Because substance A is taken willingly and knowingly and has no realistic substitute. Substance B is slipped to consumers unknowingly in many cases and there are plenty of cheap healthy substitutes.

Alcohol and Transfats are apples and oranges.

But the federal government has banned marijuana, which is arguably much safer than alcohol, and a potential substitute. In fact, they've banned to such a degree that for most purposes even scientific research on it is illegal.

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.

A lot of this is arbitrary and capricious, but banning marijuana is so blatantly stupid that there is actually some movement of late to reverse the ban.

Trans fat content is listed on EVERY nutrition label, by law.

I thought they can label things as 0g Trans fat or even not list it so long as there is less than .5 grams per serving.

Looks like my thoughts were somewhat correct, at least at some time (August 2003 until ???), scroll to #6:

http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocuments...

EDIT: typos

Right, and you can read it on the wall of any fast food restaurant... but tell me when the last time you've seen someone read that. It's fair for regulators to take into account people's actual behavior.

GP claimed it was "slipped in unknowingly" which is false. Anyone who has paid any attention to the media the past few years knows that trans fat is now thought to be bad (never mind that in previous decades it was considered to be healthy, or at least "less bad" than saturated fat).

I actually do look at trans fat content on the labels quite often. The labels are very simple, it's not like a terms of service that's highly verbose and deliberatly obfuscatory.

If you want to avoid trans-fat, it's trivially easy.

The same thing can be said for alcohol. These facts aren't hidden.

Sure, but there are tons of products that list '0 trans fat' while also listing partially hydrogenated oil in the ingredients. The FDA allows a certain amount of trans fat while letting the company claim 0 trans fat. Then the Bloomberg article says "The FDA said it hasn’t seen any data to prove that even low levels of partially hydrogenated oils are safe."

I don't think mobsters in America right now are gonna start a trans-fat ring to get people their trans-fat needs.

So you're saying we should open a trans-fat speakeasy.

Isn't that just called, McDonalds?

In the US, they finished moving away from trans fats in 2008 (When they stopped using it for french frying).

how progressive :)

Trans fat will still be legal to buy, it just won't be labeled as food or sold in food stores.

Sure, in the sense that people won't consciously seek out trans fats. If organized crime gets behind this, it will be in the form of, "Hey, the fries at Joe's in Little [ethnic enclave] are really good..."

This is a good point, but still shows how our laws and the reasoning is never transparent. I wonder what they really are up to? It obviously opens the door for other regulated products (as in more profitable) will now have a higher demand. The FDA is the mobsters in America by the way.

> The FDA is the mobsters in America by the way

The FDA might make mistakes, even mistakes that lead to deaths, but mobsters?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Brusca#Ruthless_kille...

Not my favorite government institution. Off the top of my head, there's the constant flip-flopping on what's healthy and what isn't (often unrelated to scientific consensus), there's their handling of consumer gene sequencing, there's the downright dumb laws on medical devices (ask me about the fun and expense of getting a freakin' CPAP machine), their ignoring scientific consensus on cannabis..

"Mobsters" implies a level of malice for profit that doesn't exist.. but I'd settle for "criminally incompetent and neurotic". I honestly think the IRS is better staffed and more reasonable as an institution than the FDA, yet the former is almost universally (undeservedly so) reviled.

Een America, first you get da trans fats. Den you get de money. Den you get de power. Den you get de weemen.

Because people like drinking alcohol, but no one's going to protest over one type of oil being replaced with another in junk food.

Because alcohol is deeply socially ingrained with no direct substitute for most users, which makes banking it ineffective and likely to produce more harm than good. We kind of tried that already. Trans fats aren't like alcohol in that way.

> We kind of tried that already

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.)

Those standards are only one factor in the decision. Americans need/want alcohol badly enough that they wouldn't tolerate it being illegal. People can start consuming one type of oil vs. another without even knowing the difference.

You can never look at one similar aspect of two very different things and make any conclusion about inconsistency or hypocrisy. It's an incredibly oversimplified attitude.

Don't get me started. people seem to always look at me strangely when I tell them I don't drink. People like it and it is important to them so anything said against alcohol is RADICAL. People love being emotionally numbed and I guess people have a right to depress their emotions with drinking or whatever legal/prescribed drugs they want. There is very little said in terms of the emotional/relationship cost of their use.

1 in 10 US Deaths are directly related to Alcohol Use [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/alcohol-responsible-1-10...]

World Wide: In the age group 20 – 39 years approximately 25 % of the total deaths are alcohol-attributable. [http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs349/en/]

How much of that is due directly to the alcohol and how much is due to good old-fashioned human stupidity, slightly enhanced?

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.

Road traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for young people. Why not ban cars while we are at it.

I find alcohol is good way to explain to people outside of the US how it is unlikely to get a ban on guns in the USA, even though it's obvious that would prevent death by a madman going on a shooting spree at a school. It would be like suggesting we ban beer in Germany or wine in France because of all the known alcohol related deaths.

A madman would steal a gun or otherwise obtain a gun illegally. Just like people obtained alcohol illegally during prohibition.

I'm not really disagreeing with your main point, just the "it's obvious that would prevent death by a madman going on a shooting spree".

