The Market for Low Cholesterol; M. Walker

The problem, they note, is that competition among these producers leads them to purchase the cheapest ingredients they can find. In so do ing, they are able to undercut the prices of their competitors and attract gullible consumers who can't even pronounce most of the ingredients on the package. Here is a case, we are told, where untrammeled free enterprise leads to an out come which is in nobody's interest. So, for the sake of their health, even diehard opponents of big government say that this is a special case, and therefore we need a regulation to solve the prob lem. Until recently, I would have been inclined to agree with that assessment. However, I have been reading about developments which suggest that Dr. Walker is Executive Directorof The Fraser Insti tute, Vancouver, Canada. there is a market in caring about cholesterol. In fact, the market is working right now to reduce the amount of saturated fats in the foods we eat.

It turns out that a principal source of oils in shortening and similar products is tropical veg etables such as palm and coconut. Of course, as anyone who has watched the television ads for margarine can tell you, there are alternative sources of oil, such as soy and corn, that do not have the same problems as palm and coconut. The suppliers of these alternatives are not un aware of the fact that anyone convinced of the merits of eating polyunsaturated fats is a poten tial customer. These producers, therefore, in pursuit of their own interests, have been engaging in increasingly active campaigns to tout the benefits of their polyunsaturated oils and the hidden dangers of tropical oils. For example, a recent Wall Street Journal story noted that ads in food-industry magazines have depicted a coconut as a bomb with a fuse ready to explode. The caption reads: "Warning, coconut oil may be hazardous to your health." They have been joined by a new organi zation, the National Heart Savers Association, that encourages people to eat a healthier diet.

The campaign is working. Kellogg, Frito-Lay, Pepperidge Farm, and Hardee's all have switched rather than fight the polyunsaturated tide. Palm oil imports into the U.S. last year were 44 percent below their 1986 level. At this rate, saturated fats will have been driven from the market, by the market, in the consumer interest. 0 450 Making Dough in the Heartland by Ann Weiss Rogers P izza shops generally don't crop up beside corn fields, but in Stoutsville, Ohio, where the main drag is a post office, a pizza shop is thriving. What's more unusual than its location, however,is that the business is located in a trailer. My brother-in-law, Randy, is proprietor and sole employee of Randy's Pizza-Subs-Sandwich es. When he purchased a building in that rural area several years ago, he envisioned renovating the two apartments and converting the third, which was unfinished and used for storage, into a pizza shop. But the problems Randy encountered proved to be both a lesson in how not to go about starting a business and how difficult the govern ment makes it for individuals who start one with limited capital.