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Silver Diner among restaurants looking to trans-fat alternatives

Rockville eatery joins trend of using healthier oils in their cooking

Friday, Jan. 5, 2007

Click here to enlarge this photo Naomi Brookner⁄The Gazette Freta Habteselasie serves crabs, shrimp and cheese fries at the Silver Diner in Rockville, which has switched to using trans fat-free oil.

National chains with eateries in Maryland, including Arby’s, Taco Bell, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Starbucks, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Loews Hotels, are in various stages of converting. The trend is fueled by reports from researchers and nutritionists outlining the ill health effects of trans fatty acids.

At least one restaurant chain based in Maryland — Silver Diner, based in Rockville — has already made the switch. Silver Diner has converted to a modified soybean oil at restaurants in Rockville and Virginia Beach, Va., and plans to do so at its other 13 sites by mid-January, said Ype Von Hengst, co-founder and vice president of culinary operations. The oil, which has less linolenic acid — a compound that reduces the shelf life of soybeans — than regular soybean oil, is manufactured by Restaurant Technologies Inc., an Eagan, Minn., company whose clients include Wegmans Food Markets and Chili’s.

‘‘Eliminating the trans-fat cooking oils from our kitchens took some effort, although our guests have now confirmed one thing: trans-fat-free onion rings are just as golden brown and taste better than ever,” Von Hengst said.

The new soy oil raised costs by about 15 percent because fewer farmers grow that variety, but Von Hengst said prices should decrease as more restaurants and food manufacturers jump on the trans fat-free bandwagon.

Restaurant Technologies also shows customers how to reduce oil spills in kitchens, which officials say reduces workplace injuries and thus helps offset increased costs of using the new oil. The company has done well enough with the trans fat-free products to make Inc. magazine’s list of the 500 fastest growing companies in nation in 2005, tripling its revenue from 2002 to 2004 to $81 million.

Health effects

Trans fatty acids occur naturally in small amounts in some meat and dairy products. But they are also artificially formed during the partial hydrogenation of vegetable oils, used largely to help food have a longer shelf life and more stability while deep frying, according to a study last year by Harvard researchers that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

There is a direct link between trans fatty acids and elevated levels of so-called ‘‘bad” cholesterol, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

‘‘The consumption of trans fatty acids from partially hydrogenated oils ... has considerable potential for harm,” the Harvard researchers reported. ‘‘Although the elimination of partially hydrogenated oils from foods may be challenging for restaurants and food manufacturers in the United States, experience in other countries indicates that such fats can largely be replaced by unsaturated fats without increasing the cost or reducing the quality or availability of foods.”

The ‘‘near-elimination” of industrially produced trans fats might avert between 72,000 and 228,000 coronary heart disease instances each year, the Harvard researchers said.

Since last year, the FDA has mandated that nutritional information on food packages list the content of trans fat.

Ban Trans Fats, a California organization founded by lawyer and former Washington, D.C., lobbyist Stephen L. Joseph, was among the first to force companies to convert when it sued Kraft Foods in 2003 over trans fat in Oreo cookies.

When Oreos were reformulated in 2005, Von Hengst said it was time to re-evaluate the oils in Silver Diner’s eateries. Silver Diner has been testing the zero trans-fat oil for all fried items at the two Silver Diner locations since July, he said.

Silver Diner, which opened its first restaurant in Rockville in 1989, also offers ‘‘low-carb” food and items with reduced fat.

Besides the individual restaurant chains, New York City’s Board of Health voted last month to outlaw trans fats almost entirely in restaurants citywide by July 1, 2008. New York is the first city in the nation to pass such a ban, while other bans have been proposed, including in Chicago and Philadelphia.

Physician involved in lawsuit

Last June, law firm Heideman Nudelman and Kalik of the District and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a District nutrition advocacy organization, filed a lawsuit against KFC, a unit of Yum! Brands of Louisville, Ky., to cut out trans fat.

The plaintiff in that case was retired physician Arthur Hoyte of Rockville, who had purchased fried chicken at KFC without knowing the restaurant fried its food in partially hydrogenated oil.

‘‘If I had known that KFC uses an unnatural frying oil and that their food was so high in trans fat, I would have reconsidered my choices,” Hoyte said in a statement.

He added that he was involved in the legal issue partly so his son and other children can have a ‘‘healthier, happier, trans fat-free future.”

In October, KFC officials said they would convert all of their 5,500 U.S. restaurants to trans fat-free cooking oil by April 30. Gregg Dedrick, KFC president, did not refer to the lawsuit in a statement, saying that the conversion followed ‘‘more than two years of extensive testing to identify an oil that provides all the same delicious taste as our original recipes with zero grams of trans fat.”

The center involved in the suit dropped out after KFC’s statement, but Hoyte said Thursday he is continuing with the action through the Heideman firm.

Some restaurant officials have faced questions about whether their changes were as effective as they said. Wendy’s officials said in August that they had trans fat-free oils at many locations. But Consumer Reports questioned how trans fat-free Wendy’s fries were after testing the food, although the report said Wendy’s fries had less trans fat than those at McDonald’s and Burger King.

And in 2002, McDonald’s Corp. officials said they were switching to more healthful oils, but Joseph’s group later filed a lawsuit, saying the fast-food giant was dragging its feet. McDonald’s officials recently said conversions have been made in many restaurants in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and tests are being conducted at U.S. sites.