This image was lost some time after publication.

As the Times reports, "The New York City Board of Health voted unanimously yesterday to move forward with plans to prohibit the city's 20,000 restaurants from serving food that contains more than a minute amount of artificial trans fats, the chemically modified ingredients considered by doctors and nutritionists to increase the risk of heart disease." We're of two minds here: On the one hand, it's hard not to see this as another example of Bloomberg-era nanny-statism aimed pretty specifically at the lower orders (as a Times sidebar explains, most of your high end, Danny Meyer-type joints already eschew trans fats) in an attempt to modify behavior without spending any money on root causes. On the other hand, if you've ever tried to wedge yourself in between two tubbies shoveling the contents of a KFC Mashed Potato Bowl into their gaping maws aboard a crowded 6 train, you can sort of see the point.

New York City Plans Limits on Restaurants' Use of Trans Fats
Some Owners Uneasy About Proposal [NYT]

[Image: BBC]