EclectEcon

Economics and the mid-life crisis have much in common: Both dwell on foregone opportunities

C'est la vie; c'est la guerre; c'est la pomme de terre . . . . . . . . . . . . . email: jpalmer at uwo dot ca


. . . . . . . . . . .Richard Posner should be awarded the next Nobel Prize in Economics . . . . . . . . . . . .

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Transfats

There is quite a bit of evidence that transfatty acids are bad for us. Here is some information from this site.
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In a recent survey, five popular restaurant or takeout foods were randomly selected and analyzed for their trans fat content. Trans fats were found in all of the products that were tested:
• Five small chicken nuggets from a fast food chicken outlet contained nearly 4 grams of trans fat.
• An apple danish from a donut shop contained about 2.7 grams of trans fat.
• Two vegetable spring rolls from a Chinese takeout contained about 1.7 grams of trans fat.
• Just one fillet of battered fish from a fish and chips restaurant dinner contained about 1.2 grams of trans fat -- and that's not including the trans fat in the French fries.
• Even in pizza you'd most likely ingest about 1 gram of trans fat in two slices -- most of it from vegetable shortening used to process the crust.

Click here to read the report about the restaurant survey.

For those of you who eat at McDonald's in the United States, click here for the amount of trans fat in each product. One large French fries contains 6 grams. A baked apple pie contains 4.5 grams.

Incidentally, don't think that the problem is only at McDonald's or other fast-food chains. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many other restaurants, including "quality" restaurants, fry their food in partially hydrogenated oil and served baked goods containing partially hydrogenated oil. At least McDonald's is diligently trying to reduce trans fats in its cooking oil and has had some success in reducing it in its fried chicken products. Many other restaurant operations are not even trying.
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The above link is courtesy of Jack.
 
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