McDonald’s new cooking oil

Greasing the skids

You probably heard the news last week that McDonald’s is crowing proudly about its new cooking oil that reduces trans-fatty acids (TFA) by almost half. So that’s good, right? Trans-fatty acids are, nutritionally speaking, the fast track to heart disease. So knocking out half the trans-fatty acids makes McDonald’s French fries half as dangerous as before, right?

 

 

An oil change and a marketing tune up

McDonald’s claims that, “While the total fat content in the fries remains unchanged, health experts agree that reducing TFAs and saturates while increasing polyunsaturates is beneficial to heart health.” That’s sort of like saying, if you reduce your ice cream intake from 5 gallons per week to 2.5 gallons, it’s beneficial to your health. Statistically it would probably be true, but it certainly wouldn’t be time to go around bragging about your new “healthy” reduced ice cream diet.

The four words that jump out from the McDonald’s comment above are the last four – the four they want to leave you with: “beneficial to heart health.” That’s the central idea this “new oil” campaign would most like to plant in the minds of consumers. “Let’s go to McDonald’s – I heard their fries are beneficial to heart health!”

In fact, health experts do agree that reducing TFAs is beneficial to heart health. But reducing it by half barely even begins to benefit your heart.

In an e-Alert I sent you last month (“The New Big Oil” 8/20/02) I told you about a report submitted in July by a National Academy of Sciences panel that attempted to set a safe intake level for trans-fatty acids. The report confirmed previous findings about the relationship of trans-fatty acids and the risk of heart disease, and concluded with a recommendation that cannot be misinterpreted, no matter how you spin the details or rework the words of “health experts.” The panel’s conclusion: “the only safe intake of trans-fat is zero.”

And if that comment doesn’t slam the door on the “deep-fried” question, consider the announcement made this past spring by researchers at Stockholm University who studied the effects of high-heat cooking on carbohydrate-rich foods (see the e-Alert “Feeling the Heat” 6/6/02). Among their unsettling conclusions, the Stockholm team found that deep-frying of potato products causes a spontaneous creation of acrylamide, a compound that the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the U.S. government both classify as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

“A majority of nutrition professionals have maintained that McDonald’s food can be a part of a healthy diet based on the sound nutrition principles of balance, variety and moderation.”

Unless Ms. Rusniak is counting every single McDonald’s employee (in more than 30,000 restaurants world wide) as “nutrition professionals,” there’s no way that a majority of genuine nutrition professionals could possibly maintain any of that baloney.

But for a moment let’s give Ms. Rusniak and McDonald’s the benefit of the doubt. After all, they have gone to the trouble of making the transition to a lower trans-fat cooking oil. They’re at least TRYING to make their fried foods healthier, right? Unfortunately we can’t answer that one yet because McDonald’s still hasn’t revealed the specifics about their new oil. They’ve cut the trans-fat by half, but at what cost? History has shown that when you tinker with the chemistry of cooking oils you inevitably come up with both plusses and minuses. So right now we can only wonder if this new oil might begin creating health problems that won’t come to light until another 3 billion customers are served.

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute