Fat Chance
Checking In on the Movement Away from Trans Fats

As trends come and trends go, at least one thing is certain about today’s consumers: They’re attentive.
    Growing numbers of on-premise patrons actually give a darn about what’s going into their cocktails and their dishes. This isn’t to say neighborhood bars trafficking baskets of delicious fat-laden fried chicken tenders and poppers having anything to fear, necessarily. But in at least some restaurants and bars, trans fats are going the way of the fried dodo wing. In New York’s model, it’s not even a choice.

National Model
    At the end of 2006, the New York City Board of Health voted to adopt the nation’s first major municipal ban on the use of all but small amounts of artificial trans fats in restaurant cooking. Trans fats are the chemically modified ingredients in many foods that increase levels of harmful cholesterol. Restaurants are barred from using most fats containing artificial trans fats above 0.5 gram per serving.
    Critics of the measure categorize it as misguided social engineering by doctors who do not understand the restaurant industry. Still, if the New York smoking ban is any reliable precedent, trans fat bans could spring up across the nation, just as have smoking bans. Philadelphia already has instituted a ban, and Chicago is considering one.

It’s About the Oil
    “The non-trans-fat thing is huge today, and consumers do gravitate to it,” says Gary Santos, vice president of marketing for Autofry, a manufacturer of ventless deep-frying equipment. “Every major oil company today has a version of a non-trans-fat oil.
    “People do love the idea that fried food is offered in the healthiest way possible. But here’s the kicker: Almost all food that you buy that gets fried has been pre-fried. That’s why things take so little time to cook.
    “When you buy a chicken wing at a place, and they fry it in three minutes, that’s because the factory they bought the wing from pre-fried that wing,” Santos says. “Every French fry you eat is always pre-cooked at the factory, unless (the restaurant) cuts the potato and cooks it for you. If the French fry is pre-cooked in (regular) oil and finished in trans-fat-free oil, it does nothing.
    “Manufacturers now have products cooked in trans-fat-free oil. Think about the oil your product was fried in before coming to you.”                 NCB