WEBVTT - McDonald’s Broke My Heart 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:18.556 --> 0:00:20.996 My parents didn't take us to fast food places when 0:00:20.996 --> 0:00:24.316 I was little. They thought they were an abomination. In 0:00:24.356 --> 0:00:26.836 any case, we didn't have a McDonald's back then in 0:00:26.876 --> 0:00:29.516 our little town, so it wasn't like I was confronted 0:00:29.556 --> 0:00:32.596 by the fact of French fries. They were some dimly 0:00:32.796 --> 0:00:36.556 understood concept, something that people out there somewhere did to 0:00:36.596 --> 0:00:43.476 a potato that somehow implicated the French. Then one day, 0:00:43.836 --> 0:00:47.636 after track practice, thirteen years old, I went to my 0:00:47.676 --> 0:00:52.076 first McDonald's. Have you ever seen a puppy encounter snow 0:00:52.156 --> 0:00:55.156 for the first time. He burrows his nose into it 0:00:55.356 --> 0:00:57.996 with this look of perplexity and sheer delight because he 0:00:58.076 --> 0:01:00.636 can't understand where this white thing came from that is 0:01:00.676 --> 0:01:04.236 both fluffy and cold. It was like that for me, 0:01:05.076 --> 0:01:08.316 a slice of potato, crispy on the outside, yet somehow 0:01:08.356 --> 0:01:12.636 pillowy soft on the inside. Right then and there, I 0:01:12.716 --> 0:01:17.036 gave my heart to McDonald's, and then McDonald's broke it. 0:01:21.236 --> 0:01:24.596 My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, 0:01:24.676 --> 0:01:31.156 my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This week, I'm 0:01:31.196 --> 0:01:34.716 on a mission to understand why McDonald's betrayed me so 0:01:34.836 --> 0:01:45.196 many years ago. Our story begins in a nondescript office 0:01:45.236 --> 0:01:48.876 park in Foster City, California, just south of San Francisco, 0:01:49.156 --> 0:01:52.356 a place called Matson, maybe the top food research and 0:01:52.396 --> 0:01:55.916 development house in the country, the Los Salamos of food science. 0:01:56.756 --> 0:01:59.476 I came here to walk back the cat, as they 0:01:59.476 --> 0:02:02.676 say in the intelligence business, to figure out what happened 0:02:02.716 --> 0:02:06.356 on July twenty third, nineteen ninety, the day McDonald's changed 0:02:06.396 --> 0:02:09.476 the recipe of their fries forever and turned in their 0:02:09.516 --> 0:02:11.036 backs on everything I once held. 0:02:11.076 --> 0:02:20.756 Dear, I'll go get. 0:02:20.556 --> 0:02:22.876 Another likes mort and then I'm just gonna take the 0:02:22.916 --> 0:02:23.676 temperature down to. 0:02:23.676 --> 0:02:27.596 The I said to Mattson, make me some fries the 0:02:27.676 --> 0:02:31.396 old way. Let's do a taste test modern fries versus 0:02:31.596 --> 0:02:33.196 original McDonald's fries. 0:02:33.996 --> 0:02:34.556 So we did. 0:02:34.996 --> 0:02:38.476 We ate them, sat there in the Matson conference room 0:02:38.636 --> 0:02:40.116 in a blissful food comma. 0:02:40.516 --> 0:02:45.636 These are I'm going back to the Those are King fries. 0:02:47.276 --> 0:02:49.716 Then we thought, let's call in some people too young 0:02:49.756 --> 0:02:52.116 to who ever tasted the old kind, just to make 0:02:52.116 --> 0:02:54.796 sure we weren't all dreaming that this wasn't some middle 0:02:54.836 --> 0:02:57.316 aged fantasy about how everything was better in the good 0:02:57.316 --> 0:02:57.916 old days. 0:02:58.716 --> 0:03:00.596 Do we have a millennial grab right away? 0:03:02.996 --> 0:03:08.756 Maybe quick before the fries get cold. We had the 0:03:08.756 --> 0:03:13.036 batches of fries in identical baskets, identified only by number 0:03:13.756 --> 0:03:18.516 six thirty seven, one, twenty eight, and seventy five. We 0:03:18.556 --> 0:03:21.996 lined up the millennials. Start here, go down the line. 0:03:22.196 --> 0:03:23.756 I want to know which one you. 0:03:23.756 --> 0:03:26.716 Like the best millennial French for Asbians. 