U.S. Bans Artery-clogging Trans Fats

[Curt James]

U.S. Bans Artery-clogging Trans Fats - YouTube

Published on Nov 7, 2013
The Food and Drug Administration is requiring a gradual phase-out of trans fats in food. The artery-clogging additive is widely considered the worst kind of fat for the heart and can lead to heart attacks and death. (Nov. 7)

 

[independent]

I have no problem with this. We are being poisoned by processed food.

 

[Curt James]

Earth needs more dead people, though.

Or does it?

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Overpopulation Is Not the Problem

By ERLE C. ELLIS

September 13, 2013

BALTIMORE -- MANY scientists believe that by transforming the earth?s natural landscapes, we are undermining the very life support systems that sustain us. Like bacteria in a petri dish, our exploding numbers are reaching the limits of a finite planet, with dire consequences. Disaster looms as humans exceed the earth?s natural carrying capacity. Clearly, this could not be sustainable.

This is nonsense. Even today, I hear some of my scientific colleagues repeat these and similar claims ? often unchallenged. And once, I too believed them. Yet these claims demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of the ecology of human systems. The conditions that sustain humanity are not natural and never have been. Since prehistory, human populations have used technologies and engineered ecosystems to sustain populations well beyond the capabilities of unaltered "natural" ecosystems.

The evidence from archaeology is clear. Our predecessors in the genus Homo used social hunting strategies and tools of stone and fire to extract more sustenance from landscapes than would otherwise be possible. And, of course, Homo sapiens went much further, learning over generations, once their preferred big game became rare or extinct, to make use of a far broader spectrum of species. They did this by extracting more nutrients from these species by cooking and grinding them, by propagating the most useful species and by burning woodlands to enhance hunting and foraging success.

Even before the last ice age had ended, thousands of years before agriculture, hunter-gatherer societies were well established across the earth and depended increasingly on sophisticated technological strategies to sustain growing populations in landscapes long ago transformed by their ancestors.

The planet?s carrying capacity for prehistoric human hunter-gatherers was probably no more than 100 million. But without their Paleolithic technologies and ways of life, the number would be far less ? perhaps a few tens of millions. The rise of agriculture enabled even greater population growth requiring ever more intensive land-use practices to gain more sustenance from the same old land. At their peak, those agricultural systems might have sustained as many as three billion people in poverty on near-vegetarian diets.

The world population is now estimated at 7.2 billion. But with current industrial technologies, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has estimated that the more than nine billion people expected by 2050 as the population nears its peak could be supported as long as necessary investments in infrastructure and conducive trade, anti-poverty and food security policies are in place. Who knows what will be possible with the technologies of the future? The important message from these rough numbers should be clear. There really is no such thing as a human carrying capacity. We are nothing at all like bacteria in a petri dish.

Why is it that highly trained natural scientists don't understand this? My experience is likely to be illustrative. Trained as a biologist, I learned the classic mathematics of population growth -- that populations must have their limits and must ultimately reach a balance with their environments. Not to think so would be to misunderstand physics: there is only one earth, of course!

It was only after years of research into the ecology of agriculture in China that I reached the point where my observations forced me to see beyond my biologists's blinders. Unable to explain how populations grew for millenniums while increasing the productivity of the same land, I discovered the agricultural economist Ester Boserup, the antidote to the demographer and economist Thomas Malthus and his theory that population growth tends to outrun the food supply. Her theories of population growth as a driver of land productivity explained the data I was gathering in ways that Malthus could never do. While remaining an ecologist, I became a fellow traveler with those who directly study long-term human-environment relationships ? archaeologists, geographers, environmental historians and agricultural economists.

The science of human sustenance is inherently a social science. Neither physics nor chemistry nor even biology is adequate to understand how it has been possible for one species to reshape both its own future and the destiny of an entire planet. This is the science of the Anthropocene. The idea that humans must live within the natural environmental limits of our planet denies the realities of our entire history, and most likely the future. Humans are niche creators. We transform ecosystems to sustain ourselves. This is what we do and have always done. Our planet?s human-carrying capacity emerges from the capabilities of our social systems and our technologies more than from any environmental limits.

Two hundred thousand years ago we started down this path. The planet will never be the same. It is time for all of us to wake up to the limits we really face: the social and technological systems that sustain us need improvement.

There is no environmental reason for people to go hungry now or in the future. There is no need to use any more land to sustain humanity ? increasing land productivity using existing technologies can boost global supplies and even leave more land for nature ? a goal that is both more popular and more possible than ever.

The only limits to creating a planet that future generations will be proud of are our imaginations and our social systems. In moving toward a better Anthropocene, the environment will be what we make it.

