Fast Food Joints Toss Out Trans Fat
By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
While the Atkins boom and low-carbohydrate diet once had marketers slapping the sure-selling words ``carb-free'' on package covers, trans fat fried up as the next food demon pushing manufacturers one after another to declare themselves free from the artery clogger. But how free is free?
The Korea Food & Drug Administration (KFDA) standard labels products with less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving as ``low trans fat,'' and only those with less than 0.2 grams of trans fat and less than 5 grams of saturated fat as ``trans fat-free.''
KFDA's April-May survey of local fast food chains, including Burger King, KFC, Lotteria, McDonald's and Popeyes, showed that trans fat amounts significantly decreased since last year, but it's still far from ``free.''
Burger King went from 2.1 grams per serving of French-fries last year to 1.3 grams most recently, Popeyes from 2.1 grams to 1.0 grams and KFC from 1.6 grams to 1.3 grams.
The average amount per serving was 1.2 grams, which is 40 percent lower than last year's 2.0 grams.
While McDonald's had the highest level of the processed fat in 2006 at 3.0 grams _ with Lotteria lowest at 1.3 grams _ the U.S. hamburger giant announced last week that it got rid of the unhealthy oil. Now, the Big Mac venture has the smallest amount at just 0.2 grams, making it, by definition, ``trans fat-free.''
Going from the most to the least, the turnaround came after McDonald's Korea CEO Ray Frawley's words in March that the food chain would work toward having zero trans fat.
Just one week ahead, Korea's largest burger chain Lotteria said it began switching to fries free of trans fatty acids _ the last phase of its ``trans fat zero'' project.
``The efforts follow our previous initiatives in using low trans fat oils and cutting saturated fat levels in our food products,'' said a Lotteria official.
Trans fat is usually used in the cooking process of cookies, French-fries, donuts and other fried food. Although it extends products' shelf life and improves taste, the fat has been found to clog arteries and directly lead to various heart diseases.
The World Health Organization recommends that an adult consume less than 2.2 grams of the processed fat daily, based on a 2,000 calorie-diet.
``Many local food makers have been making aggressive efforts to downsize trans fat dosage, but continuous work must be done to declare any product as truly zero trans fat,'' said a KFDA official.