NYC Eateries Ready for Trans Fat Switch

The drive-through menu of a McDonald's restaurant in midtown Manhattan is photographed Friday, June 22, 2007 in New York. The city's ballyhooed ban on trans fat cooking oils in all New York restaurants _ an idea that gave chefs indigestion when first proposed _ seems to be going surprisingly smoothly. Across the city, most fast food chains say they've already made the switch days before the July 1, 2007 deadline, which is Sunday. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) (Mary Altaffer - AP)

David Dzisiak, a cooking oils specialist at Dow AgroSciences, said the company began investing research dollars in zero-trans fat Omega-9 canola and sunflower oils back when the very first studies suggested the oils were unhealthy.

"We started on this 10 years ago," he said. "We now have the capacity to supply over a billion pounds of this oil."

Resistance to the ban still exists, but it may be primarily on philosophical grounds.

Mat Arnfield, the chef at A Salt & Battery, a much-loved Manhattan fish and chips shop, said any cooks still complaining about the change aren't concerned with taste.

The primary difference between the trans-fat oils and their alternatives, he said, is cost. The blend of corn and canola oils he uses in his frying bins now is slightly more expensive than the partially hydrogenated vegetable oils rich in trans fats, but the price difference is small.

"If they are cutting corners that much," he said of restaurants reluctant to switch, "I wouldn't really trust those guys to make me a plate of food anyway."

Restaurants in the city had never kicked too hard over taste considerations, but they had chafed at the idea that anyone should be telling them how to cook.

And there is still some question about whether the ingredients restaurants are using instead of trans fats are just as bad for you. Restaurants can comply by switching to a cooking oil high in saturated fat, which could clog your arteries almost as quickly.

The tougher transition on trans fats could come a year from now, when the city has ordered artificial trans fats out of all products, not just oils and spreads.

Experts say it may be more difficult to find a good replacement for partially hydrogenated vegetable shortenings, which give baked goods like cookies and crackers their characteristic texture.

"That is definitely a more challenging environment," said Bill McCullough, a marketing director for St. Louis-based Bunge Oils.

Alternatives are available, he said, but culinary researchers are still at work on something that will have the taste and texture of butter or lard and the shelf life of a hydrogenated product high in trans fats.

"We realize as an organization that it is just a matter a time before hydrogenation is gone," he said. Bunge has already stopped marketing products containing artificial trans fats, McCullough said.

"We decided it would be like marketing Marlboro Red cigarettes."