Dan's Papers - April 17, 2009 - Suffolk County Tackles Fatty Foods

Suffolk County has been a bit of a trailblazer when it comes to its citizens' health. It led the way in banning substances and activities that could have a negative impact on health - text messaging or talking on a cell phone while driving, smoking, diet pills. Other Counties eventually follow suit.

And now, just two months ago, Suffolk County legislators passed two more laws aimed at improving the public health and fighting the obesity epidemic that continues to be an issue across the country.

For now, the laws affect only chain restaurants and ban not only the use of trans fats - which are derived from partially hydrogenated oils and are commonly used in baked goods and fried foods - but also require these restaurants to prominently post calorie information about their menu items.

More than 50% of Americans are either overweight or obese, which can lead to serious health problems like diabetes and coronary heart disease, says Legislator Louis D'Amaro (D-Huntington Station), who authored the legislation. "Trans fats lower good cholesterol and they raise bad cholesterol and clog arteries. It takes years off people's lives. There's a human cost as well as a financial cost," with the strain these health issues put on our country's health care system. "We want to ban poison from food. This does kill you - maybe not as quickly as arsenic - but it does kill you over time," he said, noting that there are cost effective substitutes that don't taste any differently from the partially hydrogenated oils that restaurants have been using.

Meanwhile, making the calorie information available on fast food items might make people think twice before ordering, which D'Amaro has experienced firsthand. New York City enacted a similar pair of laws several years ago (Nassau, Westchester and Albany Counties have similar laws as well). When he was in Manhattan ordering food at a fast food restaurant with his children, D'Amaro saw the calorie information posted. He rethought what he was going to order when he saw the calorie amounts. "It has a tremendous impact on what you order," he said. "We want to give people enough information to make healthier choices."

The restaurants will have six to nine months to phase in the implementation of the calorie count information, with 18 months for the trans fat ban, in order to give them time to adjust their recipes. Enforcement of these laws will simply require an extra 10 to 15 minutes added to a typical County health inspection, meaning there will be no extra cost for enforcing them.

These laws first take aim at chain restaurants - most of which are along County Road 58 in Riverhead, though Southampton is home to McDonald's and Burger King, and Panera has locations in Hampton Bays and Bridgehampton (although it is not usually considered "fast food," it is technically a "chain"). D'Amaro hopes to eventually include all privately owned restaurants.

Last month, the Suffolk legislators voted to pass another health-related law, this one banning the use of Bisphenol A, commonly referred to as BPA, in baby bottles and sippy cups (those sold as containers, not those containing food or drink), used by children under 3. Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy is expected to sign the bills into law, poising the County to become the first in the country to put such a ban into effect. Some studies have linked BPA, a synthetic version of estrogen and a hardening chemical used in polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins, to serious health issues like heart disease and cancer. It's also been indicated that exposure to high amounts of the chemical might stunt an infant's growth.