares.
This is the first recipe at Cooks.com:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,ho_ho_cake,FF.html
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:27 pm
My wife bought some ho-hos recently, and they didn’t taste *anything* like I remember as a kid. I thought maybe it was bad nostalgia, but now I’m not so sure.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I also doubt that it’s the lack of trans fat that is causing the change in taste. The benefit of trans fat is extending shelf life, not improving taste. If the product has less overall fat, THAT is probably what’s causing the yuckiness.
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Congrats to Grey Monk for cutting through all the crap posted so far, including my own and getting to the real issue!
(Seriously, thanks for the recipe! I plan on giving it a shot!)
April 3rd, 2008 at 1:58 pm
@jenni
Hmm…interesting angle. Hadn’t thought about that aspect of it. Thank you for posting that.
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I think it’s a common practice for manufacturers to pump up the sugar/corn syrup content when they drop the fat down. That inevitably impacts taste. (Hard to see how HoHo could taste any sweeter, but less fat would certainly change the mouth feel.)
Remember, too, that a food label that says “Zero Percent” of anything may not actually have zero percent of that ingredient. In many cases, regulations define “zero” as some other very small faction. For most of us, that won’t make much difference, but it could be important for folks with allergies.
In any case, why is an erudite guy like BA eating bourgeois food like HoHo’s? I recommend dark chocolate, salty almonds, and strong coffee.
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
In the U.S., the FDA says anything below 0.5% trans fat is considered “0%”, even though apparently 0.5% is still a level that is unreasonably high.
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Oh, someone mentioned earlier the non-HFCS cola made with cane sugar instead. I had a friend who picked some up at a Whole Foods a few months back. They were costly, if I recall, but man, the best no-name sodas evah. If it weren’t for the fact that I’ve already cut my budget back to water and cheap 59cent store cola, I’d have switched.
And to the BA, as a Southwest GA native, I take serious offense to your degradation of RC cola. You have insulted me, Sir! This means War!
April 3rd, 2008 at 2:48 pm
I always start the day off with some deep fried butter sticks wrapped in bacon. Transfats?? Please…
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Too much of any food, expecially fat, is bad for you, but apparently most any amount of a transfat is considered to pose a threat. (Altho I’m to lazy to Google it down.) Whatever it is that keeps transfat solid at room temperature also keeps it solid inside your arteries… or something like that.
I gave up Coke/cola/soda/pop a long time ago, but when I was a kid a local business cranked out various deliciou sodas, doubtless made with real sugar.
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:08 pm
@Inoculated Mind
“Interestingly, there is a fat that is linked to good health, but it happens to be a trans fat – so much for the wisdom of blanket bans.”
Exactly what fat are you talking about?
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
jay – i think the fat is avocado fat is good but has a bad name..but that just comes from my hippie mom…no science to back it up…
uh seriously there is a lot going on here..but i really am making that cake
yummy homemade makes everything better!
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:55 pm
@IRONMANAustralia: However, being forced to write “transfat” on your product is also a scarlet letter from a marketing perspective.
You mean to say it’s a bad idea to tell people what they’re eating?
And if you want informed consumers, then they should also have a realistic view of the actual dangers of transfats along with it
The actual dangers of transfats are pretty damn dangerous. You may not be aware that manufacturers in the US already had to label their food to identify the amount of saturated fat in it, and saturated fats are far better for you than transfats. If the one belongs on a label, the other certainly does.
and still have the right to choose based on that information.
They do. The only regulations prohibiting transfats, where they exist at alll, as it’s a matter of local law, are for restaurant food. Transfats may not be used as an ingredient. This makes a certain amount of sense, as restaurant menus don’t list ingredients and there’s no opportunity to make an informed choice. (I believe this has already been pointed out.)
But for some people the number of consumers still making that choice will stick in their craw, and they’ll want to MAKE every manufacturer and consumer “choose” non-transfat.
I only buy slippery-slope arguments when the slope in fact displays evidence of grease.
But at the same time, if it’s clogged arteries everyone’s concerned about, then it bears mentioning there are effective modern treatments and medical technologies to deal with that condition.
This is, frankly, the most idiotic argument anyone could make. Don’t worry about unhealthy behavior because there are effective medical treatments for the consequences? The doctors can fix everything?
Perhaps you haven’t noticed 1) Doctors can’t fix everything; and 2) that medical systems all over the world are going broke. This is true both in the US and in countries with socialized medicine, but those with socialized medicine are going broke faster. All of them — yes, even Australia — already ration health care, at least by US standards. When doctors from those countries learn about some of the conditions we treat here, they’re astounded. They’re the kinds of things that in most countries are simply not regarded as being worth treating.
Start reading medical blogs. Doctors know exactly what to do about the health care problem. Yes, many of them are politically conservative. But it’s amazing how, the longer a doctor has been in practice — I’m talking on a scale of months and years, not decades — the more he comes to accept the same reasoning on at least this one subject. It’s exposure to real patients and the idiocies of such socialized medicine as we have in the US that does it.
Emergency medical care is effectively free in the US. It’s illegal to turn anyone away who presents in an ER for treatment. But there are only so many times you can meet the kind of patient who waits for 6 hours to tell a doctor that his ass is sweating before your thoughts turn in certain directions. (This is not a hypothetical example.)
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I should add that even if they can fix it, it is not a lot of fun, it tends to cause other damage, and it does not always stay fixed forever. Biomedical engineers have been going to a lot of trouble to improve the terrible the rates at which arteries reclose after getting stents. That is why the extremely invasive and fairly risky open-heart bypass surgery is still done. Drug-eluting stents may reduce this, but they are still far from perfect. Of course it is much, much better than dieing from a heart attack, but still much worse than not having clogged arteries in the first place. And strokes caused by dislodged plaque or thrombosis is right out, that damage cannot and will not be repaired (although it can be worked around to an extent).
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Like what? Obesity? Cosmetic surgery?
In Australia we’d probably call it over servicing.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Just how much is health insurance in the States? We seem to hear many people saying that because their employer doesn’t provide health insurance they go without. Which raises another question. Employers provide health insurance? Is that like workers compensation for on the job injuries?
Probably stirring the pot but I should mention we get subsidised medicines and drugs too in Oz. The pharmaceutical benefits scheme caused some grief (to the US) when the US and Oz were discussing the FTA.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
@ Aerimus
No problem. It certainly sounds (to me) a lot better than the store-bought ones. And I know a lot of people say they can’t cook, but heck, baking’s a LOT easier.
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:14 pm
I agree with JackC. Hohos never tasted good. Ever.
Here’s a novel idea.
Don’t buy the poison that was pushed when companies used the cheapest garbage they could use and not outright kill someone when they took a bite with.
Go to a local bakery, buy a creme puff. Y’know, one made with perhaps some real ingredients. Get your sweet tooth on that way.
