New Yorkers have voted to ban trans fats, but some in the food industry are not relishing having to change to healthier foods, writes Sean O'Driscollin New York
Monica Von Thun Caldero, owner of the Grandaisy Bakery in Lower Manhattan, got a call on Tuesday morning to tell her that the battle was over. New York had voted to ban trans fats in restaurants.
She was one of the people fighting for the ban at meetings of the New York City Board of Health, going against intense lobbying by Burger King, Wendy's, Domino's Pizza, the New York State Restaurant Association and even the improbably hopeful Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment.
The day after her victory, Caldero took me on a guided tour of her bakery, pointing to the ovens that use only natural cooking oils and the cramped office upstairs where she keeps her books about organic food. A woman in her early middle age, she has long been fighting against industrial food processing, a problem, she says, that dates back to the 1940s, when automation brought cheap and nasty cost-saving additives into the business.
The debate during the last few months has been passionate: 2,287 people made written comments to the health board, favouring the ban by 33 to 1. Some 53 people spoke at a public hearing in October; those in favour of banning trans fats included very senior scientists from New York and Colombia Universities, as well as the National Hispanic Medical Association and the American Diabetes Association. All of them claimed that trans fats were so dangerous that they could have a harmful effect if consumed as only a tiny fraction of daily energy needs.
We also learned the history of trans fats - how they were hailed as a postwar breakthrough that allowed foods to stay fresh longer on the shelves while simultaneously keeping down costs for the producer.
By the 1960s, trans fats were everywhere, hailed as the healthy new alternative to fattening butter. Margarine took off, and the trans fats industry rocketed to even greater success.
Once scientists discovered the trans fats link to heart disease in the 1990s, however, consumers and doctors began to rebel. The Food and Drug Administration demanded labelling on products, but restaurants remained untouched - until now.
While knowing that he was outnumbered, Dan Fleshler, a professional lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association, was still hoping for a turnaround on Tuesday.
"I was very, very disappointed," he said, denouncing the "media circus" that was waiting in the crowded corridors outside the tiny office where the health board made its decision.
While the board has given some leeway - restaurants will have until July 1st, 2007 to find substitutes for trans fats used in frying and spreads and until July 1st, 2008 to find substitutes for trans fats used in deep frying baked goods, Fleshler believes this is nowhere near enough time.
In its long point-by-point statement, the board went through each objection raised by Fleshler and the trans fats lobby. Some arguments were swiftly dismissed as irrelevant, such as the National Restaurant Association's claim that natural oils didn't last as long as trans fats, so extra delivery trucks would add to New York's traffic congestion. The restaurant lobby also argued that foreign workers wouldn't understand the new rules and that Jewish bakeries needed trans fats to replace dairy products in Kosher foods.
After the decision, both sides on the debate were keen to frame it in class terms - the restaurateurs see it as the affluent health lobby picking on family businesses.
"The Greek deli down the road," says Fleshler, "is the one going to suffer the most." Those in favour of the ban say this is nothing but the pseudo-concern of giant chain store restaurants.
With Chicago close to following New York's example, and New York considering Chicago's decision to ban foie gras, the restaurant lobby groups also claim that city governments are becoming food nannies, using restaurants to win vote- catching political points while restaurant menus have become blander.
The lobby even claimed that New York residents will travel to other states to enjoy the taste of trans fats, just as smokers left for New Jersey to enjoy a cigarette when the smoking ban came in. There may even be trans fats speakeasies, noted the Village Voice newspaper, just as there are already smoking speakeasies in New York and foie gras speakeasies in Chicago.
The overwhelming scientific evidence, however, was backed by the business savvy of individual restaurateurs, such as Brooklyn-born "Queen of the Breakfast", Ina Pinkney of Ina's in Chicago, who told officials that non-trans fats oils cost 30 per cent more but lasted 75 per cent longer.
Russell Coco of Jason's Deli, which has 130 branches in 20 states, said he had used trans fats in 47 ingredients, but was easily able to make the change in the last five years.
Ultimately, the Health Board relied heavily on Harvard professor Dariush Mozaffarian, who said that even conservative estimates blamed trans fats for 6 per cent of all US heart attacks, translating into 1,400 deaths in New York every year.
Other evidence from the Institute of Medicine found that a gram of trans fats is worse for the user than a gram of saturated fat, the primary reason why the Food and Drug Administration already requires trans fats labelling.
As the Health Board pointed out, there was a lot at stake. The US consumed colossal amounts of trans fats last year - about 6 to 7 billion pounds in total.
With trans fats being phased out in New York, soy, corn and olive oils suppliers were rushing in with replacements this week. Perhaps the most promising replacement is Canola, a type of rape oil developed in Canada in the 1970s.
Many scientists believe it is the healthiest of all the oils that can replace trans fats.
Ben Rich, Biomass Program Coordinator at a solar energy programme at North Carolina State University, points out that Canola's name was dreamt up by Canadian marketers as a mix of "Canada" and "Oil", with the word "rape" having automatically negative connotations with the consumer. He has organised seminars to help growers sell their product.
For Larry Horn, a manager of a US Canola Products plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the New York ban on trans fats is good news. "We're already doing all we can to meet demand. This has been a good week for us and a good week for New York."
However, Dan Fleshler remained defiant. "It's not over yet," he said. "We are going through this decision with a fine-tooth comb and we are going to do everything we can to stop it. Believe me, this is not a decision that Europe would want to follow."
Asked if there are any plans to follow New York's lead on trans fats, the Department of Health told The Irish Times: "Irish food legislation is derived from the European Community and currently there is no European legislation seeking to ban trans fats. However as part of an ongoing review of food labelling legislation, Ireland has put forward that both information on saturated fats and trans unsaturated fats in addition to the total fats should be provided on food labels, and this would enable consumers to make informed choices. And additionally, if manufacturers are required to declare trans fats on nutrition labels they may be encouraged to reformulate products which are high in this type of fat."