Domino's -- A Partially Hydrogenated Oils Project

Domino's sent the very direct and honest response to my email:

Jason,

Thank you for contacting us at our World Resource Center.

To comply with trans fat bans across the nation, each of our ingredients have less than 0.5 grams of artificial trans fat per serving. Very few of Domino’s Pizza products contain partially hydrogenated oils and these contain zero or less than 0.5 grams Trans Fat per serving.

The total combined product (i.e. a pizza or oven baked sandwich) may have more than 0.5 grams of trans fat, but each ingredient going in does not have more than 0.5 grams of artificial trans fat.

Also, we have naturally-occurring trans fat in some of our products, as you know, like in some of our meats, but it is the artificial trans fat that we have worked to bring down to 0.5 grams or less due to the local laws.

Sincerely, 

Denise 

Domino's Pizza Customer Care

They're basically saying "ya, we know what we're doing, but you can't stop us" and they're right.  They've taken the absolute minimum effort required to remove trans fat from their products.  They didn't really say anything about efforts to get rid of the oils, just that they are doing what they have to, not what they should do.

Subway -- A Partially Hydrogenated Oils Project

The response to my email that I received from Subway was the first time I actually felt like I was dealing with a real person (I won't use her name here since she seemed like a nice lady).  Here's her original response...

Monday, October 11, 2010 

Dear Jason:

Thank you for your interest in Subway nutritional information.   We do not use partially-hydrogenated oil in our products.  All of our standard menu items are free of artificial trans fat.  Some of our cheeses and meat contain naturally occurring trans fat.

On our website www.subway.com you will be able to find our nationally offered products broken down by Nutrition/Ingredient information. For countries other than the USA visit www.subway.ca and select the country.

All information is updated regularly, unlike printed material they may be out dated.

A Printer Friendly Version can be found by highlighting the maroon Menu/Nutrition tab at the top of the main page.  Select Nutritional Information on the right of your screen select Nutrition Data Tables

The local items may be found under the heading 6 Limited Time Offer/Regional Subs. For those local items not listed you will need to ask at your local Subway. 

Again, thank you for choosing Subway.

Sincerely, The Lady from subway who responded to me

I did my homework before sending this email out.  If a site didn't list partially hydrogenated oils in their ingredient list I didn't send them an email.  I double checked my research and this is what I found:

FAT FREE ITALIAN DRESSING Water, vinegar, sugar, corn syrup, salt, Parmesan and Romano made from cow’s milk cheese (part-skim milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes), Contains less than 2% of garlic onion juice, molasses, phosphoric acid, xanthan gum, whey, with potassium sorbate and calcium disodium EDTA as preservatives, dried bell peppers, propylene glycol alginate, yeast extract, spice, buttermilk, lemon juice concentrate, dried garlic, sodium phosphate, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, caramel color, enzymes, vitamin E acetate, oleoresin paprika. Contains milk.

While those ingredients certainly sound appetizing, this goes against the lady's email, and never one to back down from the anonymity of an Internet argument, I sent this email in return:

Is this the correct link?  http://www.subway.com/subwayroot/menunutrition/nutrition/frmusingredients.aspx

It shows the oils used in the salad dressing.  What is meant by "standard menu?  Is it possible I could walk into a local Subway and be served partially hydrogenated oils if I unknowingly order outside of the standard menu?

To be honest, I didn't expect any response to this.  When I first became aware of partially hydrogenated oils in around 2004 I did recall that their breads were baked with it.  However, they did make positive strides to reduce these oils and released a Press Release to declare they are now trans fat free.  But why the the trans fat in their "fat free" dressing?  I got this very honest response:

Okay, it looks like there is an older ingredient statement up there that needs to be updated.  The Fat Free Italian dressing is completely free of total fat, saturated fat and trans fat.  Thanks so much for bringing this to our attention. 

The site hasn't changed yet, but at least she admitted it was a mistake.  I plan to go into a Subway restaurant and ask for an updated list of ingredients, but it's likely just as out of date, if that is the truth at all.  There's little point in discussing the issues with the 16-year-old sandwich artists on duty.

