I wrote before about how I think the NY trans-fat ban is scientifically supportable but not particularly the government's business. Here is interesting speculation in Free Exchange:
Banning trans fats in restaurants, but not in grocery stores, doesn't make sense. I guess the supermarket lobby is more powerful than the fast-food and donut lobby.I'd guess that it has more to do with public choice theory than ardent lobbying. Since national food producers are unlikely to reformulate their entire line for the benefit of a few million New Yorkers, a trans-fat ban would sweep large categories of food off the supermarket shelves, in a way that would be directly and obviously attributable to the ban (since they would disappear from every supermarket shelf at once). Banning them in restraurants, on the other hand, will merely make some of the food taste worse, other of the food more expensive, and so forth, in a thoroughly idiosyncratic way. Consumers are unlikely to connect thousands of subtles shift in their local restaurant fare to the ban, as they surely would of glazed donut holes suddenly vanished from the shelves of the city.
Basically, we are less likely to recognize a subtle change in our food, even if it makes it taste worse and more expensive, than we would be to recognize a complete absence of some foods. I am sure somebody will propose a trans-fat in all foods ban eventually. We'll see if it fails to pass, supporting this speculation.
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I guess it's kinda like additives in Cigarettes. They were brought in so gradually as to not be noticed, but then were suddenly noticed when the government and the lawsuits forced the makers to take them out. Similarly the transition from Sugar to High Fructose Corn Syrup in sodas, where the ingredients list had the "and-or" for years before finally dropping sugar entirely. You notice if you have a kosher coke or a coke in europe where sugar is still used.
Or people might suddenly find that their food tastes BETTER, not worse, due to the switch. I have avoided trans fats like the plague for a few years now and I can honestly say that some trans-free products taste better while in some I can taste no difference. I can't recall anything that tasted worse, although there were certainly some that tasted different or had a different mouth feel. It may well be that any taste differences are due to other factors, for example not only removing the trans fat but using cane syrup instead of corn syrup.
In my experience, you'll only notice a switch away from artificial trans-fat in fried food if it's a switch to a completely different oil, like olive oil. (Olive oil has a very strong flavor.) Canola oil will taste pretty much the same as Crisco, however. And that's because they are very very similar; in fact, Crisco is made from canola oil. The only real difference is that you can pour one of them at room temperature.
But the effect will be more noticable in baked goods. There, you often need trans-fats in order to produce the desired effect -- such as light, fluffy pastry. That requires an oil which is solid, or mostly solid, at room temperature so that it melts only during the baking process. Nowdays, artificial trans-fats (such as margarine or shortening) are popularly used because they're so cheap and produce a good effect. But before these were invented, it was usually animal trans-fats: butter and lard. Bakers in New York will have to go back to butter and lard; it'll be interesting to see what that does to prices and whether or not the creameries and slaughterhouses can keep up with the demand.
Of course, that brings up another point: the most obvious replacements will likely not be kosher, which may be a sore point with New York's large Jewish population. Butter, being a dairy product, cannot be served with meat, and the of course the most popular and economical source of lard and suet is pig fat. It may also be an issue for vegetarians and vegans who do not know how pastry is made and expect that all the oil is vegetable oil.
The trans fat ban is utter BS. I'm annoyed with it becuase sunflower oil is replacing palm oil left and right. I'm allergic to sunflowers and so are many others. I can't have even a single Dorito every again for the rest of my life.
I would much much much rather see a trans fat TAX than a ban-- that's why the sugared drinks tax is brilliant. No one is saying I can't have grape soda ever again... it just costs more, as it should it has no nutritional value.