First it's smoking, now it's trans fats. What's next? Sugar? Caffeine? I guess alcohol is safe, since it has demonstrated health benefits. Portland truly is weird.

I suspect this is more than just a local development.

What about the catsup and mustard? They can't be good for you.
And the bun? No way. Soft drinks? Bad.

you mean like the days between january 1 and december 31 of each year?

Geez, someone bends to market pressure, and you're all anti? Sorry, I thought this was what you wanted: less government intervention and mommy politics. Well, there weren't any here.

This is what the people want. Sorry it's not your schtick. Go somewhere besides PGE Park, I guess.

This is a move by Centerplate, which is based in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I've never been there so I can't say how "weird" Spartanburg is.

However (from their website): "Centerplate has performed exceptionally well - even under the pressure of serving thousands of guests. We've done it consistently, and we've done it often, at world-class events including nine Super Bowls, twenty-five World Series and nine Presidential Inaugural Balls."

Having grown up, myself, gorging on McDonald's french fries --McDonald's was on my paperboy route, and they loaded me up with free food-- fried in the cheapest, albeit nastiest, chemicals around...that companies are stepping to the plate (so to speak) to serve healthier food isn't a bad thing at all, in my opinion.

C'mon Vera dumped $35M into this hole to build luxury boxes. You're complaining about trans-fats? We need to keep the fans alive long enough to pay this off.

Good one Steve!

Already done in LA, Phoenix, and now Porland and Seattle. Sounds like a management plan more than anything local.

BTW, hot dogs and beverage along first base line in the "dug out". Best place to watch the game....

I guess alcohol is safe, since it has demonstrated health benefits.

Alcohol is safe in Oregon because the state makes something like 110% profit.

To defend Jack a little bit, the city is currently considering a ban on trans fats and the story even included a vote on whether you would support a city-wide vote on trans fats. Yes, Centerplate has made a business decision, but I'm sure one of the factors included in that decision is the current mania in civic governments to pass meaningless legislation like banning trans fats. Centerplate is just getting ahead of the game.

Now we can go games happily, secure in the knowledge that the behemoth sitting two ross in front of us may be on his fourth hot dog and his fifth beer, but he is trans-fat free.

the current mania in civic governments to pass meaningless legislation like banning trans fats.

Meaningless legislation? I delivered "Newsday" --our Long Island newspaper-- to our McDonald's six days a week, and a ten cent sack of fries was a regular feature of that stop. Gotta wonder if instead of transfats, my arteries wouldn't be looking a little better these days --forty plus years later-- if they hadn't used the cheapest crap they could find to fry those fries. What's a kid know about what goes on behind the counter? What if they start frying those potatoes in monkey piss...any business of government's?

If my local fish and chips place on Hawthorne insists --as it does-- that trans-fats rule...fine. Just let me know, so I can make an informed decision of whether to eat them or not. I'm with Ted Wheeler mostly, educate, don't legislate, but kids figure they'll live forever, and anything goes...whereas we old farts realize there are, in fact, consequences to our choices.

That said, what pisses me off about transfats is that it wasn't a "choice" people made to consume them, in a thousand ubiquitous ways, but a hidden profit-boosting decision made behind closed corporate doors, while government looked the other way.

Frank,

Sorry, but Mrs. Lovejoy's "Won't somebody please think of the children!" argument just doesn't work on this issue. McDonald's sells gazillions of fries because their fries taste great. Americans will be obese as long as we eat gazillions of fries. We know this.

McDonald's poor nutritional quality is not anything new. Johnny Carson got into hot water with them as a sponsor when he joked that McDonald's recently passed two milestones - they had served their one millionth burger and killed their fourth cow. That joke got a lot of laughs because it rang so true.

It comes as a surprise to you that McDonald's cares more about profit margins than the nutritional intake of its customers? This comes down to common sense, and government can't be blamed if Americans believe that a meal of a burger, fries and a shake - purchased for less than $5 - could be anything other than a nutritional nightmare.

And something tells me that market economics and existing law would take care of the issue if McDonald's used primate waste to prepare its products.

