U.S. Bans Trans Fat

https://news.vice.com/article/indonesia-is-killing-the-plane...

There is stil some forest left for orangutans and other endangered species, but it is under constant pressure from expanding plantations.

Many are specifically worried about palm production because a lot of the areas that are being deforested are also peatlands. They burn the entire area which doesn't just burn the trees, but also a huge amount of peat. This releases a crazy amount of CO2.

You could argue that it isn't palm production's fault and that they shouldn't be burning those areas. As long as it is profitable it will continue though.

I don't think is is the best link, but it was quickly available: http://www.nutraceuticalsworld.com/contents/view_online-excl...

Really it points out the disconnect between industrial food production vs human health and, in this case, a nice story about how one disconnect was resolved.

It's a tough position and I sympathize with them. I suspect no matter how soon they do or don't pull the trigger, hordes of people will wind up incensed.

Just think how bad things would be if someone had taken that 70s era belief in global cooling and used it as a justification to require us to dump more CO2 into the atmosphere to mitigate it.

No he wasn't: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/07/28/if-you-wish-to-make-...

There was never a widespread consensus about global cooling:

>A 2008 paper in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society actually reviewed the climate research published in the 70s and concluded that "global cooling was never more than a minor aspect of the scientific climate change literature of the era, let alone the scientific consensus" and "emphasis on greenhouse warming dominated the scientific literature even then."

WUWT is a climate change denial site run by conspiracy theorists. It's not a good place to get facts about anything.

As for the previously held view (now considered incorrect) that saturated fats are harmful, a similar review of the scientific results at any time over the past 40 years would have shown that the view was based on the flimsiest of actual data, like one correlation combined with a second correlation.

That said, if you are relying on the government and other authorities as the final word on health advice, history suggests a bad outcome.

A fundamental tennent of all heath care/policy is "first, do no harm." If you change or do nothing, people are no worse off than they were to begin with. If you want to change something, you better be damn sure you aren't making matters worse.

There is very little evidence to prove saturated fats are bad, but plenty to prove sugar is. Yet you don't see the policy makers telling us to eat less corn.

Also trans-fats (the ones that are bad) do not occur in nature which seems to be of the best predictors of whether something is net-good for you or not.

People and organizations are seen as more reliable if they don't waver in spite of facts. Is it hardware, or software? Can we learn to favor those who update their decisions based on validated facts, or is it hardwired in how our brains perceive confidence and reliability?

"Years ago, we learned about the health risks of saturated fats and moved away from them."

Yes, we "learned" about a lot of things over the years, and vilified the product to the point of absurdity. 'I can smell my neighbor's cigarette smoke--I will get cancer, or COPD?'. My cholesterol is high--I must take statins?.' 'I think I'm depressed--I must get a prescription of a hetero, or tri-cyclic antidepressant?' 'I'm a vegetarian; I must be healthy? Give me a wheel of that blue cheese, I hear it has penicillin in it, and I can eat it because I don't eat red meat!'

I don't know where the truth lies, and follow most recommendations, and trans fats are probally terrible; I just question these scientific, peer reviewed, doulble blind studies. I don't just call it Science anymore, and they know best. I look at all these studies with an air of skepticism that wasn't in me when I got out of college.

When a doctor, or nutritionist relays some information; I do my homework before accepting the advise as a universal truth.

The problem is that various sciences have very different requirements for what constitutes a valid 'discovery'. e.g. In particle physics if you don't have a 5 sigma result you haven't really found something. You often see incredibly weak data accepted into journals in the soft sciences, see the recent 'chocolate makes you thin' faux study as an example.

I think there is a large problem in soft sciences in that they are very quick to declare knowledge with very limited data supporting it. The various dietary sciences are probably the worst offenders at the moment. As you've said we know very little about nutrition and health, so why are we so quick to make definitive statements about it? That sounds like the opposite of science to me.

I'm sure this will be controversial but I'd rather not classify such 'soft sciences' as science at all. I've seen several complete reversals in soft sciences in my life and think that this actually contributes to the general public's mis-understanding and mis-trust of science as a whole. e.g. "Those scientists can't even figure out what I'm supposed to eat so why would I believe this quantum physics non-sense!"

> Our knowledge and understanding of the totality of nutrition and health is still pretty small...

Making policies based on ignorance without acknowledging that ignorance in the slightest is not science, it's politics. Instead of saying "we don't really know anything about this topic" they lobby the FDA to make policies -

http://www.academia.edu/1429225/The_Perfect_Solution_How_Tra...

Sadly, we did not as the health risks from saturated fats were incorrect, based on absolutely terrible science. The unprecedented public health initiative that resulted in everyone moving away from saturated fats (and the fat scare in general) did substantial harm to public health.

As such I wouldn't say they are doing unadultered, capital S, Science. They are, after all, politicians by the sheer circumstance of their own name.

