OTTAWA - The NDP wants Canada to become the second country in the world to ban trans fats. NDP Leader Jack Layton said Friday that his party plans to introduce a motion in Parliament next week to outlaw the fats, which raise "bad cholesterol" levels and have been linked to heart disease and diabetes.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/nati...ats_041112.html

that's excellent news! okay, canadians, make sure you contact your mp's to show your support.

This is terrible news. Why would you want to get government to intervene in dietary habits? I hate trans fats, but once you let them ban one item, its a quick and slippery slope to them banning other items.

Imagine if this happens, and then all of a sudden they decide to ban maltitol, or Splenda, or saturated fat, or brocolli? How about we just let the free market decide what to sell, and then we can slowly help people one person at a time realize what their bodies and lives can handle?

In the States, we have the dreaded FDA and USDA. When they introduce a new item as "safe", many people cheer. When they ban certain items as "harmful", many people cheer. But in the end isn't it wiser for us to figure it out ourselves? I'm an opponent of these agencies using so much power. They're the ones who invented the food pyramid!

I am very happy that my home country is making this excellent move.
There is monstrous amounts of information showing transfats as being dangerous, and whatever means neccesary to get rid of them from the publics diet is perfectly a ok with me.

"Imagine if this happens, and then all of a sudden they decide to ban maltitol, or Splenda, or saturated fat, or brocolli? How about we just let the free market decide what to sell, and then we can slowly help people one person at a time realize what their bodies and lives can handle?"

Why on earth would that ever happen? it simply would not because there is no evidence showing such things are hazardous to our health. The government does not simply pick arbitrary things to ban, they do have proof, expecially in this case.

But I suppose people won't pay attention to my ideas on this matter, because I am one who supports the removal of "low carb" labeling of food products.

The government doesn't pick arbitrarily, but it does pick based on what it is lobbied to do. How can you say that the FDA's support of the food pyramid is anything but an "arbitrary" decision based on the wheat and sugar industry's lobbying. Sorry, but that's no good for me.

Here are some articles for those inclined to stop trusting others to make decisions for them:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/edmonds/edmonds155.html

http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/003600.html

These are the same people that are lobbied all day long by various companies and groups. They don't care about individuals nor the choices we individuals make with our body. If the US government wanted to mandate a low fat diet (they sort of already have!) they probably could. I want to be able to make my own lifestyle choices, thank you.

This is not a Canada vs. US debate Just an eye opener for those who congratulate big government's decisions. I am really afraid when a big group of people tell me what I can and can't ingest.

From what I understand transfat is both entirely metabolized, and is a totally unnatural food product. Fatty acids are used not only for energy, like sugar, but they are structural components and can interfere with normal body functioning (thus the link between transfat and diabetes, for example).

All other "bad" food products are either unnatural but partially/mostly unmetabolized (eg sucralose/sugar polyols), or natural and metabolized appropriately (eg saturated fats).

Transfat is a unique food demon in this respect... that it should be so bioavailable and so incredibly deletarious to health, and never naturally present along side other components which neutralize it's effects and augment health (e.g. sugar in berries and apples comes along with tons of antioxidants)... well, it has much more in common with mild poison than it does "unhealthy" food or an unbalanced diet.

That, I think, is the difference between transfat and other arguably "unhealthy" food. The only thing that makes transfat food-like is the fact it has energy and can be metabolized for such purposes by human beings. In every other way it fits the category of cultevated poison (even natural poisons often come packed inside/along with nutritients other than energy).

From what I understand of transfats, the naturally occurring transfats in animal fat work completely opposite as the man-made ones, and are not bad for you at all. The dilemma is "banning transfat" is too general.

Man-made transfats also like to bind to your body cells in ways that are harmful whereas naturally occurring ones can be used by the body in the same ways as saturated fats.

I want to move to Canada!

Partially Hydrogenated Oils are unnatural and dangerous in ANY quantity. Under current US Law, the FDA is not only allowed, but REQUIRED to ban them [revoke their GRAS (Generally Reconized as Safe) Status] if they believe they are not safe. There is no evidence Splenda, Maltitol, etc...are generally unsafe. Partially Hydrogenated Oils got GRAS Status when the law was originally passed, because there was no evidence [like there is now] at that time they were unsafe and they existed before the law was passed.

As a Canadian I would not trust the government, or any "higher authority," to make any decision in my best interests. Already they have done the following in my best interests.