0:03:26.796 --> 0:03:30.676 Yeah, this is the millennial French fried eating contest. 0:03:31.836 --> 0:03:33.396 We have three Just for the record, we have three 0:03:33.436 --> 0:03:34.436 millennials here, that's. 0:03:34.356 --> 0:03:38.396 Correct, twenty three, twenty eight, twenty five years of age. 0:03:38.796 --> 0:03:42.836 The food scientists of the future. They sample all three options. 0:03:43.116 --> 0:03:44.916 They all reach the same conclusion. 0:03:45.316 --> 0:03:48.716 I like this one. You like the first seven? 0:03:48.876 --> 0:03:49.036 Yeah? 0:03:49.276 --> 0:03:51.676 Yeah, okay, who's next? 0:03:52.156 --> 0:03:53.756 I also choose six thirty seven. 0:03:54.916 --> 0:03:57.356 I think I like I'm kind of torn between one, 0:03:57.436 --> 0:04:01.316 twenty eight and sixty three seven, but I think I 0:04:01.436 --> 0:04:03.716 like a six three seven slightly. 0:04:03.396 --> 0:04:08.276 Better, six thirty seven, six thirty seven. 0:04:13.636 --> 0:04:17.556 I've had the great opportunity to make a lot of 0:04:17.596 --> 0:04:21.196 money and do something with it. 0:04:20.756 --> 0:04:21.476 To help people. 0:04:22.796 --> 0:04:25.516 There was a time in America a generation ago when 0:04:25.516 --> 0:04:28.036 a man called Phil Sokoloff was a household name. 0:04:29.316 --> 0:04:33.116 My dad was just very intense, and he was a 0:04:33.156 --> 0:04:35.556 lovely person, but very intense. 0:04:36.196 --> 0:04:38.756 That's Karen Javic, Phil Sokoloff's daughter. 0:04:38.996 --> 0:04:41.356 It's hard to explain it. You have to experience it. 0:04:41.916 --> 0:04:45.276 I mean the man that bought his business from him. Okay, 0:04:45.676 --> 0:04:49.556 my dad would talk a lot. This guy would sit 0:04:49.596 --> 0:04:52.796 with my dad for hours. And this was an accountant. 0:04:52.836 --> 0:04:54.916 He knew so many people around Oman, and he came 0:04:54.956 --> 0:04:59.156 to me, he said, your father is the most intense 0:04:59.276 --> 0:05:01.396 person I have ever met. 0:05:01.836 --> 0:05:05.396 Sokoloff started the business making cornerbad which is the metal 0:05:05.396 --> 0:05:08.676 bracing that you use when you installed drywall. He noticed 0:05:08.716 --> 0:05:12.276 that it was really expensive, decided he could make it cheaper. 0:05:12.516 --> 0:05:16.516 And he just found this niche that you know, just 0:05:16.676 --> 0:05:18.396 happened to make a lot of money. And he was 0:05:18.516 --> 0:05:20.676 very driven and he knew he'd make a lot of money. 0:05:20.716 --> 0:05:23.436 But once he made his money, and then he sort 0:05:23.436 --> 0:05:25.356 of got tired of the business and he knew he 0:05:25.396 --> 0:05:27.196 wanted to try and do something to help people. 0:05:28.036 --> 0:05:31.796 Then Sokoloff had a heart attack. He was forty three years. 0:05:31.596 --> 0:05:34.076 Old and he was in good shape. The only thing 0:05:34.116 --> 0:05:37.636 he did wrong was he didn't eat right and he 0:05:37.676 --> 0:05:39.316 had a high cholesterol. 0:05:39.516 --> 0:05:42.316 When you say he didn't eat well. Were what was 0:05:42.356 --> 0:05:42.836 he like. 0:05:42.796 --> 0:05:47.596 Before the Yeah he was then. He always said he 0:05:47.716 --> 0:05:51.276 ate too much chili, he ate too much meat, too 0:05:51.356 --> 0:05:55.316 many fats, and high cholesterol. Though also is genetic, he 0:05:55.356 --> 0:05:56.756 had heart problems in his family. 0:05:57.156 --> 0:06:00.436 He was really shaken by this, by this heart attack. 0:06:00.836 --> 0:06:05.596 Yeah, oh, this totally devastated him. Never ever expected this 0:06:05.636 --> 0:06:07.476 to happen. And when you're forty three, you know, you 0:06:07.476 --> 0:06:11.476 think you're gonna live forever. And this really changed his 0:06:11.636 --> 0:06:13.476 life totally. 