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McDonald's USA has redesigned its cooking oil to lower the amounts of heart-harming fats in its fried food without changing the taste. For example, the revised recipe will reduce trans fatty acids by 48 percent and saturated fat by 16 percent in the firm's french fries, while upping levels of healthier polyunsaturated fat by 167 percent.

The new oil, which will also be used for Chicken McNuggets, Filet-O-Fish, hash browns and crispy chicken sandwiches, is expected to be available in all 13,000 of the megachain's American restaurants by February. McDonald's Europe has already attained comparable reductions.

"This is going to have a major and immediate impact," says Dean Ornish, M.D., founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute. "McDonald's will be [improving] the nutritional value of meals eaten by millions of consumers every day."

Though the redo gives the company's offerings a better nutritional profile, they're hardly diet food: Total fat content in the french fries--22 grams per medium serving--will remain unchanged.

"However, there is no question that reducing TFAs and saturated fat and increasing polyunsaturates delivers health dividends," says Ann Rusniak, R.D., chief nutritionist for McDonald's.

In a related story, the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest has found that the following items on several new-and-improved fast-food menus will please your taste buds without sabotaging your nutrition plan. (For our own choices, see "The Best Fast Food for You," page 90.)

* Wendy's Mandarin Chicken Salad: 620 calories, or 420 if you lose the noodles and half the dressing.

* Burger King Chicken Whopper Jr.: A kid's meal? No, it's "the only way to get a normal-sized sandwich" at 350 calories.

* Subway's Low-fat Subs: three options ranging from 310 to 370 calories, all with six grams of fat or less.

* McDonald's Fruit 'n Yogurt Parfait: 380 calories--less 100 if you skip the granola--and two grams saturated fat.

* Burger King BK Veggie Burger: 330 calories, two grams saturated fat.

On the other side of the blood flow, the health advocacy group issued its choices for the worst of the worst. Burger King swept this category with its milk shakes (the medium size has 760 calories and 42 grams of fat, 29 of which are saturated plus trans fat); King-sized fries (600 calories and 30 grams of fat, 16 saturated plus trans); large hash browns (390 calories and 25 grams of fat, 15 saturated plus trans); Double Whopper With Cheese (1,150 calories and 76 grams of fat, 33 saturated plus trans--not to mention 1,530 milligrams of sodium); and the Value Meals (1,300 to 2,100 calories, depending on the size).

# posted by Medical Information : 1:39 AM