McDonalds -- A Partially Hydrogenated Oils Project

McDonalds was the first restaurant to respond to my email, but they didn't show any signs of actually reading it...

Hello Jason:

Thank you for taking the time to contact McDonald's for ingredient and allergen information.

To obtain the most up-to-date ingredient and allergen information for McDonald's standard menu items, visit the website at www.mcdonalds.com. Available allergen information will always be listed on the menu item's ingredient statement.

McDonald's has worked with the Food Allergy and Anaphlaxis Network (FAAN) to help consolidate all allergen information within our ingredient statements. The FAAN encourages customers with food allergies to regularly read ingredient statements because ingredients may have changed. Again, McDonald's recommends you visit the website, www.mcdonalds.com, for the most current information about our products. We also recommend that you speak with your health care provider if the information you are seeking cannot be found on our website or printed materials.

McDonald's has provided nutrition information on our menu items for more than 35 years. One of our goals is to provide accurate and accessible nutrition information to our customers by providing a clear, consistent approach to communicating nutrition information. Today, customers can obtain nutrition information on our standard core products through five sources:

www.mcdonalds.com

McDonald's trayliners

McDonald's Nutrition Facts Brochures

Toll-Free Number -- 1-800-244-8227

McDonald's Packaging

Again, thank you for taking the time to contact McDonald's and we look forward to serving you again soon.

Jennifer

McDonald's Customer Response Center

ref#:7243506

I would guess that this is somewhat of an automated response to anyone who asks a question about nutrition.  I found their nutritional information online before sending my original email.  That's how I know they used partially hydrogenated oils in the first place.  All they are telling me here is that they are publicly declare that they use these oils, but they don't really want to talk about it.

Their thought process is probably similar to that of an aggressive big-brother.  He flares his hands in the air as he approaches his little brother warning him that if he gets in the way, it's his fault.  While it wouldn't hold up in court, it makes sense to a 12 year old boy.  Like the big brother, McDonalds takes the full disclosure approach in hopes that the victim's passive ignorance doesn't ask questions.

I followed up with McDonalds asking that they actually read my question and answer it.  They may have to use more keys than cntrl-c and cntrl-v, but I think they can do it.

A Partially Hydrogenated Oils Project

Over the past few weeks I have sent various fast food restaurants the following email:

Hello,

I'm concerned that many of your products still contain the dangerous partially hydrogenated oils.  What is being done to remove these ingredients from the products?

Thank you,

Jason

There is plenty of information on the web about why these oils are dangerous so I won't repeat them here.  What irritates me is that these fast food restaurants boast a "healthy" menu while still using these oils.  They serve as great (and cheap) preservatives but are an example of American greed at its finest.  Why get rid of these ingredients if people still buy the products, they extend the shelf life and the FDA allows them to use them.  While the evidence of their danger is prevalent,  they are still legal in most states/cities, and most companies have found rather creative ways of getting around using the dreaded term of "Trans Fat" in their menu.  Our grandchildren are likely to laugh about how we used to eat these plastic oils in the same way we're awed at the fact that cocaine was once in Coke, or that smoking on a plane while pregnant was a norm.

"Trans Fat" has become a recent buzz word and any product that no longer includes trans fat is certainly going to advertise it.  The problem is that when a product advertises "No Trans Fat" it doesn't actually mean it contains no trans fat, it just means it contains less that .5 grams per serving.   While a gram is an indisputable unit of measurement, a serving means absolutely nothing.  A company can simply play with the serving size until the amount of trans fat is less than .5 grams and slap the "No Trans Fat" label on the package.  While it's a creative way to abusive the questionably corrupt system, it's simply lying.

What if these were legal and/or acceptable?

• Your girlfriend tells you she is STD-free since she has less than .5 grams of AIDS in her body.
• Your "free-checking" account takes ".5 grams" worth of money out of your account as a monthly fee.
• Your life boat allows in less than .5 grams of water per minute.

Sometime you just want zero to actually mean zero.  Anyways, the above email went to the following fast food companies...

• McDonalds
• Subways
• Domino's
• Wendy's
• Taco Bell
• Kentucky Fried Chicken
• Burger King
• Carl's Jr.

