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Come a year and a half from now, trans fat in California restaurants will be a thing of the past. Then in 2011, baked goods will be trans fat free. It's all thanks to AB 97 by Assemblymember Tony Mendoza (D-Norwalk), which Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law today.
"California is a leader in promoting health and nutrition, and I am pleased to continue that tradition by being the first state in the nation to phase out trans fats," Governor Schwarzenegger said in a statement today. "Consuming trans fat is linked to coronary heart disease, and today we are taking a strong step toward creating a healthier future for California."
The California Restaurant Association lobbied against the bill saying that "it would not substantially affect public health because people eat most of their meals at home," according to the LA Times.
A representative for the association told the Times that "given the fact that our industry is already phasing out trans fat in response to customers and that there is a delayed timeline for compliance, we are confident we will be able to meet the mandate of the law."
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Big government, coming straight at cha!
Smoking cigars is linked to cancer. We need to ban that. Want to sign that bill Arnold?
The smoking analogy isn't appropriate for trans-fat. Let's pretend it is-- there were two types of cigars. The experience of smoking both cigars is approximately the same; however, one type of cigar has a correlation with cancer. It turns out that the cancer-coupled cigars are cheaper to manufacture and last longer on the shelf; additionally, the cigar producers can easily hide which type of cigar is being sold. Due to the economic benefits and despite the health problems (which they don't have to pay for), the companies choose to produce cigars that are correlated with cancer. Until a few years ago, this was the predicament with trans-fat.
This is beyond stupid.
I'm not sure this was the smartest legislative move. Require restaurants to post signs stating that they use trans-fats in food preparation and let the people decide if they'll eat there or not.