2008 Woodie Awards
Eyes on the Mcfries
Laura Beil ; The Dallas Morning News
Issue date: 2/2/05 Section: News
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The heavyweight among fast food chains had announced with fanfare that the amount of trans fats in its cooking oil would be cut almost in half by February 2003. After that, a more ambitious goal: McDonald's planned to eliminate this form of disease-causing grease, right down to the last McNugget.
Today, however, an order of fries remains as trans-laden as ever, leaving consumer advocates with a supersized disbelief.
"It's astonishing," says Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. He and many other nutrition experts now feel burned for their accolades in September 2002, when McDonald's announced its intention. "If a big company holds a press conference, you'd think they would have planned things out."
They thought they had, says company spokesman Walt Riker. Despite the best intentions, McDonald's found that an oil change wasn't so easy, he says. "We realized we needed additional testing."
One of the main problems was that the oil formulated in 2002 appeared to alter the taste of McDonald's fries. The popular fries are a company hallmark, with a taste and crispness on an almost sacred plane. The fries are such a state secret, Riker won't even discuss the components of the oil they're fried in.
The news is better for chicken lovers. McNuggets and other chicken products are now fried in an oil that is about 15 percent lower in trans fat.
Riker won't say when trans fats will be phased out. "It's still a work in progress, so I don't want to get into any specifics."
McDonald's has been using trans fats since 1990. At the time it turned trans, the company was looking for a way to reduce the saturated fat and cholesterol coming out of its fryers. Trans fats are, before a chemical transformation, vegetable oil. The hope was that the trans fats would be no harder on a customer's health than canola or corn oil.
But the evidence against trans fat was already gathering, and it has now become one of the major controversies in the American food industry. The new U.S. Dietary Guidelines, released just this month, urge Americans to keep their trans-fat consumption as close to zero as possible.