Trans Fat Is On A Roll

McDonald’s the Latest to Fry Trans Fats

A Top Ten (largely) Trans Fat Free List:

The LARGEST: The poster child for fast food fat, McDonald’s, announced January 29 that it will follow the lead of other big chains that are also removing trans fat from cooking oils. The biggest fast food chain has been under the gun after revealing that its French fries contain a third more trans fats than it previously knew, and breaking its 2002 commitment to eliminate artificial trans fat from its cooking oil.

2^nd LARGEST restaurant chain: KFC pledged to largely eliminate trans fat from most of their foods by next spring

4^th LARGEST restaurant chain: Pizza Hut “claims it’s working on getting rid of trans fat (it’s nearly there, partly because pizzas have little or none)”

5^th LARGEST restaurant chain: Wendy’s switched to trans-free frying oils earlier this year

6^th LARGEST restaurant chain: "Subway never had much to begin with, but got trans fat out of its cookies this year"

7^th LARGEST restaurant chain: Taco Bell pledged to largely eliminate trans fat from most of their foods by next spring

8^th LARGEST restaurant chain: Domino’s Pizza is mostly trans-fat-free, “though a ‘garlic dipping sauce’ with seven grams of trans fat is made with partially hydrogenated oil”

9^th LARGEST restaurant chain: "Starbucks removed trans fat from the one drink that had it and has announced that trans fat will be kept out of seasonal baked goods, though it remains—in high amounts—in some pastries in many stores. Starbucks uses regional bakers whose recipes may vary"

Other large restaurant chains that have switched or are switching to trans-fat-free vegetable oil for deep frying: Arby’s, Chili’s, Denny’s, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Ruby Tuesday and the Macaroni Grill.

Restaurants did not have labeling as an incentive to change, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, so they’ve needed other incentives, such as “a lawsuit here, a municipal phase-out proposal there.”

BIG Cities:

Los Angeles: Meanwhile today, LA officials reached agreement today with the LA chapter of the California Restaurant Association to voluntarily phase out the substance within 18 months, after a failed attempt to ban it altogether. The association only has a few thousand members out of more than 34,000 restaurants in the county, so its full impact remains to be seen.

New York City: History was made on December 5^th when the suddenly healthy sounding Big Apple became the first U.S. jurisdiction to ban artificial trans fat from restaurants by July 1, 2008. Support for the ban came from numerous radical groups, such as the American Medical Association, American College of Cardiology, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, Columbia University Medical Center, Harvard University, and New York University.

Calgary: The head of the Calgary Health Region, Jack Davis, told the Calgary Sun newspaper the region is planning to chop trans fat from city menus, which would make it the first Canadian city to ban the processed substance.

Lest you think the U.S. is leading on this count, Denmark virtually banned artificial trans fat two years ago.