Also, stop imagining that everyone has all that much of a choice in the matter too. People living paycheck to paycheck can’t afford to go to the grocery store and buy up the fresh produce and healthy cuts of meat. The same people who have the ballooning kids are the ones who all they can afford is the bottom of the barrel, lowest-quality tripe that still contains loads of cost cutting ingredients like trans fats and still pay bills. Just walk into a foods co or some other ghetto establishment in a neighborhood you probably won’t visit again. I doubt you’ll see much choice in the way of truly healthy products.
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Coolest thread ever once we started getting recipes. Got recipes off the web for Mrs Fields cookies and KFC once. I love the cooks that reverse engineer my favourite junk foods.
BradG:
On average buying fresh produce and meat should always be cheaper than pre-prepared (frozen dinners and stuff) and fast food. A few vegies and a couple kilos of meat can be bought quite cheaply and turned into a number of meals. Open a packet of something and it is done, one meal and it is over. Edumacation is the answer.
I recall seeing a study once that compared making fast food yourself and buying burgers from Mcdonalds or pizzas or fried chicken and the like. In every instance you could make the “fast food” cheaper than buying it straight from Maccas or KFC or whatever. EXCEPT for pizza. Pizzas, on average, were cheaper to buy from pizza hut or dominoes or whoever than to make it yourself from fresh ingredients. Probably depends on the pizza though. I can make a marguerita from sratch pretty cheaply because a couple of dollars of flour and yeast and stuff can go into quite a few pizzas.
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
billg your wrong when you say that unhealthy people cost the tax payer more money. The truth is they die young 45 to 55.Smokers the obese etc. Its you health nuts that live to ninety.You are on 5 diffrent meds for forty years And are in and out of hospitals. So if you are so concerned about your insurance premium let the the unhealthy eat unhealthy it will save you money.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Michael Moore would have you believe that sick people have no other options in the US, but it’s just not that black and white. And Democrats might think Stuart Browning is oblivious to the fact that, while people who can afford health care can avoid death and suffering, some people cannot.
But when all’s said and done, people will suffer and die in the US for lack of health care, and people will suffer and die in Canada while on waiting lists. We have to admit that simple fact to ourselves, no matter where we are on the political spectrum.
This is an example of where skepticism and logic comes into politics. Those people arguing from a moral ideology with no regard for practicality are lost in a fantasy world where their political policy ’solves everything’, and they’ll book no objections, or mindlessly think they can band-aid any problems and still make it work, while at the same time pointing out the problems, (real or imagined), with every competing policy.
Here’s a simple example: If we took all the food in the world and divided it up between the population we would be able to feed everyone and end world hunger.
True. And it’s a laudable goal. But IF we could actually make this happen, (and we can’t without fascism), then we would destroy the economy that created the food surplus in the first place. We would have killed the golden goose, (and don’t get me wrong, we’d all be living the high life on goose for a while, so it would seem to have worked initially).
I won’t get into some of the other unintended consequences of such a policy, but suffice it to say, if you instigated a plan like this you’d all be standing in bread lines by the end of the year.
When I say things like this, people think I’m objecting to the original and quite noble intention. I’m not. It’s the practicality of the plan that is flawed.
And yes, if everyone was selfless then maybe it would work. Well there not. So it wont. And all the wishing, good intentions and benefit concerts in the world can’t change that. Sorry.
Also, because I cite the importance of the economy, I might be accused of caring about money more than people’s lives. No. The economy is an important sub-system that makes modern society and all it’s benefits possible. Without that system intact, we face a lot more death and suffering worldwide than we’re currently trying to fix.
So am I saying we have to stand by while people die of starvation? Yes, I am. You can’t help them all, (even if you’re Angelina Jolie), because we live in a universe where reality doesn’t allow it. You can’t save a man from drowning when your treading water yourself, (well you can … just not for long).
And if you’re tempted to argue from morality consider this real world example of mountain climbers and the way morality works half way up the face of K2. If you have a man with a broken leg about to pull you off a cliff, it’s him or both of you – so you cut the damn rope. Every climber knows this, accepts it, and most have got the pragmatic wherewithal to actually do it.
So morality is not absolute now is it? It depends on the situation right? In fact arguing from morality of any kind suffers the same flaws as the religious morality you are no doubt familiar with. That is, trying to apply an absolute rule to a real world situation.
It is a sin to lie? What? Even if the Nazis come to my door asking if I have Jews in the attic? Really?
To engrave some generally correct principle in stone as absolute moral law is an invitation to such nonsensical dichotomies. But rather than admit that the entire concept of moralistic arguments is baseless, most people would rather tie themselves up in a metaphysical Gordian Knot trying to patch up their absolute laws in the face of reality.
The solution is pretty much the same one that Alexander came up with. Just cut through the crap, assume nothing, and find the most practical solution. Talking about ‘right’, ‘moral’ and ‘fair’ in a universe that is none of these, doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense. Think about it.
Now the, (unbelievably lame), objection I usually get is that I would feel differently if I was the one starving, hanging from a rope, or in need of medical care. And you’re damn right I would. Just like I probably wouldn’t give a flying-fandango about due process if I walked into my home and saw a guy standing over my wife’s dead body with a bloody butcher’s knife.
But does that make the concept of due process wrong? Isn’t the legal system set up by rational people to protect us from ourselves in just such a situation? Which is not to suggest the law is perfect. But the consequences of not having devolving to vigilantism are far worse than the injustices of the current system.
We know these systems are imperfect, which is why we like to watch Dirty Harry dishing out the kind of “real justice” we just can’t have in reality. When you watch a movie, you know who the bad guys are – you know they did it. In the real world we don’t.
Newsflash: Guilty people can escape legal repercussions, and innocent people can go to jail. In related news, people suffer and die due to a lack of health care no matter what you do.
Welcome to reality. Nobody said you have to like it, but you do have to accept it.
All we can therefore do is ask: which is the best course of action under the circumstances, resulting in the least negative consequences, (intended or not)?
You’ve got to remember that before modern civilisation, you had no choice but to suffer and/or die when you became ill. Nobody set things up that way. There’s nobody to blame. That’s just how the universe works.
Yet, in our minds we can imagine a world where we are no longer subject to nature’s law. Where everybody gets the maximum available health care when they need it. Unfortunately, at the moment this is not possible, and to think that you can instigate a political policy that will make it happen, is frankly nothing more than a Utopian fantasy.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you that it would be nice, and it’s an eminently desirable state of affairs – and I’m not saying it could never be possible in the future. But as things stand, it’s impractical on a number of levels for a number of reasons.
Whenever a system relies on people changing their nature, for example:
1. People not overusing the “free” health care system for every cut, scrape and sniffle.
2. Politicians not using their position to get their friends and family to the front of the cue, (back to what I said about my state of mind when my wife has been murdered – screw the system, right?)
3. People not just sitting on their butts when they know they can get things for “free” whether they work or not.
… you’re deluding yourself.
People advocating a Free Market system don’t necessarily think the market solves everything, merely that it minimises the inequities that will certainly exist, while maximising the capacity of the health care system itself via economic realities, (which in the end benefits more people).
But saying it like that doesn’t buy votes, like selling an idealistic dream does.
Political ideologues, (of all stripes), are pretty much useless in a discussion like this – because they are arguing for a belief, and not making rational arguments at all. Every political party has them, (yes, even Libertarians).
