Educate, don’t Regulate

I am all for excluding Trans-Fats from the global diet, but I think this may be going too far. Creating laws and rules and limits is not the answer to truly changing the way a nation eats. Granted, tackling corporate greed and abuse of consumer confidence is a good thing, targeting the KFC’s and McDonald’s of the world will also bring down the little guys in the restaurant business without touching the real culprit–the Global Corporate Agribusiness Machine.

Without this machine there would be no cheaply derived, vegetable sources of fat. There would be no excess of calories to load foods up with to help use up over-abundant commodities. WIthout this machine our diet might be a bit more balanced.

And what does all this do for the consumer? Sure you help rid them of nasty trans-fats in their diet, but do they understand why? Do they care? Should they? By simply regulating away something there is no education involved. If no one learns why their diet is bad then they cannot make a choice for something better. If no one knows they are being used as an experiment in using up excess Corn, or Soybeans, or whatever than they cannot make a choice for something better.

But I am sure beyond this, what is foremost on eaters minds and at the boardroom table is how will this affect cost. For the financially challenged, who largely rely on the cheap trans-fat laden foods for the bulk of their diet, will the regulations and change mean an increase in the cost of their ridiculously cheap meal? For the CEO’s, will it mean their Christmas bonus will be $25,000 lighter and profits will be cut into? It really shouldn’t matter,

Instead of sitting in councils trying to legislate fat away, the time and money being wasted would be better spent teaching people the value of nutrition, the true cost of cheap foods, and in helping narrow the cost gap between Government Subsidized Crops and locally raised, healthier foods.