McDonald's working on new taste for fries
Unhappy customers started calling soon after McDonald's announced plans in 2002 to reduce trans fats in french fries.
They no longer liked the taste of the fries. Ditto for the oil. They missed one key fact: McDonald's hadn't introduced the revamped fries yet. In fact, the fast-food giant still is searching for a trans fat-free oil that won't change the taste of its famous fries.
Tinkering with a favorite food carries risks. That's true even when the changes are good for customer health. Trans fats add texture, freshness and flavor. But they also raise bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol, making them even more dangerous than saturated fats, some researchers say.
Consumers had no way of knowing how much artery-clogging synthetic trans fats they were consuming until last January, when federal regulators required manufacturers to start listing them on their products. Many food companies, such as Kraft Foods and Unilever, chose to remove the fats rather than label them.
The American Heart Association recommends getting no more than 1 percent of daily calories from synthetic trans fats. That's about 2 grams for a 2,000-calorie diet.
Harvard University scientists estimate that eliminating synthetic trans fats from the food supply would prevent as many as 72,000 heart attacks every year in the United States.
Figures like those are fostering change. New York City plans to begin banning trans fats in restaurants in July. Chicago, Seattle and others are considering it. Some states are following suit. Restaurant chains from KFC to Starbucks are working to remove the unhealthy oils.
The New York City ban should hasten the removal of trans fats from chain restaurant offerings. Many chain restaurants use the same suppliers and cooking methods in all locations, so it's simpler and cost-saving to make changes companywide.
As many of the country's largest restaurant chains scramble to replace trans fats in their best-loved items, some are learning from what happened to McDonald's.
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Source - Cox News Service
