In all the hubbub around the Supreme Court’s big end-of-session rulings on same-sex marriage and Obamacare, some high-level banana-republicanism was overlooked. The FDA has given American food manufacturers three years to get the “trans fat” out of their food. Trans fat, as you may know, is a type of fat that’s partially hydrogenated—reacted with hydrogen—to discourage its melting at room temperature. Basically, the idea is you take a liquid fat—a vegetable oil, for instance—and pump it full of hydrogen, which means the fat’s carbon atoms form bonds with hydrogen atoms instead of double bonds with each other. This increases rigidity and gives you a more solid, “saturated fat”—think of a chunk of coconut oil. (The term “saturated” refers to saturation with hydrogen.) Partial saturation leaves you with a softer, more malleable fat that’s spreadable at room temperature but melts in the microwave. (The “trans” prefix refers to a configuration of hydrogen atoms on opposite sides of the carbon chain.)
Trans fats became popular in the United States a couple of decades ago after the food police frightened everyone into using them instead of wonderful saturated fats like butter and lard, wrongly deemed an imminent threat to the nation’s arteries. (As an aside, The Scrapbook rarely feels sorry for millennials, but those of us old enough to remember the pre-1990 McDonald’s fries, cooked in beef tallow, can attest that the world really was a better place then.) And, with apologies for the chemistry lesson, that brings us to today.
If the FDA gets its way, trans fat in processed foods will go the way of lead in paint and asbestos in insulation. But there’s a major difference: Lead is inherently toxic and asbestos is inherently carcinogenic. Trans fat is inherently harmless—what’s dangerous is using it to excess.
Eating trans fats increases the quantity of low-density lipoprotein in your bloodstream—that is, LDL cholesterol, or so-called bad cholesterol. LDL transports fat around your body; without it you’d die. It’s only bad if you have too much of it.
Of course, almost any harmless thing can kill you in excess. You could be crushed to death sleeping under too many quilts, but the quilts themselves aren’t dangerous. Too much exercise can blow up your heart, but the FDA isn’t going to ban exercise. A ban on trans fat, in fact, has nothing in common with bans on toxins or carcinogens—all it does is take something safe off the market because you might not use it safely. The FDA is substituting itself for your self-control.
We used to call that “prohibition”; it used to require a constitutional amendment. Under the new regime, all it takes is bureaucratic aggression. (Of course, in reality, all it takes are market forces: About 10 years ago, people decided they didn’t want to eat too much trans fat anymore, and Big Food dropped trans fat from 86 percent of their products, reducing national consumption by 78 percent. “Ta-da,” says Adam Smith.)
