Richard S. Davis: French-fried freedom sickens regulators
Every restaurant in King County may soon remind you of Mom’s Diner. That is, if Mom was the kind of gal that hovered over your plate, telling you to eat more of this and less of that, and pulling you back if you fell off the approved food pyramid.
Last week the King County Board of Health stepped up to your plate for Mom, voting to ban trans fats (optional modifiers include “deadly,” “artery- clogging” or “heart-damaging” – the style manual accepts them all). And, in addition to the creative writing adorning many menus (succulent, tantalizing, a taste of Napoli), bills of fare in the county’s chain restaurants must list calorie, fat, sodium and carbohydrate information under a mandate called “menu labeling.”
Climbing on what the Harvard Public Health Review called the “ban wagon,” board of health members congratulated themselves, saying their actions promote more informed food choices, a safer food supply and better public health. It’s another case of “long fuse” public policy. Politicians gather a crowd, light the fuse, bask in the acclaim and are long gone when the spark ignites the powder.
This won’t stop at the King County line. They’re greasing the skids for a statewide effort to ban trans fats within the next year. New York City led the way last year. Massachusetts will likely pass a ban soon. With smokers here relegated to their patch of shame 25 feet from anyplace interesting, banning trans fats – hydrogenated unsaturated fat used in some fry oils and shortenings – has become the next big thing.
The parallel, of course, is a bit off. Secondhand smoke endangers the health of others, or so most people believe. Trans fats harm only the consumer.
So, why mess with my fries? The Seattle Times quotes a Seattle City Council member on the board of health this way: “I don’t care if you eat french fries,” but “I end up paying for your heart disease” when they’re fried in trans fat. I’m waiting for the mandatory cardio workouts. “Shake a leg, buddy. You’re costing your government money.”
Trent House, who handles government affairs for the Washington Restaurant Association, doesn’t seriously object to the trans fat ban.
“Restaurateurs have been talking about eliminating trans fats long before boards of health were,” he says, noting that many restaurants have stopped using them. Problems arise, however, with mandates and deadlines. For some menu items, there still are no satisfactory alternatives.
House says his members “agree trans fats are bad … but the substitutes could be just as bad.” It wouldn’t be the first time.
As cumbersome as the trans fat ban may be, House says the menu labeling requirement poses many more obstacles, including design (many food choices, way too many labels), cost and effectiveness.
One alternative: Having the board of health certify items meeting nutritional standards. It sure beats having booths full of calculator-wielding customers pore over dictionary-sized menus as they consult dietary reference books.
He believes the market will drive change. “You’d be hard pressed to find another industry that responds to customer needs faster than the restaurant industry,” he says.
We saw it with smoking. By the time the voters and regulators passed the ban, the ban’s time had passed. Niche and neighborhood operations aside, most places had already gotten the message.
A functioning marketplace, however, relies on people doing things for themselves. Regulators are uncomfortable with that risk. Far better to step in at the last minute, apply topspin to the prevailing trend and seize credit for doing something. So as restaurants move to rid their menus of trans fats and offer nutritional alternatives, government regulators belatedly intervene to rescue consumers. It’s not simply political posturing. It’s yet another attempt to make us comfortable with bureaucratic overreach “for our own good.”
If bans and labels were guaranteed to end obesity and relieve millions of Americans of life-threatening health problems, the heavy-handed intrusion may make sense. But there’s always something more. If labels did the trick, no one would smoke, drink, or stand on the top rung of a ladder. We have choices. And freedom has consequences.
So, too, does docile acceptance of even well-intentioned efforts to restrict that freedom.