Fat Chicago

I don’t know if anyone else caught this article in the NY Times today, but being a Chicagoan for most of my life and a healthy-eating vegetarian non-Chicagoan for the last few years, it caught my eye.

Basically, Chicago’s City Council is pushing for a ban on restaurants using oil that contains trans fats. Sound great, right? But this is Chicago we’re talking about… home of deep dish pizza and the Chicago-style hot dog. In fact, the article points out that Men’s Fitness magazine named Chicago as the fattest city in the nation. And let me tell you they are proud, PROUD, to let their heinies hang out of their Bear’s zubaz pants.

On the menu at Taste of Chicago, a week-long food-sun-and-music fest in Chicago’s beautiful Grant park:

“catfish beignets, curly fries smothered in cheese, pirogies with sour cream, beer-battered artichoke hearts, and fried dough buried in berry sauce and whipped cream.”

Now, I’m as anti-trans-fats as the next but I’m just not sure banning it from restaurants is the first step. I think those beer-battered artichokes sound pretty awesome - but, because I know better I’d shallow-fry them in olive oil. Everyone needs to make his own educated choices about living more healthily and banning trans fat oils in restaurants is just eliminating a choice, not educating folks how to make healthier choices. For the City Council to prohibit restaurants from using trans fat oils is sorta like your mom telling you that you gotta stop eating glue – you shouldn’t be eating it, but you’re going to stop because it’s totally disgusting, not because your mom told you so. In other words, I’m looking forward to the day when the public forces restaurants to stop using trans fats oils because they’re demanding better, healthier meals, not because they have no choice.
I want my olive-oil-fried-artichokes!
…

In a similar vein/organ, Chicago aldermen voted in April to ban restaurants from selling foie gras. Most people don’t even know what foie gras is, let alone why they shouldn’t eat it. Regardless of one’s sensitivities to the ethical treatment of barnyard animals, I think quite a few people would think twice if they knew they were eating ground-up duck’s liver. I mean, duck’s liver? Eww, gross.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 18th, 2006 at 7:51 pm and is filed under Food Theory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.