0:06:13.596 --> 0:06:16.276 Sokolov's doctors tell him his diet and his high cholesterol 0:06:16.316 --> 0:06:19.076 levels put him at risk for more heart attacks, so 0:06:19.116 --> 0:06:22.316 he decides to do something about it, not just for himself, 0:06:22.556 --> 0:06:26.356 but for everyone. He starts a crusade. He wants to 0:06:26.396 --> 0:06:30.476 save America from saturated fat, the alleged culprit in high cholesterol. 0:06:31.516 --> 0:06:35.276 Skoaloff pays to have cholesterol tests for thousands of Nebraskans. 0:06:35.756 --> 0:06:38.036 He goes to Capitol Hill and does the same thing 0:06:38.196 --> 0:06:41.756 for ten thousand people who work there, including seventy senators. 0:06:42.316 --> 0:06:45.276 He starts campaigns to get low fat milk in school lunches. 0:06:45.716 --> 0:06:47.996 He buys full page ads in the Wall Street Journal 0:06:47.996 --> 0:06:50.076 and The New York Times and The Washington Post with 0:06:50.276 --> 0:06:54.356 huge scary headlines. One year, he buys a two point 0:06:54.396 --> 0:06:57.636 five million dollar ad. During the Super Bowl, he takes 0:06:57.636 --> 0:07:00.756 over a billboard in Times Square to say, cut fat, 0:07:00.876 --> 0:07:07.156 intake and live longer. This campaign that he was involved in, 0:07:07.516 --> 0:07:10.316 he's spent an enormous amount of his own money on this. 0:07:10.836 --> 0:07:14.076 Yeah, he really did. I'm not sure how much. Whether 0:07:14.156 --> 0:07:17.476 it was fourteen fifteen million, I can't remember. 0:07:17.636 --> 0:07:17.956 Wow. 0:07:18.196 --> 0:07:20.316 Yeah, which thirty years ago is a lot of money, 0:07:20.396 --> 0:07:20.876 A lot of. 0:07:20.836 --> 0:07:23.116 Money it still is. I remember my aunt telling me 0:07:23.196 --> 0:07:24.916 he's spending all of your inheritance. 0:07:31.756 --> 0:07:34.596 Sokoloff was un Phil Donahue, the Nightly News. 0:07:35.356 --> 0:07:37.916 For most of us, cholesterol was a private affair. But 0:07:38.156 --> 0:07:40.996 an Omaha man has made it a public crusade, and 0:07:41.036 --> 0:07:44.196 he is spending a personal fortune going after what he 0:07:44.276 --> 0:07:47.316 thinks are the fountains of fat in America. 0:07:48.076 --> 0:07:52.196 The fountains of fat. Sokoloff goes to the source. He 0:07:52.276 --> 0:07:54.876 finds a way to personally lobby the CEOs of big 0:07:54.916 --> 0:08:00.316 food companies Kellogg, Ralston, Purina, Pillsbury. How on earth he 0:08:00.356 --> 0:08:03.356 got through? No one seems to know. When he called 0:08:03.436 --> 0:08:07.916 up some of these executives at big food companies. What 0:08:07.956 --> 0:08:10.676 was he saying to them? Is he charming them? Was 0:08:10.676 --> 0:08:13.036 he browbeating them? Was he I'm just curious about what 0:08:13.116 --> 0:08:14.596 kind of conversations were going on. 0:08:15.036 --> 0:08:20.636 Yeah, I think it was that he was eventually browbeating them. 0:08:22.156 --> 0:08:24.276 I hate to say that. I mean, I think he 0:08:24.396 --> 0:08:27.116 was charming at first, but then he got down to business, like, 0:08:27.236 --> 0:08:29.876 you know, you need to take this product out of 0:08:29.916 --> 0:08:33.756 your cereal or I'm gonna, you know, come forth with 0:08:33.316 --> 0:08:36.796 the big ad, you know, And he did it, and 0:08:36.836 --> 0:08:38.996 he got them to take the product out. They were, 0:08:39.116 --> 0:08:41.476 I'm sure very surprised. They called him, you know, David 0:08:41.516 --> 0:08:45.396 and Goliath. He's the little David taking on these big 0:08:45.516 --> 0:08:48.196 food companies. He loved that that they said that about him. 0:08:49.716 --> 0:08:54.716 Then it happens, and maybe it was inevitable. Phil Sokoloff 0:08:54.836 --> 0:08:58.436 goes after McDonald's, the biggest prize of them all. 0:08:58.756 --> 0:09:01.276 A full page newspaper ad that ran in many parts 0:09:01.316 --> 0:09:03.196 of the country yesterday is giving new meaning to the 0:09:03.236 --> 0:09:04.276 term big mac attack. 