Restaurant giant the latest to ban transfats

Source: Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food

You know it’s more than a fad when even the Golden Arches get on the bandwagon.

Restaurant giant McDonald’s has announced that it is switching to cooking oil with less than two per cent transfat.

McDonald’s announced that it would make the switch five years ago. After years of research, it has now chosen an oil blend based on canola oil with some soy and corn oil. Currently, 1,200 of McDonald’s 13,000 U.S. restaurants are using the oil, with more to follow suit in the coming months.

The move from the fast food leader comes on the heels of similar switches by the likes of KFC and Wendy’s. Burger King is also considering a similar move to reduce the amount of transfats in its products.

The City of New York’s Board of Health recently took the unprecedented step of banning transfats in all restaurants in the city by July 2008.

Shika Agblor, a Senior Food Scientist with Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food, says it’s been a well-known and well-documented fact that transfats are unhealthy.

“Transfats have been a concern for some time. Transfats raise certain lipid levels in the blood that produce high cholesterol levels. High cholesterol levels lead to heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular problems. So that’s why there is a need to reduce transfats,” Agblor explained.

She says food manufacturers and restaurants are now responding to demand from consumers.

“People are looking to eat healthily, whether that is in a restaurant or at home. They want products that will help them attain that level of health,” Agblor said.

“The trend in the next 15 years is toward health and wellness, so consumers are saying to manufacturers, ‘We need to see a change in the food we purchase.’ That’s where it is coming from. The consumer is driving the agenda, and restaurants need to respond.”

While transfats have been the focus lately, Agblor says scientists are trying to stay ahead of consumer demands, and sugar is one product getting a lot of attention.

“There are solutions, but you need to be innovative. We know that obesity is a precursor to a lot of diseases, and we know that consumers keep asking for products that can help with weight management,” she stated.

“So a lot of people are looking towards foods that have a low glycemic index or no sugar added. We then have to determine what kind of alternatives we can put in the product to have the same sweetness.”

As always, the challenge is how to make a product healthy without sacrificing the taste. In the case of McDonald’s, that task was particularly daunting, given the iconic status of its signature french fries.

However, after testing 18 varieties of oil and over 50 different blends, McDonald’s is confident it has found the formula to keep out the transfats, but keep in the signature taste and texture of its fries.

For more information, contact:
Shika Agblor, Senior Food Specialist
Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food
(306) 933-5769