Deep-fried do-goodism.(Correction notice)

ITEM: BusinessWeek.com reported on January 3, 2007: "Over the last few years, makers of packaged food have raced to eliminate or reduce trans fats, spurred by a Food & Drug Administration rule requiring nutritional labels to list trans-fat content starting in 2006. Today, it's the restaurant industry's turn to step it up. Next July, New York City--the nation's No. 1 restaurant market, with 20,000 eateries--will phase in a ban on trans fats in restaurant foods."

ITEM: "New York City is once again making history," reported WABC-TV in New York on December 7, 2006. The board of health approved a ban on all trans fat in local restaurants. Concluded the TV report: "Like it or not, city health officials say they're within their right, and within the law, to ban something that is proven to be harmful."

ITEM: "Connecticut residents whose New Year's resolution is to lose weight in 2007 may get a boost from legislation "prepared by two Republican state senators, reported the Fairfield (Conn.) Minuteman for January 5. "The state senators hope their proposal to ban unhealthy trans fat from all restaurant kitchens will be on the table for a vote by spring." Some restaurant owners admit they oppose a ban, others say they favor it. The last word went to an Italian restaurant owner in Fairfield named Peter Del Franco, who commented that "he would not view a statewide ban on trans fat as a government intrusion. 'I definitely think there are alternatives,' he said. 'If we know the bad effects of trans fat, and the government is paying for health care for people who can't afford it, then the government should ban trans fat. It's the same thing as the smoking ban. It was unpopular at first, but everything worked out.'"

CORRECTION: Few would argue that trans fat is a health food, but since when does that mean that it is the business of government to stick its nose in the kitchens of restaurants to tell business owners how to cook? Have Americans become sheep to be herded? Will deep-dish pizzas be the next target? How about calorie-heavy ice cream cones? And what should we do about products that contain more than the FDA daily requirements of sugar?

Naturally, the new trans-fat ban is meant to undo previous interventions by busybodies to regulate what we eat. In fact, the growth in the use of trans fats, which are created by mixing hydrogen with vegetable oil through the process known as hydrogenation, is the result in part of previous efforts of the very same public scolds such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) that are now beating the drums against the use of trans fats.

During the 1980s, the great evil in the eyes of such groups was the use of saturated fats, which are found in beef tallow and butter. Therefore, trans fat was preferred. Writing in the CSPI's Nutrition Action Newsletter in 1988, Elaine Blume assured readers: "Hydrogenated oils seem relatively innocent." Under pressure, restaurants moved away from cooking in butter and fat to the best available alternative, partially hydrogenated oil. But now that restaurants actually use trans fats, CSPI and its comrades have turned on them, even suing some large chains such as KFC and McDonald's.

The Food and Drug Administration has also been in the coercive campaign. The FDA demanded that, beginning in 2006, all the food nutrition labels must list the amounts of trans fats. This was, noted U.S. News & World Report, "the first significant change to the nutrition facts list since it was established in 1993." No problem is too small for meddlers.