Erle C. Ellis is an associate professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and a visiting associate professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Design.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/opinion/overpopulation-is-not-the-problem.html

 

[Swiper]

U.S. Bans Artery-clogging Trans Fats - YouTube

Published on Nov 7, 2013
The Food and Drug Administration is requiring a gradual phase-out of trans fats in food. The artery-clogging additive is widely considered the worst kind of fat for the heart and can lead to heart attacks and death. (Nov. 7)

fucking tyrants banning everything! pretty soon the govt will make all our choices for us because they think we're too stupid to make decisions for ourselves. this is another example of our tyrannical govt. out of control. what ever happened to freedom of choice?????

 

[Gibbz]

Don't worry there's a trans fat forum. You can still get your fix. Trans fat porn upon td is amazing there I hear

 

[SFW]

Awwe. I guess the fda loves us and cares for us. Or, they realize that a slow kill option isnt neccessary any longer, now that plan B has already been implemented. Youre gonna wish you had those donuts while youre killing your neighbors cat for food and lapping up puddle water.

 

[njc]

fucking tyrants banning everything! pretty soon the govt will make all our choices for us because they think we're too stupid to make decisions for ourselves. this is another example of our tyrannical govt. out of control. what ever happened to freedom of choice?????

Aren't they supposed to ban poisons?

 

[heckler7]

When I was a kid cookies, and cakes basically anything loaded in trans fat was something you only got on a special occasion like a birthday party. seems like people eat that shit as a meal and everyday now

 

[Swiper]

Aren't they supposed to ban poisons?

no. people should have the choice to put what they want into their own bodies. it's none of the govt business what we do to our own bodies. govt is suppose to preserve our freedoms not take them away.

if they want to put out a press release warning people about trans fat fine but don't Ban it.

 

[njc]

no. people should have the choice to put what they want into their own bodies. it's none of the govt business what we do to our own bodies. govt is suppose to preserve our freedoms not take them away.

if they want to put out a press release warning people about trans fat fine but don't Ban it.

Yes freedoms of course should be preserved. But you can only take that so far. For example, I don't (and shouldnt) have the freedom to skullfuck my neighbour against her will and then piss in her left ear. I realize thats not the same thing as allowing somebody to choose transfats, it but it raises a point. People do need to be prevented from doing things. Freedom of freedom can only extend so far. If you heard about a substance that was being put into food that kills half of the people who eat it then I assume that you would want it banned, and wouldnt mind if they did ban it. The point is, where do you draw the line. Why do we need transfats in our foods? Its worthless garbage. Kids, who oftentimes have no freedom in the matter as they are spoonfed this garbage by their dumb fuckin parents, do not know any better, There is also the health care and obesity crisis to consider. That shit costs us a lot of money. Taking away transfats is not anything like taking away somebodys right to take a walk at midnight...it is taking a worthless piece of garbage out of our food supply. Who cares?

 

[Swiper]

Yes freedoms of course should be preserved. But you can only take that so far. For example, I don't (and shouldnt) have the freedom to skullfuck my neighbour against her will and then piss in her left ear. I realize thats not the same thing as allowing somebody to choose transfats, it but it raises a point. People do need to be prevented from doing things. Freedom of freedom can only extend so far. If you heard about a substance that was being put into food that kills half of the people who eat it then I assume that you would want it banned, and wouldnt mind if they did ban it. The point is, where do you draw the line. Why do we need transfats in our foods? Its worthless garbage. Kids, who oftentimes have no freedom in the matter as they are spoonfed this garbage by their dumb fuckin parents, do not know any better, There is also the health care and obesity crisis to consider. That shit costs us a lot of money. Taking away transfats is not anything like taking away somebodys right to take a walk at midnight...it is taking a worthless piece of garbage out of our food supply. Who cares?

people are dumb, govt needs to step in and tell them how to eat, i get your position. i just don't agree with it.

With your logic you also want all alcohol and tobacco products banned too, right?

so when do you think the time will come when they ban foods high in fat from being produced? because it kills people too.

It's about people making their own decisions in life, and not having the govt making them for them.

It's impossible for govt to protect people from themselves. when govt tries to do it, it leads to a tyrannical govt.



"Totalitarianism or totalitarian state is a term used by some political scientists to describe a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible"

 

[njc]

people are dumb, govt needs to step in and tell them how to eat, i get your position. i just don't agree with it.

With your logic you also want all alcohol and tobacco products banned too, right?

so when do you think the time will come when they ban foods high in fat from being produced? because it kills people too.

