Remember when we wrote about the fact that KFC was cutting out trans fat from its food in all its American outlets and we said that this would put pressure on the other fast food giants to do the same? We’ll it looks like that is happening already and Europe is taking the lead with McDonald's Corporation announcing that it is going to reduce trans fat levels by changing cooking oils so that the total trans fat content will not be more than 2% in total.

In Europe McDonald’s has some 6,300 outlets and so the impact on obesity and on health by reducing the trans fat level should be significant. McDonald Corp said that the change over from using the old partially hydrogenated oils to canola and sunflower oil which has a higher concentration of oleic acids should be ready by the middle of 2008. The idea is that the new oils to be used will be 100% natural.

Trans fats are the new targets for anti-obesity campaigners who say that the high concentration of this type of fat in the food can block arteries and eventually cause heart attacks. Trans fats are not completely man made as they do also appear in some dairy products and meat, but it is the use of these artificial cooking oils in big restaurant chains that really is a big problem.

The new cooking oil will not be suddenly used overnight but will be part of an gradual changeover process. The first countries that will get the new cooking oil are to be Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland.

In America where McDonalds has 13,000 restaurants it looks like they will also be using natural oils soon but the huge demand for this new oil that will be created will mean that suppliers will have to work to meet the demand.

Ukmedix welcomes the initiative shown by McDonald’s and is a great believer in cooking and eating natural foods.