0:09:04.996 --> 0:09:09.076 They've been cooking their fries in beef tallow animal fat, 0:09:09.236 --> 0:09:10.956 decides they have to stop. 0:09:11.196 --> 0:09:14.076 The ad is headlined the Poisoning of America and it 0:09:14.116 --> 0:09:17.316 accuses McDonald's of selling burgers and fries that are loaded 0:09:17.316 --> 0:09:20.556 with fat. McDonald's denies the charges in the ad, which 0:09:20.596 --> 0:09:24.556 it calls reckless, misleading, and intended to scare rather than informed. 0:09:24.996 --> 0:09:27.796 Sokoloff is all over the media, the lone guy from 0:09:27.836 --> 0:09:31.316 Omaha up against the mightiest fast food company in history. 0:09:31.756 --> 0:09:33.076 It's riveting live TV. 0:09:33.516 --> 0:09:35.676 Phil Sokoloff is the man who places the ad. He's 0:09:35.676 --> 0:09:38.036 a Nebraska businessman and the president of his group, which 0:09:38.036 --> 0:09:39.876 he calls the National Heart Savers Association. 0:09:40.316 --> 0:09:42.196 Here he is on Good Morning America. 0:09:42.316 --> 0:09:44.716 Also with us is Dick Starman, his senior vice president 0:09:44.916 --> 0:09:47.276 of McDonald's. Gentlemen, good morning to both of you, Maritans. 0:09:47.316 --> 0:09:49.276 And we're really on the same site. We just go 0:09:49.356 --> 0:09:49.716 about it. 0:09:49.716 --> 0:09:50.796 They're on the same site. 0:09:50.796 --> 0:09:53.356 And exactly, I don't want people to eat your hamburgers, 0:09:53.356 --> 0:09:55.716 they're too fat, but we want people to eat lean, browerboth. 0:09:55.796 --> 0:09:57.996 I'm concerned about diet and healthy food. 0:09:58.476 --> 0:10:02.436 America is watching and mighty McDonald's and the giant killer 0:10:02.476 --> 0:10:06.636 from Omaha are going at it tooth and nail. Sokoloff shouts, 0:10:06.836 --> 0:10:09.156 that's not true. Your fries are cooked in at on 0:10:09.196 --> 0:10:12.876 the fat the McDonald's guy gets flustered, tries to say something. 0:10:13.236 --> 0:10:15.036 Sokoloff doesn't let him finish. 0:10:15.796 --> 0:10:20.676 Vegetable and they are beef Tello or a mere company. 0:10:20.876 --> 0:10:21.956 It's what do we have it now? 0:10:23.156 --> 0:10:25.196 Pople send all of our red just took. 0:10:24.996 --> 0:10:28.556 Out chicken skin out of their chicken McNugget three weeks ago. 0:10:28.716 --> 0:10:30.236 Tell them about the egg mcmuffins. 0:10:30.236 --> 0:10:32.596 Tell them about your the beef tallow and your French rice. 0:10:32.636 --> 0:10:34.156 Tell and on it goes. 0:10:35.996 --> 0:10:39.956 McDonald's calls in lawyers. They send threatening letters to newspapers 0:10:40.196 --> 0:10:42.756 warning them not to run any more of Sokoloff's ads, 0:10:43.156 --> 0:10:46.396 But that just winds up Socoloff even more. He loves 0:10:46.436 --> 0:10:48.956 a good fight, so he runs another round of ads, 0:10:49.316 --> 0:10:54.236 and finally McDonald's surrenders. July twenty third, nineteen ninety, they 0:10:54.276 --> 0:10:59.276 quietly announced no more beef Tello. Just recently, I got 0:10:59.316 --> 0:11:02.396 in contact with Dick Starman, the McDonald's executive who went 0:11:02.436 --> 0:11:04.396 toe to toe with Bill Soakoloff. 0:11:03.916 --> 0:11:04.596 On Network TV. 0:11:05.356 --> 0:11:09.116 I wanted to know what happened inside McDonald's headquarters after 0:11:09.236 --> 0:11:11.716 Socoloff came at them. Did they have a picture of 0:11:11.796 --> 0:11:13.956 him with a bull's eye on it? How was it 0:11:13.996 --> 0:11:17.996 that a company making mass produced milkshakes, hamburgers, and deep 0:11:18.036 --> 0:11:21.396 fried potatoes was somehow sensitive to the charge that they 0:11:21.396 --> 0:11:25.236 were making unhealthy food that kind of thing. He didn't 0:11:25.236 --> 0:11:27.996 want to talk. Maybe it's still a sore point after 0:11:28.076 --> 0:11:31.876 all these years. All we know is McDonald's gave in. 0:11:32.636 --> 0:11:35.996 They folded, and once they folded, everyone else did too. 0:11:36.916 --> 0:11:39.556 Wendy's announced they were going with one hundred percent corn oil. 0:11:40.156 --> 0:11:42.956 Burger King said they would switch to cottonseed in soybean. 