MSNBC reports on the NYC trans-fat ban, currently on the table. Mayor Bloomberg had this to say: “Nobody wants to take away your french fries and hamburgers — I love those things too. But if you can make them with something that is less damaging to your health, we should do that.”
Or, of course, we could just eat those things in moderation.

Adam Smith once noted how it would be possible to grow vinyards in hothouses in Scotland. The important question to ask is: “at what cost?” Taking this into consideration, he proceeded to explode that notion, and describe in detail why the Scots should focus their efforts on other products, and trade for wine grown in warmer climates. Of course we can make hamburgers healthier! We can make them out of tofu, for christ’s sake. You can prepare a Thanksgiving Tofurkey instead of your normal bird. You can do alot of things, alot of different ways that nobody prefers. And preference is not an irrelevant cost.

The restaurant industry is about as close to the theoretical construct of perfect, or atomistic competition as can be found this side of general equilibrium analysis. If there was a genuine market for trans-fat-free food, if it were profitable, and tasted good, consumers would pressure the restaurants to change, or entrepreneurs would gamble on the likelihood of its success. But the pace of secular change never moves quite fast enough: enter paternalism. For example, despite the a steady decline in the consumption of alcohol in the decades prior to prohibition – but not happy enough with the pace of organic change, the various temperance groups pushed for full-scale prohibition, and reaped the whirlwind.

Now, I doubt sincerely that a ban on trans-fat will usher in a new era of speak-easies and blind pigs – but somewhere in the five boroughs, someone is going to be prosecuted for broiling fish, sautéeing vegetables, or frying potatoes.

What the fuck?