McDonald's Versus New York City

The world famous fast food giant McDonald is getting prepared to fight back against the New York City Council that is planning to forbid trans fat from all restaurants in the Big Apple. The McDonald’s chain has already made moves to cut trans fat from its food but not all items are free from it and so they will fall foul of this ban if it is enacted it could cost them millions of dollars in lost revenue and for structural changes.
In the first move to fight back McDonald’s has taken on Randy Mastro who was once deputy mayor of New York City and who knows the ins and outs of how the City Council works and he will be going head to head with the New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden who is famous for his vigorous lobbying for a smoking ban.

Ukmedix reported previously that the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene had decided that they would propose rules that would mean that every single restaurant in New York would have to remove trans fat from their menus over an 18-month time limit. The proposals have been met with an uproar from many people but the City Council says that it is easy to change from the hydrogenated vegetable oil that create trans fat to an healthier oil like corn oil, canola oil or soy oil.

The proposals that will hit McDonalds hard also show that Dr. Frieden is keen to introduce menu-labelling requirements that will tell customers exactly what they are eating and this could drastically reduce the amount of meals that people eat in the restaurant.

The National Restaurant Association has also hired lawyers to advise them on whether it is in the remit of the City Council to enforce such rules for menus and restaurants. Whatever results, this is going to be a hotly contested issue but if it does go through and restaurants are forced to stop using the trans fat it could well be enacted right through the country and this could finally stop the obesity figures from rising upwards in America.

American people are the biggest in the world with one in three adults being obese and 2 out of three being overweight. Many people feel that fast food restaurants that encourage you to eat big quantities of fatty food and fries are partly to blame for the problem and that they must be legislated against.