0:11:43.676 --> 0:11:47.036 I look at my dad as being a powerful man, 0:11:47.076 --> 0:11:49.636 and it was like, whenever I was with him, was 0:11:49.676 --> 0:11:52.516 like I knew nothing bad would happened to me. He 0:11:52.556 --> 0:11:55.436 was just like kept me safe. You know. I think 0:11:55.756 --> 0:11:59.236 girls tend to think that about their dads anyway, but 0:11:59.596 --> 0:12:01.036 he was. He was powerful. 0:12:05.196 --> 0:12:09.076 Because this has consequences for all of us, I feel 0:12:09.236 --> 0:12:14.116 I have to go back to the beginning. It all 0:12:14.156 --> 0:12:17.076 starts with a man named Ray Kroc. He made his 0:12:17.116 --> 0:12:20.796 living selling the five spindle multi mixer milkshake machine out 0:12:20.796 --> 0:12:24.756 of Chicago, and in nineteen fifty four he began hearing 0:12:24.796 --> 0:12:29.476 about a hamburger stand in San Bernardino, California. This particular 0:12:29.556 --> 0:12:32.396 restaurant he was told had no fewer than eight of 0:12:32.476 --> 0:12:35.716 his machines in operation, meaning that it could make forty 0:12:35.796 --> 0:12:40.716 milkshakes simultaneously. He couldn't believe that. He flew from Chicago 0:12:40.756 --> 0:12:44.756 to Los Angeles and drove to San Bernardino, sixty miles away, 0:12:44.956 --> 0:12:48.196 and sat in his car and just watched one happy customer. 0:12:48.236 --> 0:12:51.836 After another drive up, he goes up to a blonde 0:12:51.836 --> 0:12:54.596 and a yellow convertible and says, how often do you 0:12:54.636 --> 0:12:58.636 come here? And she says anytime I'm in the neighborhood. 0:12:59.076 --> 0:13:03.556 He realizes people are addicted. Next morning, he goes back 0:13:03.556 --> 0:13:07.276 and sits inside the kitchen, watching every move everyone there makes, 0:13:07.516 --> 0:13:11.876 the griddle man, the food prepared, everything done with military precision, 0:13:12.636 --> 0:13:15.836 and suddenly he has this vision of restaurants just like 0:13:15.916 --> 0:13:20.836 this all around the world. So he asks the two 0:13:20.836 --> 0:13:23.316 brothers who owned the place if he could buy their 0:13:23.356 --> 0:13:27.756 franchise rights. They said yes. Their names, of course, Dick 0:13:27.916 --> 0:13:32.476 and mac McDonald. Now why is Raycroc so smitten with 0:13:32.556 --> 0:13:36.076 McDonald's Not because of the burger. The burger is fine, 0:13:36.516 --> 0:13:39.796 but it's not any different from burgers anywhere else. It's 0:13:39.836 --> 0:13:43.476 because of the fries. Raycroc can't believe how good. They 0:13:43.516 --> 0:13:47.916 are golden brown, crispy on the outside, light and fluffy 0:13:47.956 --> 0:13:52.076 on the inside. Let me quote to you from Kroc's autobiography, 0:13:52.516 --> 0:13:57.236 the crucial passage. To most people, a french fried potato 0:13:57.436 --> 0:14:01.876 is a pretty uninspiring object. It's fodder, something to kill time, 0:14:01.956 --> 0:14:06.156 chewing between bites of hamburger and swallows of milkshake. That's 0:14:06.356 --> 0:14:10.436 your ordinary French fry. The mc donald's French fry was 0:14:10.476 --> 0:14:13.836 in an entirely different league. They lavished attention on it. 0:14:14.356 --> 0:14:17.996 I didn't know it then, but one day I would too. 0:14:18.156 --> 0:14:21.916 The French fry would become almost sacrisanct to me, its 0:14:21.996 --> 0:14:28.236 preparation a ritual to