I will create separate post as soon as I hear from each company and will add any new fast food chain that I contact to this first post.

Honda iPod Connections and the Scosche

My 2006 Honda Accord has served me well for over 4 years.  However, my only complaint is the iPod connection.  They did not provide an Aux connection, which would have been more than sufficient, but instead offered an overly complicated set-up that required you to keep the iPod in your glove compartment and connect it to the CD changer in the back of the dash.  This set-up cost $350 dollars, which when added to the price of the car doesn't seem like much.  However, since it's hidden behind the dash it makes maintenance nearly impossible requiring the entire dash to be removed.

This worked fine using my older iPod but when I upgraded to an iPod Touch  I had serious problems.  The first issue was that the iPod no longer received power, but that was minor and there are products to correct this.  I purchased the scosche adapter which worked great for 2 weeks but out of the blue it just stopped working.  It wasn't that the adapter stopped working, or the iPod stopped working, but the entire iPod option disappeared from the dash.  I could no longer listen to any iPod in the car (even my old one) and was forced to listen to conservative radio babble.

I wrote this off as a coincidence.  The entire iPod connection stopped working after 2 weeks of Scosche use so it seemed likely that the issues with the car was unrelated.  I called my car dealership, the Herb Chambers in Burlington MA, and they would look at it for the ridiculous price of $150.  But after many painful weeks of conservative babble I caved and I paid the money to have them fix this.

I had 2 weeks of iPod bliss, catching up on Stuff You Should Know podcasts with Josh and Chuck.  But 2 weeks later the iPod option disappeared again and I'm back to where I was before bringing it to the shop.  Did the Scosche actually break the iPod connection?  Was it another coincidence?  Was it a conservative conspiracy to force me to listen to their babble instead of actually learning something from Josh and Chuck?  Regardless I'm hesitant to have it fixed again considering the steep $150 price tag.  If it works for only 2 weeks that comes out to $11/day to use my iPod in my car.

A Macy's Misadventure

I've always been partial to Macy's for no good reason.  It's kind of like JC Penny's or the softer side of Sears, but with different spellings.  My recent purchase of a few shirts introduced me to some poor customer service that prompted me to write Mr. Macy an email, though I haven't heard a response.  I don't really expect a response.

I had a handful of 4 shirts and met my wife in the shoe department who decided against a shoe purchase.  I opted to pay for my shirts in the shoe department which seemed innocent enough at the time and waited for a few minutes as shoe fetchers buzzed past me.  The Mrs. Macy's grudgingly agreed to help me and we had the following exchange:

Me: "Would you like me to go somewhere else?" (jokingly)

Mrs. Macy's: "Yes, we're quite busy here"

Me: "Are you serious?"

Awkward pauses, she continues slowly folding and pricing my purchase

Mrs: "We're just really busy here.  I don't know why no one else was helping you"

Me: smile awkwardly

Mrs: "This tag doesn't match the shirt, do you want to get another from upstairs?"

Me: "I'll just take it all upstairs"

Mrs: "That's probably best"

I brought the shirt upstairs and the lady suggests that I always bring the clothes to the register where I found them.  She proposed that the first lady wasn't familiar with the shirt section and was just being careful.

The above situation doesn't seem too dire, I know, but it's a classic example of failure to take ownership of a customer.  Regardless of how busy an associate is, their job is to take care of each customer in the queue.  Most customers understand that these associates are busy, but expect to be taken care of completely before the associate moves on.

An Introduction

The point of this blog is to talk about my interaction with customer service and with companies in general.  I have a reasonable expectation of courtesy, accountability and responsibility yet I see no value in the following:

1) Yelling at the 16-year-old usher that you can't see the performance as people continue walking in front of you to go to the bathroom.  That girl doesn't control the Boston Garden policy.

2) Yelling at your child's teacher for doing too much preparation for standardize testing.  That teacher doesn't set policy, and typically doesn't agree with it anyways.

3) Yelling at the Mac Store genius for the 6-hour wait to get your laptop fixed.  That kid doesn't set policy.

Instead, my goal is to detail my interactions where the responsibility is clearly defined.  It is not a rant for the sake of ranting, but a place for constructive, yet blunt, criticism.