No researchers were necessary to access my memory.

If people start eating 100 percent less trans fat but 300% more sugar to compensate, then even though sugar has redeeming qualities, it will be a bad thing, right?

Can you show that Trans-Fats would be killing people if they stuck to properly portioned meals?

Removing Trans-Fats is just going to be replaced with other fats, and probably some sugar for 'taste' that people will continue to eat far too much of. I expect the effect of removing Trans-Fats to be negligible to none because of that.

There are even still "low fat" foods on the shelf which intentionally remove dietary fat and replace it with complex carbohydrates (mostly sugars), which are bad for you.

Remember the whole "red meat will kill you!" thing? Yeah, utter nonsense. There's a small amount of cancer risk from the cooking process (and glazing/smoking) but broadly speaking raw meats are one of the healthiest non-vegetables you can eat. Much healthier than processed foods. The more fat the better.

When you order a burger, the bun is by far the most unhealthy part. Then the sugared sauce (e.g. ketchup, mayo, etc), then the american "cheese," and last of all the meat. But most modern burgers are just "sugar delivery devices" in the sense that the % of meat is tiny and % of sugar (from bun, cheese, and sauce) is getting higher and higher.

Yeah eggs, salt, fat in general - all of these used to be considered dangerous too. Why should I believe that trans-fats are dangerous?

The issue with this stat is that someone hurts/kills themselves or someone else, they had alcohol in their system, ergo it's an "alcohol-related incident". The problem with this line of reasoning should be obvious.

http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/truth-wont-admit-dr...

> People love being emotionally numbed

> I guess people have a right to depress their emotions with drinking

Blanket statements like this are unfair. I'd wager most drinkers do so moderately, and are not doing so to numb their emotions.

People paint illusions around what they like.

That's not what alcohol does. If anything, it's an emotion amplifier. It does usually put me on the happy end of the spectrum, but I don't consider that to be "numbing".

Shortening's like Crisco have been reducing the amount of trans-fats and the results can be seen in the loss of flakiness and butteriness of quick bread baking so much so that there is already a market for the older stuff.

http://www.cakecentral.com/forum/t/736295/does-generic-veg-s...

It really does seem arbitrary, and once the arbitrary decision is made, all bridges are burned and we commit ourselves 100% to the capricious decision.

Exactly. We don't want The Mob 2.0. Banning something with such a huge demand is begging to transfer wealth to criminal organizations. (Unless you were willing and able to enforce it. And of course it's not the only reason.)

1. Substitution of players. Doing this dramatically changes the face of the offense. For example, in a short yardage play, they might sub out 1-2 receivers and sub in linemen. This gives the offense more power in the run. Alternatively, they can sub out the tight end and bring in a fifth receiver for the opposite - less blocking, more options for the quarterback to throw to.

2. Planning the next play, which has to be communicated to the players. This is, of course, affected by the substitution. Misdirection is a key part of game planning; for example, they might sub in two more linemen and still pass the ball, as the defense is expecting a running play.

3. The defense sees the formation and reacts to it. They've also substituted their players to be in line with the offense's players, (for example, if the offense has extra linemen, the defense will sub in extra linebackers) and will craft a defense on the fly to react to how the offense is arranged.

4. The quarterback sees the defense's alignment and makes adjustments on the fly. The middle linebacker does the same thing on defense.

5. The quarterback signals for the center to snap the ball, beginning the play.

All of this is intricate and happens pretty quickly, and if you're smart and experienced, you can predict what's going to happen and follow the action. I find it to be exciting, especially when you see a mismatch and the losing team scrambling to figure out a way to adjust. There's suspense that gets created as the offense drives down the field. Can they keep it up? Will the defense adjust? What new things are they trying in order to succeed where their previous efforts have failed? All of this is dynamic and happens very quickly. You'll literally watch a small change in blocking scheme wreck havoc on the defense's run defense. You'll watch a single linebacker's edge rushing butcher an offense's passing game and the offense scrambling to figure out anything to slow him down.

Unfortunately, watching the game has gotten worse over the years because of more commercials and terminally banal commentary, but football itself is great. I'll watch a shitty D3 college game and enjoy it as long as it's relatively competitive.

What really pisses me off is when this fast-paced, intricate game of chess is being played on the field and they're looking at goddamn people in the stands or cheerleaders or coaches or whatever. There's stuff going on, and we're missing literally half of the action because they want to show some shirtless drunk jackasses in the nosebleed seats.

On the bright side, the Chinese stream of the NFL is fantastic. No commercials.

Simple fix. Require transfats to be reported in milligrams instead of grams

I would have thought consumers would be allowed to choose it in certain cases, despite its being harmful. (As they can in other cases.) Or, a small amount might have been allowed even though it is obviously deleterious, e.g. in foods consumed in small amounts and which are obviously exception and not considered healthy.