KFC on the Health Tip?

Quote:

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The news preceded the Board of Health's first public hearing Monday on a plan to make New York the first U.S. city to ban restaurants from serving food containing artificial trans fats.

KFC's systemwide rollout is to be completed by April 2007, but the company said many of its approximately 5,500 restaurants already have switched to low linolenic soybean oil, replacing partially hydrogenated soybean oil.

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I think the fast food chains have been coming under a lot of fire over the issue of trans-fats -- particular chains that specialize in fried foods. Expect to see a lot of drawing back. If KFC is leading the charge, you can be sure that they'll parade the fact, if for no other reason than that they have to make trans-fat use more expensive to other chains in order to offset their loss in using a presumably more expensive alternative. They'll do that by advertising the virtues of their new policy, hoping to draw more health-conscious (but obviously not too health-conscious) consumers away from the competition.

I don't think it's likely to lead much of anywhere, though. Serious changes for the better would be so damaging to the business model that governs fast food chains that they'd lose all of the advantages of that model -- wide distribution, consistency, and above all, low cost -- if they really sought change.

I wouldn't give them too much credit. I think they are just trying to redeem themselves from all the bad publicity they received a while back when their supplier scandal came out. I've lost any taste for KFC (not that is was ever great food).

KFC --- Animal Cruelty article

I'm 38. 30 years ago, Kentucky Fried Chicken (I'll use the full name, because then they used it...) was the thing you got at birthday parties. It was such a treat!

I remember my cousin's dining room, a bunch of us sitting around the table, drizzling runny honey on the lovely coated chicken pieces.

I don't remember it being as greasy as it is today (I had some a month ago...first time in eons!). Plus, the 'secret recipe' supposedly changed.

My point (or question?) is that in my (our) lifetime(s), the population's eating habits have changed...What are the main reasons? Individually, and socially?

The proliferation of fast food joints? Lack of time? Not knowing how to cook?

I find that after years of some haphazard cooking (no one to cook for, and just not a priority), I'm trying to establish and maintain the habits I developed as a child -- with my parents' cooking. Balanced, healthy dinners. Will that change when I start working more? I don't think so -- because now it's part of my knowledge base: eating healthfully is important to me.

(I don't ignore the other food groups -- snacks & beer...I just try to eat everything else from the whole foods categories!)

"All beings are the owners of their deeds, the heirs to their deeds."

Loricat's Book Nook
Celebrating the Absurd

Loricat: My point (or question?) is that in my (our) lifetime(s), the population's eating habits have changed...What are the main reasons? Individually, and socially?

I'd say economics is probably part of it. Fast food joints have been particularly aggressive -- and progressive -- in this regard, capitalizing on modern developments in food science to create cheaper alternatives. That, in fact, is one of the things that the modern commercial scientific community does particularly well -- make things cheaper.

Another factor is probably the de-centralization of American life. Politicians like pointing to the break down of the American family as the central unit of life, and there's probably some truth to that, but in this case the more prominant factor may be the breakdown of the home as the physical focal point in people's lives. We no longer see the home as the place where we ought to take most of our meals. That means less home-cooking, and the tendency when we eat out will be towards economic efficiency, since full-service restaurant food tends to be more expensive than either fast food or eating at home.

And a third factor that springs to mind is upbringing. We're part of a generation (or string of generations) who grew up thinking of fast food as a treat. And that mentality persists, but the fast food chains themselves have changed. The result is that successive generations have formed stronger and stronger associations with fast food, even as fast food has gotten more and more synthetic.

Thanks, Mad. Nice clarity.

You always seem to be able to effortlessly state what I'm struggling to articulate.

"All beings are the owners of their deeds, the heirs to their deeds."

Loricat's Book Nook
Celebrating the Absurd

Thanks. It's not effortless, though. I'm just stubborn.