What's next - government prohibits "supersizing" your meal because a lunch of a Big Mac, supersized fries, and a Coke contains more than your daily allotment of calories and a week's supply of sodium? Government outlaws Pizza Hut's Meat Lover's Pizza because it comes with a quart of grease? Portland goes cheesecake-free?

This type of legislation makes for a good press release but does not do much of anything to solve the underlying problem. It just allows us to make the big bad corporation the scapegoat rather than blame ourselves for our poor nutritional choices.

"What if they start frying those potatoes in monkey piss."

I bet it's trans fat free.

McDonald's poor nutritional quality is not anything new.

That was exactly my argument to my wife. But "nutritional quality" is a different issue than an artifical ingredient that's in a LOT of foods, and who knows where? And she won me over.

I'm not a big fan of nanny government myself, but I can't be in the kitchens of everywhere I eat either.

And sometimes it really is for the kids who don't know any better. My dog'll eat anything I put out for him, for that matter, but I think he trusts me I won't feed him rat poison. I think kids trust us we're not poisoning them with their happy meals.

Anyway, I won't step foot in a McDonald's since they forced Sam's Hofbrau out of business.

"Anyway, I won't step foot in a McDonald's since they forced Sam's Hofbrau out of business."

Now that's a position I can wholeheartedly support, and thanks to the fact that I stopped eating McDonald's years ago, my whole heart is capable of providing support.

Now if I can just cut out the General Tso's Chicken . . .

I read a funny article regarding trans fats in the NYT awhile back...

Seems that bakeries in the Big Apple are having to reduce or eliminate the amount of butter (yes, butter!) that they put into their baked goods, because butter has some naturally-occuring trans fats.

Leave the natural trans fats alone, and just get rid of the lab-made hydrogenated (fake trans fats made by bubbling hydrogen through oil) fats.

Anyway, I won't step foot in a McDonald's since they forced Sam's Hofbrau out of business.

And thats how it works. Its your own decision to eat there...or not.

Now if I can just cut out the General Tso's Chicken . . .

Now you're just talking silly.

I thought the Peace Folks, standing around doing nothing while they were burning an effigy is much more embarrassing to the city of Portland.

I say lets take this PC trans fat ban to the next level. How about a little truth in advertising!
The French do their pomme frites in duck fat, and with all the francophiles in this city, we should insist on authenticity.
Plus it has the added attraction of irritating the ALF.

The French do their pomme frites in duck fat, and with all the francophiles in this city, we should insist on authenticity.

Oui, oui. Absolutement!

Prepare your magret de canard and fry up some pototoes with the fat that's left in the pan. Makes me hungry just to think about...

pototoes too?

Yeah, yeah "r"...potatoes. Excuse 'em moi.

My cooking's better than my typing.

any chance they'd ban Coors Light "beer"?

We can hope.

pototoes too?

Je suis de'sole' mon ami, I couldn't help it what with the Wiz d'Oz tie-in.

My cooking's better than my typing.

So you say, mais, qui sait?

someone bends to market pressure

I truly doubt that the market for stadium grease bombs cares a whole lot about what they're cooked in.

The city's about to make it illegal to cook with trans fats in Portland restaurants anyway. So this is essentially just "agreeing to" not break the law.

If my local fish and chips place on Hawthorne insists --as it does-- that trans-fats rule...fine.

Yo, Frank D, check out the Hawthorne Fish House. No trans-fats there. Yummy fried fish. Best in the city.

(And no, I don't work for 'em. I just live down the street. Their Green Bay Packers obsession is a little odd, though.)

the Hawthorne Fish House. No trans-fats there

Thanks for the tip, Kari. For some reason I was thinking they were one of the places insisting on using trans-fats, but I was wrong. I'm looking forward to trying their fish and chips...I love fish and chips.

Anyway, Jack, this issue's in the County's ballpark now, not the city's, not to say the Council couldn't still get involved.

Why do you fellows yearn so for poisons whose only purpose is to increase the shelf life of otherwise edible items?