Banning trans fats

2006-12-19 21:22

David B Caruso

New York - Restaurants will have more than a year to completely rid their food of artificial trans fats, and New York City officials are promising to be gentle when it comes to enforcing the first-in-the-nation ban.

But the food industry is fearful that the ban will lead to an avalanche of fines against kitchens that inadvertently fail to remove trans fats from every item on the menu.

Restaurant owners say the city has been increasingly tough in recent years when it comes to policing code violations, and some in the industry do not expect that will change once inspectors start snooping through pantry shelves for any sign of the banned substance.

"They feel that these people are out to whack these restaurants, and it's a cash cow for that purpose," said Richard Lipsky, of the Neighbourhood Retail Alliance.

City officials strongly deny such allegations, and are promising to be supportive in carrying out the ban. The health department is pledging "technical support" to cooks before the first part of the ban takes effect next summer.

"We want to help them comply," said Christina Chang, the chief of staff to health commissioner Thomas Frieden.

City tough on restaurants

New York was once famous for looking the other way on restaurant sanitation, but has been much tougher lately.

Currently, about one in five city restaurants fail their annual inspection. Thousands of others pass, but get fined for violations ranging from mouse droppings, to poor cooking temperatures, to improperly covered light bulbs.

Over the last two fiscal years, violators paid $37.6m.

Some of the city's best known kitchens have flunked inspections in the past three years.

Among them: the top-rated French restaurants Bouley and Daniel, the celebrated dining rooms at the Four Seasons, Rainbow Room and Peter Luger steakhouse, and tourist attractions including the Carnegie Deli, Katz's Delicatessen and Grimaldi's pizzeria in Brooklyn. (All of the above have since been given a passing grade).

Now, restaurants, bakeries and cafeterias will have to deal with two new rules: one that will ban them from serving food containing more than trace amounts of artificial trans fats, and a second requiring about 2 000 fast-food joints to put calorie information on their menus.

Current plans call for restaurant inspectors to begin enforcing the new rules next summer after an outreach campaign that will include the establishment of a help line, staffed by experts who can offer practical tips to chefs trying to change the way they cook.

Changing cooking oil

Small amounts of trans fatty acids occur naturally in a variety of animal products, but New York's ban only applies to the artificial variety, most commonly listed on food labels as partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

For restaurants and bakeries, that primarily involves cooking oil used in some deep friers and the shortening in some crackers, cookies, cakes and breads.

Inspectors will start citing restaurants for violations in July, but restaurants will get a three-month grace period, during which no fines will be issued. After that, penalties can range from $200 to $2 000 per offence.

Dr Elliot Marcus, associate commissioner for the health department's bureau of food safety, said there is no truth to claims that the city will nitpick restaurants to drive up fines.

"This is not going to be, like, a 'gotcha' thing," he said. "What we are trying to do is ensure compliance ... We aren't looking to generate revenue for the city."

Ban on smoking worked

Restaurant groups initially feared crippling fines too when the city implemented its ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, and for a while their fears seemed to be realised.

But today, Marcus said, "we have about a 99% compliance rate" on smoking.

When it comes to trans fats, "I have no reason to suspect it won't be exactly the same," he said.

- AP