If you don’t believe these people exist, look no further than “atheists” who believe they can discount the possibility that ‘a’ god exists, (even a Deistic god). Any rational person must admit the possibility, whether they think it likely or not. And you certainly don’t have to subscribe to the demands of anyone claiming to have spoken to one. But a rational atheist can never claim to know there’s no god.
But, even those that do, get the same title – “atheist”. The same way that there are Democrats that are just plain idealistic unthinking hippies. If you’re a politician they are “on your side”, because they’ll vote for you. If your a skeptic, they’re not “on your side” at all. Because even if they arrive at the same conclusion, their reason for getting there is not valid.
There are however “moderates” in every political party – people who realise the rubber has to meet the road somewhere. And in the end no matter what your natural persuasion, through rational debate we should all approach the truth of any matter.
Sometimes the solution to a specific problem, or system will fall into an area of the political spectrum that we don’t normally subscribe to. For example, in the Army we had a saying, “This is not a Democracy”.
Kind of ironic that we all believed in Democracy, were training to fight for Democracy, but the organisation doing that fighting is in no way a Democracy. And it couldn’t do its job if it was. To just idealistically believe that rah-rah-Democracy is the solution to everything, and try to instigate it everywhere is obviously ludicrous.
Now for the good news …
The situation can change. Just because one political policy is the best solution today, doesn’t mean that will apply tomorrow, or in a hundred years.
Consider this:
You’re a caveman running around in the Stone Age. You’re hungry. You’ve got two simple choices:
1. Don’t eat, and die of starvation.
2. Get off your butt, expend some effort, and find something to eat.
We didn’t set this system up – there’s nobody to blame – this is just how the universe works. So it doesn’t matter if you think it’s fair or not, or you think in an ideal world you shouldn’t have to go to any effort to survive – it’s just the way it is.
Then, along comes modern society, and economics. For many of us, life is easier, we don’t have to go kill woolly mammoths anymore, but we still have the same basic problem: Work or starve. Some people do more work than others. Some do none by physical limitation or laziness.
Those who do work cannot support all of those who don’t. Especially considering that when you attempt to do so, their numbers suddenly increase.
Now the good part is that perhaps one day, when we get those stinkin’ robots smart enough, and they do all the work, we can have that dream. Where we can just do whatever the hell we want, all day, every day. Economics has already made this possible for an increasing number of us, but the system at the moment cannot support ALL of us.
And yes it’s not fair, Paris Hilton gets to run around being an idiot while kids are starving in Africa. I hear ya. But that inequity is no more practically soluble than the mountain climbing example.
In the case of Paris Hilton, it is an attractive suggestion to take money off her and give it to starving kids – by the gods that’s a tantalising suggestion.
But it’s not. It’s short-term thinking, and to do so would undermine the pillars of the system that gave Paris that surplus in the first place.
Now you may laugh at the robot example, but a similar situation has been achieved before throughout history – it’s just that we were using slaves, instead of robots. Get one person to do twice the work and you don’t have to do anything. Robots are in fact the guilt-free version of slavery.
Of course at the moment you can just forget about it, but you’ve got to realise that we are kind of half way there. A single worker can produce way more than normal with the brain-dead machines we already have. That’s why life is, (generally speaking), easier in First World countries at this very moment.
But that’s not all there is to it. Modern civilisation is like a Golden Goose laying golden eggs. I contend that we can afford ’some’ socialist programmes that we could never have otherwise – situations where we don’t have to just ‘cut the rope’, and I think there are ideological Libertarians that fail to recognise this.
On the other hand, there are socialists who want their Utopian dream right now! Not realising that even IF they could achieve it, it would collapse under its own weight anyway. They would “use up” the gains we had fought for all this time, for a short-term benefit. Their actions would actually hamstring the forward march of progress toward the ideal they want.
Ironically, it would be THEY, who were screwing future generations out of that ideal world, just to fix a few problems now, (that probably would not otherwise exist in the future).
And at the moment what is driving us toward that future? Well, sorry hippies, but it’s the Free Market, (mostly).*
Notice that the whole drive of Free Market competition is to make more for less. Cheaper, better, faster, more. If you doubt it, take a look at your mobile phone.
Where do you think this is all headed? Obviously the ideal is to create something for nothing. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I don’t actually think that will happen, but we can get pretty damn close to it.
One closer to the present example is robots that can do the work of humans, (and especially robots that can build and repair other robots). If I can stock my farms, mills, and bakeries with robots, how much will a loaf of bread cost?
All the Unionists are worried about their jobs about now, but if bread cost 1 cent a loaf, how much do you need to work to survive? Maybe you’d be better off working in the arts, academia or entertainment industry – ever think of that?
In this world like this the differences between our political ideals is so minuscule that they don’t matter anymore. It’s kind of like Bob Novella’s technological singularity – except this is a political singularity.
Someone once chided me for being a Libertarian and liking Star Trek – which they said was a Communist future society. But think about it, if we all had replicators, the need for money goes out the window pretty quick now doesn’t it? We could literally make something out of nothing, (assuming we have an energy source to back that up like they do in Star Trek).
So it’s not that Communism wins in that future – it’s that Capitalism achieves it’s final end, and Communism actually becomes a practical political system. at which point they are indistinguishable in practise – a political singularity.
And assuming we don’t get our sorry butts Matrixed, Terminated, or Wargamed out of existence, we’re looking at a pretty bright future.
… well actually, in two of those scenarios we’ve got a bright future, but the brightness is proportional to megatons … but you know what I mean anyway …
Now I’m not saying this is how it’s going to happen, or even that it is going to happen. What I’m saying is that progress brings us closer to that ideal, and the Free Market drives progress. I think it’s reasonable to use some of the principle gains to mitigate current problems, and some less ideal adjustments must be made to Free Market Capitalism, but not to the point where we are stifling the entire process.
Unfortunately, that’s what the hippies are often blindly trying to do. And even though it’s with the best intentions, it’s just damned stupid.
In simple terms:
In a Free Market system, the philosophy is to give the poor the soiled end of the stick, and then drive the price of Health Care down, progressively reducing the number of people who can’t afford it.
In a Socialist system, the philosophy is to give everyone equal treatment, but has the unintended consequence of driving up the cost, making increasingly less and lower quality Health Care available to everyone in a downward spiral of beuracracy.
… and aristocracy. Do you think Hillary Clinton is gonna give a damn about some bum getting open heart surgery when she’s suffering with a hangnail? The pigs running Animal Farm will still get the best treatment available in both systems – the plebs still get screwed anyway.
*And the Libertarians mostly come out at night. Mostly.
I thought I’d say it first, because as everyone knows, Libertarians frighten small children.
… right before they eat them.
… and sell their bones to a glue factory.
… for a shiny silver dollar.
April 3rd, 2008 at 8:22 pm
“And if you want informed consumers, then they should also have a realistic view of the actual dangers of transfats along with it – and still have the right to choose based on that information. The same way smokers know the risks and still choose to buy cigarettes.”