Hell, if the US banned guns I would still own one I would just hide it better.

> Hell, if the US banned guns I would still own one I would just hide it better.

You probably wouldn't, because the risk of ending up in jail or prison would be unacceptable.

Over someone who illegally has obtained a gun breaking into my house and shooting me? I'll take the jail.

The gun is not a shield, it doesn't prevent you from getting shot. It can only help you if you shoot first at any sign of home invasion. Most of the time it's just a family member or intimate acquaintance: http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199310073291506

The study sounds correct for what it studies. People who keep a gun in their home are more likely to accidentally kill someone else that they already know. That makes sense, since people without one aren't likely to grab a knife and run at a perceived threat. Even if they did, it gives more time for the other person to react and announce that they are a friend.

However, as an anecdote, most people I know of who actually know what they are doing (as in people who are gun enthusiasts, not people who bought a gun "for protection" and shot it enough to take a class then put it in a drawer) announce themselves before shooting as the goal is to get the intruder to leave.

Quite often this alerts the intruder to your location and, in the case that they are an actual threat, they will charge at you (this is counter intuitive for me, but most stories I've read of home invasion with an armed resident seem to end this way). I only typically hear about these stories from survivors, but the cases I know of the resident killed or wounded their attackers and were safe.

Basically, that long-winded group of anecdotes is to say that it is not the case that a gun can only help you if you shoot first at any sign of home invasion. Anyone who actually knows something about guns knows that you only point a gun at a target you have identified and are prepared to destroy. For the most part, that means you won't shoot first at any sign of home invasion.

Sounds like a law abiding way to go!

There is a slight difference in that with alcohol you are most likely to kill yourself, whereas a gun you are more likely to kill someone else.

I was unaware that banning things rendered them impossible.

You just don't have the proper faith in the legal system.

http://www.theonion.com/article/proposed-bill-would-bring-40...

How about drinking 4oz of wine to complement a good meal? Not drinking to get drunk??? Shocking, I know, but many adults do this.

I think that's strange.

Beyond disagreeing with the taste of wine, I personally don't drink any liquid in 4oz portions.

I sit down with 32oz of water at dinner time, and typically finish it.

I'm sure you get harsh reactions to your opinion, but seems like your attitude towards drinkers is a little harsh as well.

> 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.

It's possible one might be better off drinking slightly more than recommended..

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

>People love being emotionally numbed

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".

For me, it does numb me, for the most part. I suddenly don't care about a lot of things. Winning/losing, responsibilities, what my peers might thing, etc.

I'm also a happy drunk.

I and most people here drink occasionally, but this doesn't change the fact that you're right.

People paint illusions around what they like.

Too widely used with too specific qualities that aren't closely enough replaceable. There are replacements for transfat that don't dramatically alter the taste or texture, but you can't drink a soda and get drunk.

It's politically a more difficult maneuver; we know because we tried it in the 20s

There are certain dishes, which require shortening, that there is no effective replacement such as Apple Pie or Southern style biscuits. Shortening creates a flakiness and funny enough in floured baked goods, creates a flavor more buttery than butter alone, it has a magnifying property. Anyways the loss of (trans-fat) shortening will / has certainly drastically alter certain types of quick bread baking.

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...

Couldn't you just use lard?

I find lard and butter together are often best. It's amusing that GP complained about shortening becoming less buttery. Hmmm, I wonder how one could fix that?

The gov just cherry picks/jumps on the bandwagon for certain things and calls that progress, while at the same time subsidizing industries promoting bad health and the obesity epidemic. Real change won't come from authoritarian bans but from a cultural shift and people caring more about their health.

And when people don't do that, the government has a reason to get bigger... And that's what we have, a complacent populace.

The answer is money and greed [1].

[1]http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Healing-Suppression-Manipulat...

Because we have different levels of risk and standards for what we consider recreation substances vs food? I don't know why that's so far to understand. These things have almost nothing in common from a public policy perspective. Even if we got rid of alcohol then it would be tobacco then guns, neither of which are food also.

Because the NFL would go broke. Everyone knows it takes at least a 6 pack before one can understand why a 1 hour game has less than 15 minutes of actual play. Without alcohol to dull the senses, people would simply stop watching it.

Commercials. And American football isn't like futbol, you can't run around for 90 minutes straight knocking each other out. Breaks are good. Plus the whole thing is entertainment, you don't have to optimize for time - that's the antithesis of entertainment.

Check out rugby union. 80 minutes, but close enough.

> And American football isn't like futbol

But it is like rugby. Watch a Six Nations Championship game when you have the chance.

You're probably not a fan, (which is fine - different sports aren't for everyone. I actually find association football, basketball, and baseball to be excruciatingly boring, but love watching track and field) but there's more going on than the actual "play." When the ball is downed, there are 40 seconds for the following to happen:

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.

Haha...I treat the NFL like I do futball. I have it on the background until I hear the announcer raise his voice in excitement and then pay attention. Say what you want about the NFL, but there is a lot of 'play' going on during dead balls.

One should never attempt to apply logic to government actions, for government is devoid of all logic.

or sugar?

Can you imagine how many deaths there would be if alcohol was banned?