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.