Choose – or are addicted?
People who get addicted to excremental dangerous substances whether nicotine or cocaine, or even, dare I say, junkfood have – at very least – a lot of the power to choose taken away from them ..
(My brother has tried quitting smoking many times unsuccesfully.)
Many peopel here in Australia – and in the most civilised nations of the world which, excuse me, are European lands like Denmark, Sweden, Nertherlands, Belgium, Switzerland – look at the US Health system with horror.
In My Humble Opinion : Education and health are two basic areas which are too important to play ideological games with.
Everyone deserves as a humanitarian – if not human right – to have decent access to reasonable service in both areas – from the government as part of the society /community.
I do strongly believe that health and education should be run by & for the public NOT private sector.
That said, if people abuse the system or fail to take reasonable preventative actions they should be made to pay extra for their treatments and face the consequences of tehri behaviours too.
Finally, on a lighter note; given the political correctness concerns raised by some fools :
Isn’t it amazing they’re still allowing a product to be called .. well ..double of what Elliott Spitzer ordered!?
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:50 pm
@Chris C: “You mean to say it’s a bad idea to tell people what they’re eating?”
Nope. I’m saying it’s a bad idea to make people tell people what their consuming with someone else’s personal slant on it.
I wouldn’t support labelling bottled water with a warning that, “excess consumption can kill you” – even though it’s a fact, and at least one “uninformed consumer” has died doing it.
I’m pointing out that if the public is scared spitless about something, (real, imagined, major or minor), and you don’t have it in your product, it would be in your interests to make your competitors write it on theirs. Or if you’re a self-righteous hippie trying to save the world from evil corporations at everyone else’s expense.
And like most underhanded tactics like that, everyone else would be stupid to let you get away with it – just because you are supposedly championing the public interest.
Are transfats bad for you? I don’t claim any knowledge on that. I’m just pointing out that there are other issues regardless of whether they are or not, and to whatever degree.
A lot of BS is mandated under the guise of “informing consumers”. Check this pic out:
http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/images/news_events/Smoking_300×200.gif
It’s a label that cigarette manufacturers are forced to put on their product in Australia.
It’s a scare tactic, not unbiased information. They might as well say: “Smoking causes your skin to go discoloured yellow as if it’s been photoshopped to an unrealistic degree, and people will shove metal hooks in your eye socket.”
What risk level justifies this exactly? To whom?
Chris C: “The actual dangers of transfats are pretty damn dangerous. You may not be aware that manufacturers in the US already had to label their food to identify the amount of saturated fat in it, and saturated fats are far better for you than transfats. If the one belongs on a label, the other certainly does.”
I didn’t say the former belongs on the label. That’s your assumption.
But this is the problem with most people when they get involved in a political issue like this. They try to figure out which side is “right” and which side is “wrong”, characterised in this case by the question: “Are transfats bad for you or not?”
If yes, (or there is a possible risk), then the assumption is that action should be taken. If no, (and you have a Dickens of a time proving zero risk), then the manufacturers would be off the hook from the fascist society police.
I don’t personally care whether they are bad for me or not, the same way a smoker doesn’t, (it’s obvious they wont kill me instantly). But I do care about people wanting to make my decisions for me, using childish scare tactics, or otherwise perverting my transactions to obtain the products I want.
And you just can’t discount these other issues with the assertion that, “transfats are bad, mmm’kay?”
It’s the same with Global Warming. Is it happening or not? Yes? Okay, I should switch off my brain and do whatever Al Gore says I guess …
Chris C: “They do. The only regulations prohibiting transfats, where they exist at alll, as it’s a matter of local law, are for restaurant food. Transfats may not be used as an ingredient. This makes a certain amount of sense, as restaurant menus don’t list ingredients and there’s no opportunity to make an informed choice. (I believe this has already been pointed out.)”
You could always ask, and just not eat there if they did, or weren’t sure. That way you wouldn’t have to give your very expensive baby-sitter all your hard-earned tax dollars.
Chris C: “I only buy slippery-slope arguments when the slope in fact displays evidence of grease.”
Grease-leaden, freedom-hating morons are not hard to find these days …
http://www.bantransfats.com/
Sorry, the way I phrased that sounds like a slippery slope argument – so I’ll rephrase and say that argument is already being made on the same basis.
Chris C: “This is, frankly, the most idiotic argument anyone could make. Don’t worry about unhealthy behavior because there are effective medical treatments for the consequences? The doctors can fix everything?”
Nice strawman. You can wake me when you’ve got a non-fallacious argument.
But before I go to sleep I’ll save you some trouble. Would as many people go snow skiing if broken legs could not be mended?
zzzzzzz …
Chris C: “… Emergency medical care is effectively free in the US. It’s illegal to turn anyone away who presents in an ER for treatment. But there are only so many times you can meet the kind of patient who waits for 6 hours to tell a doctor that his ass is sweating before your thoughts turn in certain directions. (This is not a hypothetical example.)”
No argument there. I know. Michael Moore doesn’t apparently.
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:14 pm
@Mickel
By the way, Urban Dictionary is an old guy’s best friend when it comes to hip, groovy and happenin’ rad intertube slang daddy-o, ya dig?:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=teh
April 4th, 2008 at 1:25 am
Hey! What good is junk food if it isn’t junky? That’s the whole point! Bad for the body, good for the soul. Non-junky junk food is right down there with near-beer and de-alcoholized wine!
April 4th, 2008 at 5:26 am
KC said:
“Or the high-fiber bread taken off the market when it was learned the recipe contained cellulose? Some people who ate products sweetened with cyclamate (before it was taken off the market because of links to cancer in mice) could detect a petroleum aftertaste. Some people can taste Aspartame, others Saccharine.”
All bread contains cellulose, because cellulose is what forms plant cell walls. However, amylose (starch) is by far the major carbohydrate in flour. In fact, KC, what do you think dietary fibre actually is? It is cellulose, a component of all plants, which is almost undigestible to us (although both cellulose and amylose are polymers of glucose, the way the glucose monomers are bonded to one another is a little different in the two types of polymer).
And everyone can taste aspartame and saccharin, otherwise they would not work as sweeteners.
April 4th, 2008 at 5:35 am
Patricio Cruzat said:
“Well, everybody agrees that transfat makes (commercial) products taste great. But I can assure you, my mom, sister and brother, all great cooks, and myself, just fairly good cook, never used transfat. Just real butter, milk, cream, sugar, eggs and so on, and no commercial product can beat home made cakes, tarts, desserts and the like. Let’s be sincere: lazyness is what makes us buy transfat candies, isn’t it?”
I shall reiterate the point that there is know basis that I am aware of for people being able to taste the difference between cis- fats and trans- fats.
Most probably, the difference in flavour is a consequence of processing – a process that removes or excludes trans-fats probably also removes or excludes some of the molecules that gave the previous product its distinctive flavour.
Also, cow’s milk naturally contains trans-fats, and therefore so too will butter. So your claim “never used transfat. Just real butter” is wrong. Butter contains trans-fats.
