MB Civic

[Ian’s query: Good idea? Or further intrusion into privacy and personal choice?]

By MONICA DAVEY

CHICAGO, July 14 — In Grant Park, this city’s front yard along Lake Michigan, a dizzying pack of people filled the streets evening after evening, all holding their gazes firmly on the little plates in their hands, loaded with catfish beignets, curly fries smothered in cheese, pirogies with sour cream, beer-battered artichoke hearts, and fried dough buried in berry sauce and whipped cream.

This was the Taste of Chicago, an annual rite of summer that ended last weekend and was one more chance to eat in the city of Broad Shoulders — and, in many cases, broader bellies, hips and chins. But Chicagoans, who complained (reflexively if not convincingly) when Men’s Fitness magazine proclaimed theirs the fattest city in the nation not long ago, may have healthier deep-fried mozzarella sticks in their futures.

Edward M. Burke, who has served on the Chicago City Council since 1969, when cooking oil was just cooking oil, is pressing his colleagues to make it illegal for restaurants to use oils that contain trans fats, which have been tied to a string of health problems, including clogged arteries and heart attacks.

If approved, nutrition experts say, the ban will be the first in a major city, following the lead of towns like Tiburon, Calif., just north of San Francisco, where restaurant owners have voluntarily given up the oils. In truth, while the proposal’s prospects are uncertain, Chicago officials have been on a bit of a banning binge these days in what critics mock as City Hall’s effort to micromanage residents’ lives in mundane ways.

The aldermen voted in April to forbid restaurants to sell foie gras. They have weighed a proposal to force cabbies to dress better. And there is talk of an ordinance to outlaw smoking at the beach.

Even Mayor Richard M. Daley, who often promotes bicycle riding and who not long ago appointed a city health commissioner who announced he was creating health “report cards” for the mayor and the aldermen, has balked at a trans-fat prohibition as one rule too many.

“Is the City Council going to plan our menus?” Mayor Daley asked.

But Mr. Burke, pointing to increases in obesity, diabetes and heart disease, is unapologetic. He does not profess that better oils would suddenly make Chicago skinny but says that they would at least begin to alleviate some of the related coronary concerns.

“If it were just about adults, I would say, ‘O.K., we should butt out,’ ” Mr. Burke said in an interview. “But youngsters are assuming diets that are unhealthy.”

And if the City Council had agreed to simply steer clear of peoples’ bad habits, said Mr. Burke, an influential alderman who long pushed to ban smoking in indoor public spaces, Chicago might never have passed the smoking ban that went into effect this year (it gives taverns and restaurants with bars until 2008 to comply). “We may be the last civilized city in the world to ban it,” he said.

Under Mr. Burke’s proposal, establishments that failed to remove “artificial trans fats” from their kitchens would be fined $200 to $1,000 a day. In the crowd at the Taste of Chicago on a recent evening, most people seemed amused at the prospect that City Hall might legislate their waistlines. Others chuckled at what they considered naïve earnestness, to think that a city’s long love affair with big, tasty, greasy food could be undone with a simple vote of 50 aldermen (some of whom appear to have some appreciation of the affair).

Ben Swetland, 26, pointed to an array of stark issues facing the city, including federal convictions last week in a growing corruption scandal at City Hall.

“Maybe if everything else is perfect, O.K., then we can start talking about our diets if they really want to,” Mr. Swetland said. “But it seems to me the aldermen have some more serious things to worry about right now.”

Elsewhere, oils with trans fats — mostly the partially hydrogenated variety — have become a target, too. The federal government recommended last year that people get less than 1 percent of their calories from trans fats, and a nutrition advocacy group sued KFC last month, accusing the fast-food chain of frying its secret-recipe chicken in a dangerous substance.

Tiburon, home to fewer than 9,000 people, has proclaimed itself a trans-fat-free town now that its restaurants all use alternative oils. And last year in New York City, the health department asked restaurants to change their ways voluntarily and switch to other oils.

But outlawing the oils altogether is another matter, Chicago’s nervous restaurant owners say. One Chicago pizza establishment, which uses oil with trans fat in its dough, predicted that its costs would leap by $50,000 a year if it used a substitute oil.

“The sad reality is there will be restaurants that will be hurt: your mom-and-pop restaurants and your ethnic restaurants,” said Colleen McShane, president of the Illinois Restaurant Association. “A lot of them cannot afford other types of oils.”

More than that, some asked, did Chicago really intend to entrust Mr. Burke and the other elected leaders with how such a change might affect taste?

“I probably would be in a pickle if they outlaw it,” said Dolores Reynolds, the owner of Army & Lou’s, a soul food restaurant on the city’s South Side for more than 60 years and a favorite eating spot of many politicians, including the late Mayor Harold Washington.

Over the years, Ms. Reynolds said, she has watched as people have made their own health choices. Some, for instance, now pick the herb-baked chicken over the more popular fried.

“If they want to have herb-baked chicken five days a week and then fried chicken on Sunday as a treat, I don’t think you should write anybody a ticket,” Ms. Reynolds said. “That’s called a choice.”

Faced with criticism, Mr. Burke said he was willing to consider changes to his proposal as it heads to a City Council committee, where its fate is anyone’s guess. If mom-and-pop restaurants would be unfairly harmed, he said, perhaps he would agree to rewrite the legislation to single out only fast-food chains.

Despite his wish to make Chicago healthier, even Mr. Burke — who appears trim, though he said that he, like most people he knows, would not mind losing 10 pounds — balked at the claim that it was the fattest city. Having seen the crowds at Walt Disney World, he said, he rather doubted that Chicago deserved the distinction.

Back at the Taste of Chicago, a spokeswoman for the festival said she was not qualified to comment on what might become of the summer event, in its 26th year, if trans fats were banished. She was also unable to say how many of the delicacies were cooked with oils containing trans fats.

Still, she pointed out, correctly, that there were booths selling fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet among the statistics city officials proudly announced as the festival closed after a 10-day run: 20,000 servings of fried dough were sold, as were 70,000 pirogies and 150,000 plates of fried cheese.