18 Comments

1. hcq:

Money quote:

“I just don’t think the people buying fries care that much” about trans fat, Sampson added.

May 17, 2005 - 10:28 am 2. Norman Rogers:

Roger, you’re old enough to remember what made ffries REALLY tasty (McD’s included).

They cooked them in ANIMAL FAT.

But the Vegans shamed McD’s et al into switching to vegetable oil. Now it turns out this stuff’ll give us cancer. Think they’ll switch back to animal fat (and recover real flavor)? I think not.

May 17, 2005 - 10:43 am 3. charlotte:

“I just don’t think the people buying fries care that much” about trans fat, Sampson added.

But maybe it’s transnational fat, hcq. Oh boy, another oil-for-food controversy in the OFFing.

May 17, 2005 - 10:45 am 4. Charlie (Colorado):

One word: lard.

May 17, 2005 - 11:37 am 5. hcq:

Actually, I think it used to be beef tallow, not lard. Yummy. Problem is it goes rancid kind of fast. So unless you’ve got a conscientious McD manager, the fries can end up tasting really horrible.

May 17, 2005 - 11:46 am 6. David Burge:

Coastal pikers. Come to Chicago and try the fries at Geno & Judy’s Hot Dogs. $1.75, defibrillator $250.

– Iowahawk

May 17, 2005 - 11:46 am 7. Kevin P:

Roger;

What were the best things about McDonalds? Their fries and their hot cheap coffee. High quality or healthy? Of course not.Lawsuits have ended the coffee and PC pressure is forcing McDonalds to change the best thing about the food they sell. Eventually McDonalds will lose customers over a long period of time. And it will be replaced by a fast food chain that will sell tasty food that is unhealthy. Why? Because people want it. The answer is convicing the consumers that McDonalds should not be the staple of your diet and that excersise and less TV will help your health. Fast food will never be healthy. Healthy McDonalds french fries are like light cigarrettes.Pointless.Thats why there are very few vegan fast food joints. A healthy McDonalds is an oxymoron.If it ever becomes healthy people will stop going.

May 17, 2005 - 12:19 pm 8. Iron Teakettle:

I had to comment, even though I never have before, because I cook.

The best french fries are made with a good vegetable oil — not so hot that it singes the outside and leaves the inside raw. Olive oil is the best — corn oil one of the worst. Re-using the oil is to be avoided as much as possible. There might not be a detectable difference in taste — or there might even be an improvement in taste — but repeated cooking will make the oil heavier (I suppose “transfatty”).

That said, I love McDonald’s fries and so does my three-year old (since age two) and how did we survive before all this?

May 17, 2005 - 1:04 pm 9. Charlie (Colorado):

McD’s did use beef tallow. But I’m tellin’ you: lard.

May 17, 2005 - 1:04 pm 10. AbbaGav:

Two words: New Coke.

It’s not about the taste, it’s not about the color, it’s about what the customer believes while chewing.

May 17, 2005 - 1:20 pm 11. Otter:

As others have pointed out, McDonalds switched from beef fat to vegetable oil about a decade ago.

And it won them public acclaim from nutritionists, right? Well, actually it got them bad press and a bunch of lawsuits from Jews, Hindus and vegetarians who discovered that trace amounts of animal fat were still used, as if McD’s had claimed their new recipe was glatt kosher.

Same thing here. This isn’t going to get them anything but trouble in the long run. The fast food companies, particularly McDonalds, are making the opposite mistake the tobacco companies made. They’re accepting responsibility that will only be used to burn them.

May 17, 2005 - 1:45 pm 12. Kevin P:

Roger:

McDonalds trying to make fast food that will make the trial lawyers and the “Super Size Me” crowd happy is like Playboy trying to make pornography that makes Jerry Falwell happy. It can’t be done.A glass or two of cabernet at dinner is fine. A quart of thunderbird twice a day is a major problem. It isn’t the product, it is the abuse of the product. I smoke and it is my fault, not the tobacco growers. I either have to quit or suffer the consequences. Joe Camel didn’t come to me and plant chips in my brain that made me smoke.

May 17, 2005 - 2:36 pm 13. Charlie (Colorado):

Joe Camel didn’t come to me and plant chips in my brain that made me smoke.

Mmmm, chips.

May 17, 2005 - 3:57 pm 14. Katherine:

Charlieís right. Lard it is.

There are very few traditional Polish food items that I make, one of them are very thin, light tasting fried pastries made to celebrate the New Year (they go well with oysters and champagne). The traditional recipe calls for lard. No vegetable oil replacement ever made up for the taste that one gets with lard, but go ahead and try to find lard in a California superstore.

One more fine culinary tradition sacrificed on the altar of health PC. Sigh.

May 17, 2005 - 4:55 pm 15. Charlie (Colorado):

Katharine, try a Mexican market.

May 17, 2005 - 5:10 pm 16. richard mcenroe:

Katharine ó Smart & Final

May 17, 2005 - 6:00 pm 17. Syl:

Olive oil is special and is the best kept secret around. It’s mono-unsaturated, not poly-, and raises the level of good cholesterol.

I only use olive oil and real butter. I figure one counteracts the other.

May 17, 2005 - 6:14 pm 18. WichitaBoy:

Kevin P,

A healthy McDonalds is an oxymoron.If it ever becomes healthy people will stop going.

You’re absolutely right. But I got a taste of what the fast-food restaurant of the future will entail the other day when I took my son to Jamba Juice.

I hadn’t really paid attention before, but what Jamba Juice is actually selling is a tasty milkshake, full of sugar and all that other good stuff we crave. Not just a milkshake, but a huge milkshake. These things could supersize you in no time flat. But why isn’t Jamba Juice instead of McDonalds the target of the Neopuritans? Well, on the side of the milkshake cup it says “Your body is your temple.” So the milkshake is kosher in the new religion you see. Better than kosher, it’s a direct offering to your deity. They also sell the new blood of Christ in the form of wheat grass shots. Below that on the cup, and I deemed this particularly brilliant, it is written that “Littering is strictly prohibited.” So here you are, slurping your gigantic milkshake while feeling a little guilty about breaking your diet, and you’re reminded about strict prohibition. Yes! Redemption is yours: you’re not a criminal rulebreaker for breaking your diet, au contraire, you’re a law-abiding citizen of your community because YOU DON’T LITTER. You’re green! You’re a superior person, a moral person, a noble person. It just gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling all over.

In the post-modern fast-food restaurant, every unhealthy act of gluttony is actually a paean to your temple (piety made possible without having to be one of those moronic Red-Staters) and the act of indulgence makes you a law-abider to boot. Physical and spiritual and social fulfillment, simultaneously. What more could one ask for in this world of sin?

May 17, 2005 - 8:24 pm

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