April 4th, 2008 at 5:39 am
Todd W. said:
“One more thing about trans-fat being wholly unnecessary, other than to make something last for 30 years. It has already been noted that the texture and, potentially taste, can be affected. These subtleties may not be discernible to every single person in the population, but it might be to some.”
Trans-fats arise as a by-product of the hydrogenation of cis-fats. So, the distinctive texture probably comes from the hydrogenated (and therefore saturated) fats, not from the unsaturated fats. There is, AFAICT, no basis for people being able to taste the difference between cis- unsaturated fats and trans- unsaturated fats.
April 4th, 2008 at 5:44 am
Dave said:
“transfats are partially hydrogenated oils — they can be replaced with a mix of fully hydrogenated oils and unsaturated oils.”
Partially hydrogenated oils are, by definition, unsaturated. Only “fully hydrogenated” oils are saturated. There is no half-way house. Either the chain has one or more C=C double bonds (unsaturated) or it has no C=C double bonds (saturated).
Were you referring to mono-unsaturates versus poly-unsaturates?
April 4th, 2008 at 5:46 am
The Black Cat said:
“I am really disappointed. I have the utmost respect for Phil, but this is a classic non-skeptical look at the issue. He has no evidence that the trans fat itself had any effect on the taste. I can’t find a definitive resource, but from what I can see it doesn’t look like humans can detect trans fat compared to other fats that are healthier. If he wants to show evidence that he can tell the difference between trans fat and healthier alternatives, or show evidence that the change in the flavor of the hoho’s is due even in part to the change from trans fat, then I will be convinced. But so far it sounds no different than “I took the homeopathic pain pill and I feel better”. Sorry, but anecdotes are not evidence.”
Hear, hear.
April 4th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Budget Astronomer said:
“Don’t legislate trans-fats, just leave it up to an informed public what’s good for them and what’s not.”
Good idea. I see just one teeny problem. You show me an informed public, and I’ll show you an unrepresentative sample.
April 4th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Jenni said:
“i’m very surprised no one posted this article, in light of all the ” people eating transfats and smoking cost me more money in inurance premiums.”
WRONG. you healthy people cost ME (the smoking, transfat eater) more money!
on average, those living healthy lifestyles live 4.5 years longer than the obese, and 7 years longer than the average smoker.
your extra 5-7 years of declining health are a heck of a lot more expensive to insurers than the heart attack that will most likely take out the smoker/obese. ”
Additionally, Jenni, no-one seems to have established a link betwen trans- fats and obesity (specifically with differentiation from other kinds of fats, such as saturates and cis- unsaturated fats).
April 4th, 2008 at 5:53 am
Hurleybird said:
“I always start the day off with some deep fried butter sticks wrapped in bacon. Transfats?? Please…”
But since milk naturally contains trans-fats, so does butter.
April 4th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Billg said:
“Too much of any food, expecially fat, is bad for you, but apparently most any amount of a transfat is considered to pose a threat. (Altho I’m to lazy to Google it down.) Whatever it is that keeps transfat solid at room temperature also keeps it solid inside your arteries… or something like that.”
http://www.nutrition.org.uk/home.asp?siteId=43§ionId=603&parentSection=324&which=undefined
Saved you the trouble. There’s plenty of info and other links in that page.
Room temperature is typically around 20 – 25 °C (depending largely on where you live and how much you spend on aircon). Blood is usually at 37 °C, that’s quite a large difference. Also, lipids, not being water-soluble, are always carried in the blood as lipoproteins, which makes the concept of a melting point very hard to define. Essentially, whatever keeps fats solid at room temp is irrelevant once the fat is in your bloodstream.
April 4th, 2008 at 6:01 am
Chris C said:
“The actual dangers of transfats are pretty damn dangerous. You may not be aware that manufacturers in the US already had to label their food to identify the amount of saturated fat in it, and saturated fats are far better for you than transfats. If the one belongs on a label, the other certainly does.”
What is the nature of the hazard posed by trans-fats? Can you supply any links?
April 4th, 2008 at 6:03 am
Chris C. said:
“When doctors from those countries learn about some of the conditions we treat here, they’re astounded. They’re the kinds of things that in most countries are simply not regarded as being worth treating.”
Plus, of course, everyone else thinks the USA is populated by hypochondriacs.
April 4th, 2008 at 6:37 am
Todd W. writes:
[[ Recreational driving is not necessary, either. Should all of these things be banned or regulated?]]
Um, Todd… recreational driving IS regulated. Extensively. You need a license to drive, have to obey ubiquitous traffic signals and signs, can’t park in many places, and your speed is limited by location. What’s more, violating one or more of these restraints can get you fined or land you in jail
April 4th, 2008 at 6:49 am
Ironman writes:
[[So morality is not absolute now is it? It depends on the situation right? In fact arguing from morality of any kind suffers the same flaws as the religious morality you are no doubt familiar with. That is, trying to apply an absolute rule to a real world situation.]]
If there is no morality, why do you object to people arguing from it? If there’s no objective right or wrong, what makes them wrong? What makes it wrong to teach kids pseudoscience? What makes it wrong to rape or murder?
Schools of ethics divide into two very broad classes — consequentialist, like utilitarianism and the philosophy of power, and deontological ones, like the systems of Kant or natural rights theory. It’s a common straw man by consequentialists that deontological moralities (for you, apparently, “morality” in general) don’t allow you to make intelligent decisions. Some deontological systems, like Kant’s, are like that. Others, like natural rights theory, are not. I’m a natural rights freak and I would certainly lie to protect innocent people from others who wanted to harm them. At the same time I believe lying is wrong. And some acts, like torture, I think are always and everywhere, despite the circumstances. You can believe that some things have to be adjusted for situation and others don’t and your morality can still be internally self-consistent.
April 4th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Ironman goes on:
[[Do you think Hillary Clinton is gonna give a damn about some bum getting open heart surgery when she’s suffering with a hangnail? ]]
Given what I know of the woman, I’d say yes, she would. She worked like a dog to come up with a national health care plan in the 1990s. It was a bad plan, but she wasn’t doing it just for the sake of enslaving the masses.
April 4th, 2008 at 6:56 am
@BPL
Forgive me for not being clear. My implication was either banning outright or more heavily regulated. I know that there are extensive regulations governing driving. There are also regulations covering cycling, though not quite as heavily enforced. Sports have internal regulations, but not much in the way of government regulations.
So, in the case of recreational driving, the “banned” part of my comment was more applicable than the “or regulated” part.
Hopefully I’ve filled in between the lines to make that clearer.
April 4th, 2008 at 7:12 am
I’m just not buying it.
I’ve had so many with and without trans-fat items, and I just don’t see any correlation between zero trans-fat and lousy flavor. Hell, I routinely cook and bake at home and again, I’ve seen no correlation between the presence of trans-fats in the recipe and end-game deliciousness.
If you didsome blind a/b/x tests, across multiple sources and products, I’m quite certain you’d discover that your claimed correlation is weak, at best.
April 4th, 2008 at 7:30 am
Nigel – read the rest of my previous post.
