Bloomberg's Big Win: FDA to Regulate Transfats

While outgoing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s favored measures may have gone down to flaming defeat in states like Colorado this week, Bloomberg’s nanny state nutrition campaign has now gone national. The Food and Drug Administration has adopted new rules designed to crack down on transfats. Dr. Thomas Frieden, who heads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, backed Bloomberg’s attempt to ban transfats in New York City in 2006. Bloomberg’s attempts to crack down on cigarettes as well as sugary drinks have also been picked up by liberal municipalities across the country.

According to the Associated Press, the New York City attempted ban on transfats had national implications by pushing companies to spend more money on alternatives to transfats. “McDonald’s, KFC and other restaurant companies had quietly been experimenting with substitute frying oils and shortening for years, trying to see if they could make the switch without consumers noticing a change in taste,” the AP reports. According to New York City health commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley, government mandates were the only way to force companies to invest that sort of cash.

Now, however, those mandates are going national. And in a down economy, that will have a major impact on food prices – but given the government’s newfound involvement in health care, top-down dictates from our betters will become the rule rather than the exception.

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.