It's about people making their own decisions in life, and not having the govt making them for them.

It's impossible for govt to protect people from themselves. when govt tries to do it, it leads to a tyrannical govt.



"Totalitarianism or totalitarian state is a term used by some political scientists to describe a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible"

I can sympathize with much that you say....I just dont see why anybody cares about transfats. Theres nothing good or enjoyable about them. Food isnt going to suck without transfats. This isnt the case with alcohol or tobacco. You cant take the alcohol out of a an alcoholic beverage...well you can...but that generally defeats the purpose of drinking alcohol, for most. People dont go out seeking food so they can eat trans-fats in particular. Saturated fats DO make foods taste better. Trans-fats (most would agree) add absolutely nothing taste-wize to the product. There is no positives to keeping it in. I suppose the only positive would be so one could say "at least I can still eat the worthless food filler if I want. It doesnt taste good, but at least I can eat it." The cons of keeping it in food are much larger ie-particularly with regards to the children who consume it everyday, and people who eat it, and dont even know or care that they are eating it and get heart disease and diabetes as a consequence. Im all about worthwile freedoms, and keeping them. But Im also more than happy to see worthless poisons taken out of our already rotten food supply. The only purpose transfats serve are negative. If this forces food companies to come up with a healthier food option to fill our foods with then we should all celebrate.

 

[SheriV]

people are dumb, govt needs to step in and tell them how to eat, i get your position. i just don't agree with it.

With your logic you also want all alcohol and tobacco products banned too, right?

so when do you think the time will come when they ban foods high in fat from being produced? because it kills people too.

It's about people making their own decisions in life, and not having the govt making them for them.

It's impossible for govt to protect people from themselves. when govt tries to do it, it leads to a tyrannical govt.



"Totalitarianism or totalitarian state is a term used by some political scientists to describe a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible"

I actually think tobacco is on this path...they're just calling it taxation for now.

 

[njc]

I can sympathize with Swiper. Having freedoms stripped is a scary thing. But where I'm coming from as a health and fitness enthusiast is that I am shocked at what is becoming of our food supply. It is an absolute travesty. Speaking of choices, it is reaching the point that one almost does not even have the freedom to eat healthy. More and more chemicals are being used on our produce and crops are suffering at an alarming rate. The soil is becoming unsuitable for crops and the nutrional value of crops is on the serious decline...not to mention the potential harmful effects of the chemicals themselves. Even buying organic is no sure bet anymore (not sure that it ever was actually). There are so many ways to dodge putting on the label what is in your food now that it has reached the point of becoming a travesty. There is a bill floating around right now that would (if passed) stop requiring dairy companies to list "aspartame" on their ingredients list if they so choose to use it. Monsato is now heavily influencing the FDA and has actually won a prestigious prize for their new GMO line. Our food supply is growing fouler and fouler by the moment. I guess what I'm saying is is that it is nice to finally see something put into place which is ACTUALLY good for us. It is probably too little to late, but it is nice to see regardless.

 

[Watson]

Awwe. I guess the fda loves us and cares for us. Or, they realize that a slow kill option isnt neccessary any longer, now that plan B has already been implemented. Youre gonna wish you had those donuts while youre killing your neighbors cat for food and lapping up puddle water.

beware the yellow puddle............

 

[Curt James]

no. people should have the choice to put what they want into their own bodies. it's none of the govt business what we do to our own bodies. govt is suppose to preserve our freedoms not take them away.

if they want to put out a press release warning people about trans fat fine but don't Ban it.

K. Randall Ball wrote a story set in the not too distant future where the main character lives in a world where everything citizens eat is monitored for federally outlawed substances by a daily pin prick, their location is monitored, their mood is monitored.

On the one hand this banning seems wise but on the other hand I can see what lies ahead.

 

[Curt James]

fucking tyrants banning everything! pretty soon the govt will make all our choices for us because they think we're too stupid to make decisions for ourselves. this is another example of our tyrannical govt. out of control. what ever happened to freedom of choice?????

This.

 

[SheriV]

sure, slippery slope. sets a precedent thats a bit scary

 

[njc]

sure, slippery slope. sets a precedent thats a bit scary

This sort of precedent was set a LONG time ago

I guess I just don't see any benefit to keeping this garbage in our food supply. It's only there to because manufacturers find it easier to work with and to produce food with. There are better and healthier ways to prepare the food and the taste will not even suffer most of the time. Seems like a win-win no brainer to me.

 

[SheriV]

I guess...until lawyers get a hold of it
I dont think they have any merit to use but you have to wonder what comes down the pike later

 

[charley]