It was intended to be ironic. You know, tongue in cheek. Swiftian. Mockish. To spell it out, if trans fats are nasty toxic stuff, they should be treated as is other nasty toxic stuff. We don’t give consumers the choice to use lead paint, because lead is nasty and toxic. Either these substances should be regulated, or they shouldn’t – but don’t say one should, and another is “consumer choice”.
April 4th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Budget Astronomer:-
“Nigel – read the rest of my previous post.
It was intended to be ironic. You know, tongue in cheek. Swiftian. Mockish. To spell it out, if trans fats are nasty toxic stuff, they should be treated as is other nasty toxic stuff. We don’t give consumers the choice to use lead paint, because lead is nasty and toxic. Either these substances should be regulated, or they shouldn’t – but don’t say one should, and another is “consumer choice”.”
Oh, OK. It was not obvious to me at the time. I thought you might have actually believed there was such a beast as an informed public. Still, I stand corrected.
April 4th, 2008 at 8:05 am
So, Budget Astronomer, do you think trans-fats are nasty and toxic? If so, on what basis?
April 4th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Nigel Depledgeon Said:
Partially hydrogenated oils are, by definition, unsaturated. Only “fully hydrogenated” oils are saturated. There is no half-way house. Either the chain has one or more C=C double bonds (unsaturated) or it has no C=C double bonds (saturated).
Were you referring to mono-unsaturates versus poly-unsaturates?”
The fully saturated oils (solid state) are mixed with non hydrogenated oils to form a emulsification that is like the partially hydrogenated oils. Saturated palm oil mixed with soybean and sunflower oil makeup trans fat free crisco. The texture and cooking properties are identical.
So mix mono-unsaturates with saturates and you get a mix that is replaceable for trans fat. But this approach is poor in execution, because the palm oil is really bad for you, but better then the trans-fat – but still really bad for you
The CIA has a free learning section in podcast form about this topic.
April 4th, 2008 at 8:37 am
@Dave:
Wait…what? The CIA? What the hell?:)
April 4th, 2008 at 8:44 am
sorry — CIA – Culinary Institute of America
http://www.ciaprochef.com/transfatfree/
April 4th, 2008 at 8:52 am
@Dave: Are you sure. Because I had this great image in my head of a bunch of men in black fatigues and ski mask water boarding a Twinkie.
April 4th, 2008 at 10:36 am
@IRONMANAustralia
Wow. I think you may have accidentally pasted your thesis in there.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Sure. Here is one, from the National Academies of Science (the most prestigious scientific organization in the U.S.). The part specifically dealing with problems with trans fats starts here:
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10490&page=494
Here are some excerpts (citations removed for clarity):
The American Medical Association has also released a position statement on trans fats that summarizes some of the problems:
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/475/705.pdf
April 4th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Sure. Here is one, from the National Academies of Science (the most prestigious scientific organization in the U.S.). The part specifically dealing with problems with trans fats starts here:
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10490&page=494
Here are some excerpts (citations removed for clarity):
The American Medical Association has also released a position statement on trans fats that summarizes some of the problems:
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/475/705.pdf
April 4th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Sure. Here is one, from the National Academies of Science (the most prestigious scientific organization in the U.S.). The part specifically dealing with problems with trans fats starts here:
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10490&page=494
Here are some excerpts (citations removed for clarity):
The American Medical Association has also released a position statement on trans fats that summarizes some of the problems:
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/475/705.pdf
April 4th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Oops, sorry for the triple post there.
April 4th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
@ The Supreme Canuck
Phil, if you like HoHos, you might want to just go into the kitchen and whip up a Bûche de Noël
Mmm. Christmas mouth! Always goes well with a glass of chicken milk!
April 4th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
@ Shane
I reckon NZ Cadburys chocolate tastes creamier and tastier than our own Aussie Cadburys chocolate for example whereas the cadburys chocolate from Kenya tastes… very ordinary.
Sounds like a test I could run in a few weeks… I’ll be in NZ the last week of the month, and Australia the first few weeks of May. Oh, the things I do for science!
April 4th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
LOL @ toe cheese flavored HoHos ^___^
April 4th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
@ Richard – Bûche de Noël is Christmas log. You’re thinking “Bouche de Noel”. I like log with my chicken milk
@ Nigel – What The BlackCat said (three times). Yes, I think cis-trans fatty acids are a concern, based on the literature.
I also can’t help but wonder whether the prevalence of trans fats and certain medical conditions, including diabetes and nut anaphalaxis, is not just a coincidence.
April 4th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
There is hope through the wonder of the internet! Many creative people have come up with recipes for reasonable facsimiles of HoHos.
Try this: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/273/HoHo_Cake40981.shtml
Long live trans fat eaters!
April 4th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
I cut a lot of sugar and a lot of fat out of my diet about 3 years ago. At first, everything tasted like crap, especially my coffee. After about a month I noticed that my coffee tasted better, and I could appreciate the taste of the coffee itself, and when I did have a sugary snack like chocolate, or salty stuff like chips, it was really strong and I could not eat much even if I tired. Previous to this change too much sugar was never enough, and everything I ate was fried or at least salty or oily.
It has got to the point now where even the thought of eating too much chocolate or even anything fried makes me feel ill. I replaced my crappy trans-fats and other junk with good fats like that found in avocado and bananas and eggs, and my high sugar intake with more fruit. I still have a bit of chocolate now and then, as opposed to every day.
What I learned from all this was that I was just addicted to sugar and crappy-fats, and quitting a high intake of this stuff, if any at all, was a lot like quitting smoking. It’s not easy, and you don’t really know how good you will feel until you do it. The funny thing was that after doing this, all the foods I did not like (certain vegetables and fruit .. “GAH I HATE YOU PUMKIN !!) became tastier and now I crave them.(”ITS OK PUMKIN, I DIDNT MEAN WHAT I SAID… COME BACK!) Man, pumpkin actually tastes good now.
I have lost most of the fat on my body and feel more aware of my surroundings due to more energy. My concentration and memory have improved and my mind is less prone to wandering. Also my digestion has improved and certain problems I had with it, that I used to think were normal, due to not knowing any difference, basically stopped.
I used to scoff at people who ate a healthy diet and I truly did not believe people that said it made them feel better mentally, but now I know it is a fact for sure.
I get where Phil is coming from though. If you buy a sweet, it should taste sweet. If the government wants to tackle obesity it needs to look at other issues like advertising and the cost of healthy food vs junk food, and most important, good HONEST education. I agree also that it is the responsibly of parents to control kids dietary habits, and for adults to control their own.
One thing is certain, people have far too much access to crappy food in cheap and overwhelming supply and less access to good food at cheap prices. If I want to eat something good, I really do have to pay a bit more and drive a bit further and search a lot harder.
By the way, what the frack is a HoHo ? (sorry, Australian) jks
April 5th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
> By the way, what the frack is a HoHo ? (sorry, Australian) jks
HoHos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HoHos
Picture: http://www.hostesscakes.com/images/box_hohos.jpg
April 6th, 2008 at 3:49 am
Black Cat, thanks for the info.
