As Mayor Bloomberg debates banning trans fats (hydrogen mixed with vegetable oil) in NYC restaurants, Canada is apparently considering banning them nation-wide. They would not be the first country to do so, as Denmark banned them in 2003. Some of the data now being collected is hard to believe:

The CTV and Globe and Mail study found that KFC’s deep-fried chicken pieces (known as Popcorn Chicken) and fries meals had the highest levels of trans fats at a whopping 18.6 grams — a level that if eaten daily may boost your risk of heart disease by nearly 100 per cent.

There is nothing good for the consumer that comes from this substance (unless you believe long shelf-life alone is a virtue). Have you ever wished the crackers you bought eight years ago for $0.50 were still around?

I find it hard to understand how anyone can defend this additive when an article published this year by reasearchers at the Harvard School of Public Health suggests banning trans fats from food in the US alone could prevent tens of thousands of heart attacks and cardiac deaths each year!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of fried chicken. I just find it a shame that KFC makes it so dangerous and unnecessarily so. A ban on this substance makes about as much sense as having laws against secretly poisoning the water supply. I believe that people who say individuals should be allowed to make bad choices and kill themselves with KFC do not understand the cost and nature of the risks.

One final thought. David Lawrence, the journalist credited with bringing the trans fat danger to public prominence in 1996, has posted a list of things that parents should demand from schools in order to reduce health risks to children:

* Low fat milk offered in clear plastic bottles – especially chocolate milk, kids will drink more of it.
* DO not allow no-fat food to be served. Studies show that no-fat foods actually cause weight gain because it changes the way the body is processing fats and how they NOT burn fats in the body.
* Milk and dairy products should be organic that do not contain anti-biotics and pesticides like regular milk does.
* Cows feed non-organic grains have increased pesticides in milk. Cows that are injected with anti-biotics pass this into their milk. Studies show that by ingesting these by-products of anti-biotics in products is lowering the resistant to bacteria in the human body.
*All dairy products SHOULD not contain carregenan. Carreegenan is used in many products as a thickening agent. Studies have shown it increases inflammation throughout body and increases arithritis and breathing disorders like asthma.
* All meats should be from organic sources. Chicken should be organic, free from anti-biotic injections and range fed. Eggs should be as well.
* More fresh water fish – NO FARM RAISED FISH – these fish are showing unusual strains of bacteria in the meat.
* More fruits and vegetables on the menus – preferably organic to reduce pesticide ingestion * All fruits and vegetables should be throughly washed. If not organic, outside peelings like apples and other fruits should not be eaten with these peelings because of possible high pesticide contamination.
*Check to see where fruits are coming from, what country? Fruits coming from Mexico and South America where they allow the use of many pesticides BANNED in the U.S. In these countries, farmers also use human waste and sewage water for fertilizers. Do you want your children eating this?
* No junk foods – demand that all junk foods be taken out of food machines.
* No soft drinks – demand that all soft drinks be replaced with drinking water or 100% fruit juices.
*Juices should not be sweetened with high fructose syrup, a leading cause of your children developing diabetes.
* Whole grains in bread products
* NO FOODS CONTAINING HYDROGENATED OILS or MONODIGLYCERIDES
* NO FOODS CONTAINING MSG – ( MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE )
* NO FOODS CONTAINING ASPARTAME
* Healthy oils to be used, olive oil, grapeseed oil, coconut oil, safflower oil.

I like that he is focusing on children, since they have few choices in their food and little influence themselves over the lunch programs. In other words, their risk is higher because of their vulnerability and the lack of options to avoid the threat. The “you should be smart enough to eat elsewhere” argument falls flat when you are talking about kids with a programmed lunch system.

A whistleblower incident in 2004 or 2005 seems to have forced the contractor to clean up their act and take soldier health more seriously:

Halliburton Co. failed to protect the water supply it is paid to purify for U.S. soldiers throughout Iraq, in one instance missing contamination that could have caused “mass sickness or death,� an internal company report concluded.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said the company failed to assemble and use its own water purification equipment, allowing contaminated water directly from the Euphrates River to be used for washing and laundry at Camp Ar Ramadi in Ramadi, Iraq.

Sounds like they need the bluegill system. Speaking of soldiers and environmental risks, I wonder if the SEALs ever developed a combat filtering system after their operations in the Somali waters left whole teams ill from pollution? Can’t seem to find a reference right now.

Here is a fine example of how allow-list strategies are far superior to block-list:

Since Sept. 11, the government has taken very seriously the threat of attacks on the U.S. water supply. Federal law requires nearly all community water systems to assess their vulnerability to terrorism.

Big cities employ a range of safeguards against chemical and biological agents, constantly monitoring, testing and treating the water. But electronic protection systems can trace only the toxins they are programmed to detect, Lawler said.

Bluegills — a hardy species about the size of a human hand — are considered more versatile. They are highly attuned to chemical disturbances in their environment, and when exposed to toxins, they experience the fish version of coughing, flexing their gills to expel unwanted particles.

Nice. The fish monitor the quality of water by living in “known good” conditions. It’s usually an impossible race to try and keep up with detection of all the latest attacks, or known bad conditions, which is why an allow-list such as this is the preferable approach when possible.

I am reminded of fish I caught on a line when I was growing up. When I was older I returned to some of my favorite spots only to find warnings posted by the government about toxic levels of poison that had resulted from pesticide and herbicide runoff. I was told the infamous Agent Orange of Vietnam was still legal if you sprayed it on the backs of cattle to keep insects away. The rain would then wash the poison into the ground and rivers which fed our ponds and lakes. The areas had become toxic to fish and thus humans due to weak regulation of agricultural industries.

More information about the bluegill system can be found here:

The iABS monitors fish behavior using a pair of non-contact electrodes mounted above and below each of eight bluegills. As the fish move in the chamber and ventilate their gills, muscle contractions generate electrical signals in the water that are monitored by a computer. When abnormal fish behavior is identified, the iABS provides immediate alarm notification and can start an automated water sampler to permit follow-up chemical analysis.

So if local fish die as a result of weak environmental regulations, and the water quality has already been ruined by an environmentally hostile department of agriculture, the worry about terrorists putting toxins in the water and killing bluegills seems well-intentioned yet a little less pressing than the already present problems.

Should community water systems assess their vulnerability to all toxins, as I mentioned back in February, or just the ones from “terrorists”? Will homebuyers start to demand air and water quality records and tests prior to home purchase, to ensure a functioning security system that will protect their health?

Here is an awesome cross-cultural cross-topic analysis of food and digital rights by Jennifer Granick:

What if the original ramen chefs tried to stop others from developing their own ramen recipes and making differently flavored ramen broth?

They’d form an association — say, the Ramen Industrial Alliance of Asia — and announce a clampdown on the proliferation of infringing noodle shops. Their arguments would echo the music industry’s. “The chefs who created ramen deserve to get paid for their creation,” they’d say. “These noodle shops are taking profits away from the creators, while peddling an often-inferior product to an unsuspecting public that believes they are getting real ramen.”

I have just one word in response: Tampopo