1) put fluoride in the water (the head of the Canadian Preventative Dentisty Association confessed 5 years ago it was a big mistake and creating more harm than good - still here though)
2) put lead pipes in the water system (isn't that what Rome did? - look what happened to Rome)
3) pasteurized and homogenized milk - creating a "milk-flavoured drink" that bears little resemblance to true milk and is harmful to many, as Dr. WC Douglass (and many others) point out
4) promoted the concept of enriched white bread while denigrating any saturated fat except transfats (vegetable oils and margarine)
5) put mercury in vaccines (if you gotta die of something, it might as well be the vaccine)
6) approved of thalidimyde, phen-fen, HRT therapy using synthetic substances that don't work, vioxx, statins and other killers
7) suggested eggs are unhealthy for you, but by comparison, said almost nothing of French fries
8) being more concerned about salt than sugar (In the US, allowing 25% of calories from sugar. Canada is following mutely, while the rest of the world is saying 10% is more than enough)
9) the American Diabetes Association (and of course, the Canadian) have come to an amazing conclusion lately; namely sugar is no worse for you than many complex carbohydrates -so, now you can have sugar in your diet too! Great eh? What does the ADA recommend? - "Eat lots and lots of starches (e.g., potatoes, corn) and put dried fruit on your (sugared) cereal and wash that down with some low-fat pasteruized milk. Good luck! All this nonsense is tied to government sponsored food guides.

As usual, the NDP have a good idea, but totally impractical. If they realized how many foods have transfats in them, they should realize they would be shutting down half the food processing companies in the country, as well as most restaurants. Cars are one of the biggest killers in Canada. Perhaps the NDP should ban them too - along with cigarettes, alcohol, chips, donuts, chocolate bars and ice cream - since they are all bad for us.

Getting rid of transfats will not happen overnight. Starting with labelling is good. How about labelling GMO and irradiated foods at the same time. I brought home a little milk creamer for coffee from a local restaurant and it got lost in the fridge for a few months. When I found it I was going to throw it out (even pasteurized milk cream doesn't last that long) but then decided to see how bad it was. When I opened it, it was perfect. On the label it says "extended life." Now what does that mean?

It means that long after the extinction of human life on earth (which is rapidly accelerating to that end thanks to food with "extended life" labels on it), the crates of food with "extended life" labels will be all that's left and will be found intact and ready to eat by whatever unfortunate aliens land on this planet millenia from now.

I agree wholeheartedly that canadas goverment has made some horrible decisions in the past, however this does not mean this one is. Especially since some of those things were done under a conservative government, which is a heck of a lot different than ndp.
Some points:
The decision to put flouride in tap water is based on local goverment, and not all cities have flouride (or for that matter even chlorine, rather they use ozone).
As far as the lead pipes and enriched bread products being promoted, they have since said that they were wrong. What else can be done? not much, they already have stopped. (same goes for the eggs being demonized, they have since changed there mind on the information available now).
As for the milk products, i am for pausterization, as when i was 6 years old i drank unpausterized milk from a very well respected (and as "clean" as they get) farm, and i ended up almost dieing from ecoli. The homogenation however i am in agreement with you.

Ozone isn't a perfect solution either. If water has bromide in it, you get bromate - another nasty carcinogen - something the bottled water people don't talk about too much.



I think officially on the egg thing - the US food guidelines now allow 5 eggs per week instead of 4. A move in the right direction, but hardly an endorsement. They haven't dumped their cholesterol paradigm yet.



Studies are showing unpasteurized milk is generally safer than pasteurized milk. It's coming back - you'll be hearing a lot more about it in the next few years. Here's a quote:

"The greatest agricultural loss today is due to our destruction of fresh milk through pasteurization, ultra-pasteurization, and now ultra high temperature pasteurization that turned a nutritious food into a white, dangerous “milk-flavoured drink.” With a proper understanding of milk, and its destructive effects when heat-treated and the remarkable therapeutic effects when used raw, we can cut billions of dollars in our medical bills, make ourselves infinitely healthier, and even raise the I.Q. of our children. With smarter children we will add greatly to our scientific and cultural wealth. I do not consider it an exaggeration to say that the nation's destiny will be affected by what we do about milk. Adults and their children should have the choice and right to develop natural immunity as well as reap the health benefits of raw milk and avoid the bacterial and health hazards of pasteurized milk." (Dr. William Campbell Douglass, Medical Researcher and author of The Milk Book)

Perhaps "ultra high temperature pasteurization" explains the "extended life" of creamers.

Unpasteurized milk is dangerous. It can be contaminated by all sorts of nasties in the dairy. Cows are not exactly pristine, clean, sterile creatures. For goodness sakes, they poop on the floor! Even with the utmost attention to cleanliness, it isn't that hard to imagine that occassionally bacteria get into the milk.

While a healthy adult might not die from campylobacter, escherichia, listeria, salmonella, yersinia, and brucella it can be deadly for children and the elderly and the ill.

I'd like if some alternative to pasteurization could be found that doesn't kill off some of the good things, but until then I'd rather miss out on an enyze then risk that sort of illness.

Denmark limits trans fats to 2% of total fat. I am betting that Canada will end up at 3%, if only because that is the amount found in canola--a huge agricultural product here. There is a new canola variety that is supposed to be trans fat free. See: http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/n...-new-canola-oil

The other issue that is sure to come up is NAFTA. If trans fats are limited/banned here, then a whole lot of US made products are not going to be on Canadian shelves. I was surprised that even the Conservative party is backing the NDP trans fat bill. It seems that pretty much everyone in Parliament and the PM is on board with this now.