It seems to me, then, that trans-unsaturated fatty acids are a bit worse than saturated fats with respect to CHD, and they may play a role in type II diabetes, but this is unclear at the moment.
However, it also occurs to me that the foods that naturally contain trans-fats also contain saturated fat, so minimising one’s intake of saturated fats will also minimise the intake of trans-fats.
WRT processed fats, i.e. hydrogenated oils (which seems to be the principle source of trans fats in most people’s diets), eating less processed food will be better for you. Since a great deal of processed food has sugar added also, it seems that avoiding a diet high in processed foods is a win-win (from the perspectives of dental wellbeing, type II diabetes risk, and CHD risk).
However, I hardly think this is enough to justify describing trans-fats as “toxic”, as Budget Astronomer did. Potassium cyanide is toxic. Sodium azide is toxic. Trans-fats appear to be a risk factor, but so are many other substances in our food, which we can control by consuming them only in moderation.
April 6th, 2008 at 3:50 am
You need to check out the science on this. You’ve opened up a huge can of worms and may be influencing peoples food choices, and therefore their health. Looking forward to the followup post.
April 6th, 2008 at 4:08 am
It reeks. Now, there is a substitute for transfat that will even make it better. LARD! Hey, Lard is what transfat (i.e. Cisco) was replaced in the first place.
Hydrox cookies have never been the same since they took the lard out of the filling. Lard is natural, bring back the lard!
April 6th, 2008 at 7:55 am
@quasidog: I did the same thing a few years ago, and I can agree with you fully! You never really appreciate the damage sugar addiction does to you until you overcome it. Sure, the effects aren’t as overt and devastating as a substance addiction, but it’s still the same in many ways. You have highs. You crash. You look for a “fix” by consuming more sugar. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I kicked my sugar addiction when I started on a controlled-carb diet a few years ago. I never went back. Some people think I’m some kind of loony, but hey, I’m not the one running around proclaiming “But I just have to have my potatoes/sugar/white bread!” I’m not the one who goes into a feeding frenzy every time someone sticks a plate of doughnuts in front of my face.
Informing the people that trans-fats are is a start, but the trouble is that most people just don’t care enough to do anything. They are literally addicted to the products that contain them.
I’ve done a lot of reading and research into diet and nutrition, and the evidence points to fats being largely unresponsible for the health problems people face. I make no effort to cut fats, yet I maintain my weight despite my fairly sedentary lifestyle. Instead, I cut sugars and starches. It works for me. (Unlike carbohydrates, fats actually satiate my hunger, and keep me feeling full longer.) People can hound and rail at me, tell me that there’s no way that what I’m eating can be healthy, but I’ve done the research. For some mysterious reason, the way I’m eating is working for hundreds of people. People inexplicably have normal levels of blood cholesterol. They don’t feel hungry every time they turn around. They don’t gorge themselves because the foods they eat actually satisfy them. Bloodsugar problems disappear. Diabetics no longer require insulin. Hypoglycemiacs stop their problem from turning into diabetes in the first place.
Yet despite these vast improvements, people still inform us that we’re “doing it wrong.”
Hmph! If we’re so healthy, how is it so wrong?
April 6th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Clarification: I was referring to real fats, not trans-fats. Studies indicate that those are actually quite nasty when people substitute the real thing with them.
April 6th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I’m just sitting here wondering if maybe JUST MAYBE that Ho-Ho’s ALWAYS sucked AND just maybe again your tastes have matured?!
I used to love those stupid freakin’ ‘peeps’ (marshmallow candies you see at Easter, used to be yellow little chick shaped, now you can get them in almost any color). Anyhoo, but some for my kids recently and tried one and I nearly spat it out too!
Damn those things are horrid! So sweet they’re almost bitter to me.
Most of the things i loved as a kid are abhorrent to me now.
Really it could be just maturity.
Transfats really are no damned good for ya though. Whether or not the gov’t should be in the business of making food illegal….that’s a tough one. People are idiots, when do they ever do what’s best for themselves….then they turn around and sue the companies for poisoning them and the gov’t for not protecting them.
No one is responsible for him or herself anymore.
R.
April 6th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
I really have to agree….but NOT with you. I’ve seen a few good comments here.
I suspect in fact your taste buds have changed (i’ve found I dislike foods i used to like, and some still contain transfat).
Also, I do not think it is fair to say they’re infringing on your taste to ban something. Recipes can very well be changed to account the slight difference in the fats. In addition, health care is crazy, and no one healthy should have to pay premium (I don’t mean premiums) for those who want their Ho’s.
The public was never educated (still really isn’t, besides an unquantifiable “bad”) of the dangers. = Not fair.
Besides this….Great blog!
April 6th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Ban burgers, fries, twinkies, little debbie oatmeal cream pies, violet crumbles, pizza, tacos, hot dogs, whole milk, and the list goes on until we’re left with… oh wait! ban this too: http://www.dhmo.org/
April 6th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
I hear your coke tastes awful too due to corn syrup.
April 7th, 2008 at 4:54 am
Syera said:
“I make no effort to cut fats, yet I maintain my weight despite my fairly sedentary lifestyle. Instead, I cut sugars and starches. It works for me. (Unlike carbohydrates, fats actually satiate my hunger, and keep me feeling full longer.)”
That sounds like an Atkinson diet to me.
There is a theoretical basis behind all of that. A diet high in carbohydrates causes our bodies to convert sugars into fats. Thus, after a high-carb meal (particularly with a sugar kick at the end), our metabolism is working overtime to convert sugar into fat. Subsequently, once we have absorbed all the sugar from our guts, the anabolism of sugar into fat causes a dip in blood sugar level, which we interpret as hunger.
A high-fat low-carb diet, by contrast, kick-starts the catabolism of fats (because, in the absence of carbohydrate in the gut, without breaking down fat, we would not get enough energy to keep moving). Blood sugar level is maintained from (a) residual carbohydrate in the diet (because you cannot eliminate all carbs completely – even a fatty steak contains some carbohydrate), and (b) conversion of acetate (which can be derived from fats) into sugars. However, during a low-carb diet, the muscles and most organs metabolise fat for energy. Only the brain continues to run on sugar (because it is incapable of metabolising fat for energy).
I think some of this is still hypothetical, but, if you ask me, it seems reasonably coherent.
April 7th, 2008 at 5:00 am
Ken said:
“I hear your coke tastes awful too due to corn syrup.”
I’ve heard that even tonic water in the USA is made with corn syrup. Which sucks if you have a corn allergy. But also might make it taste disgusting.
“Indian Tonic Water” was invented as prophylaxis against malaria. But the quinine in the tonic gave it a very sharp taste, so the Brits added gin to it to make it more palatable. Hence the G & T. Tonic water is supposed to have a sharp taste, not be sweet.
April 7th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
jenni said:
> your extra 5-7 years of declining health are a heck of a lot more expensive to insurers than the heart attack that will most likely take out the smoker/obese.
