Artificial Fats

The government war on trans fat, started when New York City banned it from restaurant food, has reached Los Angeles. County supervisors have voted to study the feasibility of banning artificial trans fats from restaurants, and the City Council in December had asked for a similar report on at least restricting it. "I'm very concerned about the whole trans fat issue," Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said after Tuesday's vote for the study.

What would Betty Crocker do? Crisco, the mainstay of cookie-baking moms for decades, is chucking its original formula to eliminate its much-maligned trans fats. The decision, announced Wednesday by its maker, J.M. Smucker Co., shows how times have changed. When it debuted in 1911, the queen of trans fat products was hailed as a healthful alternative to butter and lard.

A campaign by Los Angeles County to ban the use of trans fat in restaurants suffered a setback Friday when legal advisors said it lacked the authority to do so. The county counsel told public health officials that neither a trans fat ban nor a requirement that restaurants display nutritional information on their menus would be possible under current state law. The state has jurisdiction in such matters. The opinion surfaced Friday in a report by the Department of Public Health.

McDonald's Corp. has finally selected a new trans-fat-free oil for cooking its famous french fries after years of testing, the fast-food chain said last week. While it has developed a healthier new oil, the company is not saying when it will be used in all 13,700 U.S. restaurants. Spokesman Walt Riker said the oil is in more than 1,200 U.S. restaurants after extensive testing. He said the new oil is canola-based and has corn and soy oils.

KFC's fried chicken buckets soon will be stamped with a health message along with the likeness of its founder, Col. Harland Sanders. The banner proclaims that its chicken has zero grams of trans fat per serving. The chain will announce today that all 5,500 of its U.S. restaurants have stopped frying chicken in artery-clogging trans fat. The company had said in October that it was switching to a new soybean oil believed to be less likely to cause heart disease.

A nutrition advocacy group sued Burger King Holdings Inc. on Wednesday over the hamburger chain's use of frying oil that contains artery-clogging trans fats. The Center for Science in the Public Interest said in a lawsuit filed in Washington that Miami-based Burger King was the only leading restaurant chain that had not yet committed to eliminating trans fats from its menu.

Burger King Holdings Inc. said it would use trans-fat-free cooking oil at all its U.S. restaurants by the end of next year, following in the footsteps of other leading fast-food restaurants. The world's second-largest hamburger chain said it was already using zero trans-fat oil in hundreds of its more than 7,100 U.S. restaurants. Burger King is known for its flame-broiled burgers, but the chain uses cooking oil for its French fries and most of its chicken products.

SACRAMENTO -- Fast-food restaurants may still fry food in artificial fats, but they'll have to tell customers about it under measures dispatched by the California Legislature in a final 17-hour day. The food bills were among hundreds that lawmakers handled before ending their regular session after 3 a.m. Wednesday. Legislators sent to the governor bills to raise car registration fees by $3, ban smoking in cars carrying children and put the source of water on bottled-water labels. Gov.

The New York City Board of Health voted unanimously Tuesday to prohibit restaurateurs from cooking with artificial trans fats, setting a precedent for public health agencies eager to take on unhealthy eating. The city's 24,000 restaurants have six months to stop frying foods in oils that contain high levels of trans fats, which are believed to be a leading cause of heart disease.

Potato chips made with phony fat are useful in treating obesity and diabetes, a group of doctors, researchers and patients told a federal advisory panel Tuesday. But several consumers told the Food and Drug Administration advisory committee that the fake fat chips cause bloating, diarrhea and nausea. The committee of experts who evaluate food safety for the FDA heard testimony related to a potato chip, sold under the name Wow, made with an artificial fat called olestra.