May I take your order, sir? Would you liike dead cat with that?
Dan Brawner
January 09, 2007
Recently, a car containing three customers pulled up to the drive-through window at my favorite McDonald's in southwest Cedar Rapids, Iowa, picked up their order and tossed in a dead cat.
The employees were confused. Nobody tips at McDonald's. And what were they supposed to do with a dead cat? But before the stiff feline ended up as a Happy Meal, some quick-thinking individual called Animal Control and it was whisked away to an undisclosed location. Probably because it contained unacceptable levels of trans fat.
McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, A&W, KFC and even entire cities like New York and Chicago are now banning trans fats like they were anthrax. Soon, little old ladies who still bake cookies with Crisco will be led away in handcuffs for endangering their grandchildren's arteries.
Trans fats are nothing new to our diet. We've been eating the stuff all our lives. Trans fats are unsaturated fats, derived from a process developed in the early 1900's as a way to keep vegetable oils from turning rancid and to keep them solid at room temperature. Trans fats have been in nearly all fried food, fast food, donuts, popcorn and are practically everything else that tastes good. Of course, now we know that eating trans fat is like directly injecting our arteries with plumber's putty. But as my old neighbor told his wife who scolded him for eating pork rinds, nobody dies healthy.
Americans are already anxious about food. And for good reason. As a nation, we are paradoxically overweight and undernourished. And every few weeks, there is some new horror story in the news--lettuce is contaminated with e coli bacteria, or hamburger is being blasted with radiation or chicken patties are to be fouled with the dubious flesh of cloned animals, packed in unmarked containers. Periodically, scientists tell us that milk is bad, coffee is bad, eggs are bad and the water is undrinkable. Or maybe not. The only thing we know for sure is that we are all digging our graves with our forks.
You can give up smoking or drinking alcohol. But you can't give up eating. Eventually, hunger will get the better of you and you will have to take your chances with a meal of nitrates, sulfides, sodium, sugar, dyes, FDA-approved insect parts, unmentionable organs from cows too ill to stand up by themselves and fish genes spliced into the broccoli. Life used to be so simple. And now, we have to worry about trans fats!
So the next time I'm in McDonald's, I'm going to play it safe. The Big Macs are full of cholesterol, the fish fillet is full of iodine. I'm going to order the only think I know won't hurt me. "Give me the dead cat," I'll say. "And hold the fries."
The employees were confused. Nobody tips at McDonald's. And what were they supposed to do with a dead cat? But before the stiff feline ended up as a Happy Meal, some quick-thinking individual called Animal Control and it was whisked away to an undisclosed location. Probably because it contained unacceptable levels of trans fat.
McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, A&W, KFC and even entire cities like New York and Chicago are now banning trans fats like they were anthrax. Soon, little old ladies who still bake cookies with Crisco will be led away in handcuffs for endangering their grandchildren's arteries.
Trans fats are nothing new to our diet. We've been eating the stuff all our lives. Trans fats are unsaturated fats, derived from a process developed in the early 1900's as a way to keep vegetable oils from turning rancid and to keep them solid at room temperature. Trans fats have been in nearly all fried food, fast food, donuts, popcorn and are practically everything else that tastes good. Of course, now we know that eating trans fat is like directly injecting our arteries with plumber's putty. But as my old neighbor told his wife who scolded him for eating pork rinds, nobody dies healthy.
Americans are already anxious about food. And for good reason. As a nation, we are paradoxically overweight and undernourished. And every few weeks, there is some new horror story in the news--lettuce is contaminated with e coli bacteria, or hamburger is being blasted with radiation or chicken patties are to be fouled with the dubious flesh of cloned animals, packed in unmarked containers. Periodically, scientists tell us that milk is bad, coffee is bad, eggs are bad and the water is undrinkable. Or maybe not. The only thing we know for sure is that we are all digging our graves with our forks.
You can give up smoking or drinking alcohol. But you can't give up eating. Eventually, hunger will get the better of you and you will have to take your chances with a meal of nitrates, sulfides, sodium, sugar, dyes, FDA-approved insect parts, unmentionable organs from cows too ill to stand up by themselves and fish genes spliced into the broccoli. Life used to be so simple. And now, we have to worry about trans fats!
So the next time I'm in McDonald's, I'm going to play it safe. The Big Macs are full of cholesterol, the fish fillet is full of iodine. I'm going to order the only think I know won't hurt me. "Give me the dead cat," I'll say. "And hold the fries."
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