Checked the link. No details there. There seems to be an assumption in your argument that smokers and obese will be relatively healthy up until they kick off, whereas non-smokers and non-obese people will have lots of declining health issues over time. I’m not sure that’s a valid assumption. While I concede that everyone is probably subject to some declining health with age leading to chronic meds and treatment, I fail to see how one can assume that smokers and obese will not have long term health issues and costs leading up to their shortened life span. If the rate of decline over time is related to the lifestyle choices as well as the age, then it cannot be a simple matter to state more age means more costs.
billg said:
> I recommend dark chocolate, salty almonds, and strong coffee.
Why the heck does everyone keep recommending dark chocolate? Some of us like sweet. Same goes for coffee. What’s the point of drinking that? I have to add so much sugar and creamer to make it tolerable, I might as well just drink a soda. (And the coffee doesn’t digest as well. YMMV.)
shane said:
> Just how much is health insurance in the States? We seem to hear many people saying that because their employer doesn’t provide health insurance they go without.
Health insurance coverage through an employer can be a couple hundred dollars a year. Insurance rates for individuals (as opposed to company plans) can cost more.
> Which raises another question. Employers provide health insurance? Is that like workers compensation for on the job injuries?
No, it is negotiating lowered costs for group plans and possibly paying some of the health insurance costs. These have in the past covered everything from doctor’s office visits and medication prescriptions to the major health problems. Of course, health insurance costs have been going up and the insurance companies are complaining they are losing money because they are paying for everything, so there have been recent modifications to “incentivize” the consumers by making “high deductable” plans, which means you pay out of pocket for expenses until you reach $2000 (or whatever) and then insurance pays. Some companies throw in some money to help cover that offset.
Worker’s compensation is completely different.
IRONMANAustralia said:
> A lot of BS is mandated under the guise of “informing consumers”. Check this pic out:
I definitely agree that as a “warning” is an inappropriate scare tactic. Show a picture of an eye with glaucoma or something, or maybe a burn mark on the eyeball, but that picture has nothing discernable to do with smoking and everything to do with looking distressed. Blindness isn’t even in evidence.
KC said:
>> “Some people can taste Aspartame, others Saccharine.”
Nigel Depledge said:
> And everyone can taste aspartame and saccharin, otherwise they would not work as sweeteners.
I think what KC was trying to say is that some people can discern aspartame and/or saccharine as different from sugar.
Nigel, thanks for the link on cis vs trans, etc. This was also helpful for a diagram showing the difference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfat
April 7th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
On bold, off italics, ergo, post error. Oops.
April 8th, 2008 at 4:27 am
Irishman said:
“Same goes for coffee. What’s the point of drinking that? I have to add so much sugar and creamer to make it tolerable, I might as well just drink a soda.”
Oh. You are in desperate need of finding some good coffee. A good-quality coffee is smooth enough by itself that it needs neither sugar nor milk / cream to take off the bitter edge.
If you feel like splashing out, I would recommend Jamaica Blue Mountain; otherwise a Colombian medium roast should illustrate the point sufficiently. After all, there’s nothing quite like a bit of pure Colombian first thing in the morning!
April 8th, 2008 at 4:30 am
Irishman said:
“I think what KC was trying to say is that some people can discern aspartame and/or saccharine as different from sugar.”
Yeah, I guessed, but I was being pedantic. What KC meant to say was not what (s)he actually did say.
Irishman again:
“Nigel, thanks for the link on cis vs trans, etc.”
No problemo.
April 8th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Nigel said:
> Oh. You are in desperate need of finding some good coffee.
Actually, I’m in need of a digestive system that can handle coffee. I drink it, and it stays with me all day. Nothing like the taste of the coffee you drank in the morning when you’re going to bed that night. And I don’t mean a new cup from the same pot. Day old in the pot is one thing. Day old in your stomach is another.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
At least you never have to worry about it going cold.
April 8th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
If you cannot drink coffee without sugar, you are probably drinking crap coffee.
I will admit, adding sugar to cheap instant coffee is almost essential to get rid of the taste of the um … cheapness, but if you get a fresh ground coffee of high quality, give it a week or so of getting used to having no sugar in it and you will never go back. Well at least I didn’t. I bought a high quality coffee a few weeks ago that had sugar added to it by mistake. By the time I went to drink it it was too late to go back, but when I tasted the sugar it was really noticeable, and it spoiled the flavour of the coffee itself. Chucked it.
April 9th, 2008 at 11:02 am
I see forms of the word “addiction” being thrown around here fairly cavialierly. Food addictions are actually quite rare. Nearly noone is actually addicted to food of any kind.
On the other hand, most people have some kind of habitual diet, and breaking a habit can always be tough. To use the word addiction properly, it needs to apply to things that go beyond simple habit. Not just something that’s hard to stop doing, or that you miss doing, but something that has withdrawal symptoms. Cutting sugar is not like quitting cigarettes.
I don’t think there’s any solid science (and I could be wrong) backing reducing one of the three categories of nutrients in favor of the other two as a healthy choice for weight reduction. The basic key to healthy, long-term weight-loss is to eat less (while maintaining a balanced diet — which most people don’t have in the first place) and/or excersise more.
As to the HoHos, I don’t even know if the no transfats thing even represents a change to the recipe. I certainly can’t say I have any preference for transfats. For sure, some things need fats to taste right, but transfats? Um, no.
April 9th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Also, coffee is nasty. Anyone who drinks it is an uncouth barbarian.
April 9th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
JediBear, yes I agree with your thought on the definition of ‘addiction’, but in my post I am using the term ‘addiction’ in a more broader or descriptive sense. The comparative of quitting smoking to quitting sugar is not meant to be taken literally. I am really just pointing out the difficulty in change of habit.
Having said that, I have both successfully quit smoking in my life as well as been successful in areas of dietary change, and I can testify that the with-drawl and the mental strength required to change are very similar. I agree though that quitting nicotine is far more difficult and can be regarded as a true addiction.
I also feel that a habit that one finds extremely difficult to change can similarly be regarded as an ‘addiction’, if only psychologically. I prefer to think, after evaluating the medical definition of ‘addiction’, that addiction has many forms and some are based on different physical factors of differing strengths, while other forms are based on psychological factors with differing strengths.
Again just to clarify, the term ‘addiction’ in being used in my posts in the more colloquial sense.
PS : Being an uncouth barbarian, *Grunts in agreement with JediBear and drinks his nasty coffee …. “mmm coffee good”*
April 9th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
(typo) …the term ‘addiction’ IS being used …..
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:18 pm
HoHos have had to change. I used to have a HoHo as a Sunday morning reward for walking to the local grocer. I walked to the store to buy a carton of milk and a HoHo, Not any moreI They taste yucky.
Prior to the yuckyness I used to have conversations with strangers about HoHos and DingDongs. It is amazing how people react to the debate of HoHos vs. DingDongs. I would say 90% of those I talked to, definitely had a preference for one or the other. I miss those days, everyone loved to get into the HoHo and DingDong debate. One time I had a whole store crowed around talking to this subject, probably right around 30 people. Now all I have to talk about is what happened to Mars and the Snicker’s candy bar, which is yucky as well. With all this going on, I might get back to my high school weight.
Isn’t the internet a great place