be followed religiously. The McDonald's brothers 0:14:28.316 --> 0:14:32.436 used top quality eight ounce Idaho Russets peeled soaked in 0:14:32.516 --> 0:14:35.236 cold water, then deep fried in something Crock would come 0:14:35.276 --> 0:14:38.276 to call Formula forty seven, which was a special beef 0:14:38.316 --> 0:14:46.116 tallow mix. Formula forty seven was what's called a hard fat. 0:14:46.556 --> 0:14:49.396 Butter is a hard fat lard, which is pork fat 0:14:49.596 --> 0:14:53.956 is a hard fat. Hard fats are saturated fats. From 0:14:54.036 --> 0:14:57.676 time immemorial, practically every culture in the world has used 0:14:57.676 --> 0:15:01.436 hard fats for baking and cooking For good reason. Hard 0:15:01.476 --> 0:15:05.076 fats are stable, they don't undergo strange chemical changes when 0:15:05.076 --> 0:15:08.916 they're heated, and they're thick and creamy, not oily and fluid, 0:15:09.156 --> 0:15:12.836 which makes a big difference. You put butter on a 0:15:12.836 --> 0:15:15.716 slice of bread, it stays nice and thick on the surface. 0:15:16.036 --> 0:15:18.476 You put vegetable oil on bread and the next thing 0:15:18.516 --> 0:15:23.436 you know, your nice, firm slices turned to mush When 0:15:23.516 --> 0:15:26.196 Nibisco took saturated fat out of the creamy middle of 0:15:26.196 --> 0:15:28.396 the Oreo cookie. The R and D was like the 0:15:28.436 --> 0:15:33.156 Apollo space program. The greatest mines in food engineering had 0:15:33.196 --> 0:15:35.036 to sit down and try and figure out how to 0:15:35.116 --> 0:15:38.396 keep the white part from turning into a slippery, oily mass. 0:15:40.596 --> 0:15:43.516 When Ray Kroc said that the French fry was sacrisanc 0:15:43.596 --> 0:15:46.276 to him, what he meant was that every element of 0:15:46.316 --> 0:15:50.756 its preparation was chosen for a reason, chosen because it 0:15:50.836 --> 0:15:58.476 made for the optimal French fry experience. Kroc has a 0:15:58.516 --> 0:16:00.836 line in his autobiography where he talks about how the 0:16:00.916 --> 0:16:03.556 McDonald's brothers taught him never to cook French fries in 0:16:03.636 --> 0:16:06.316 fat that had been previously used to cook anything else 0:16:06.676 --> 0:16:10.116 like fried chicken, any restaurant will deny it, he writes, 0:16:10.316 --> 0:16:13.796 but almost all of them do it. But Croc he listened, 0:16:14.156 --> 0:16:16.116 and right from the beginning he put his foot down 0:16:16.396 --> 0:16:19.676 there would be no cross contamination of the McDonald's cooking oil. 0:16:20.316 --> 0:16:23.756 That's someone who truly cares about French fries. That's the 0:16:23.876 --> 0:16:28.556 legacy he created under the golden arches. And then all 0:16:28.596 --> 0:16:31.556 of a sudden, this random guy from Omaha puts a 0:16:31.596 --> 0:16:38.916 gun to McDonald's head and says, change or else. McDonald's 0:16:38.996 --> 0:16:41.716 challenge was to find a way to replace a hard 0:16:41.756 --> 0:16:45.756 fat with a liquid fat, and liquid fats are less 0:16:45.756 --> 0:16:49.116 than ideal in a deep frier. That's problem number one. 0:16:49.236 --> 0:16:52.516 The first replacement oil in McDonald's experiments with is a 0:16:52.516 --> 0:16:55.636 cottonseed in corn oil blend, but that turns out to 0:16:55.636 --> 0:16:58.516 be really high in something called trans fat, and it's 0:16:58.556 --> 0:17:02.636 not long before everyone realizes that trans fats are way, way, 0:17:02.756 --> 0:17:06.116 way worse few than animal fats. It's not even close. 0:17:06.836 --> 0:17:10.156 So in two thousand and two, McDonald's change the oils again, 0:17:10.436 --> 0:17:13.956 cutting the trans fat in half. Six years later they 0:17:14.036 --> 0:17:16.396 have to switch yet again, this time to get rid 0:17:16.396 --> 0:17:19.916 of all the trans fat. Then there's a problem that 0:17:20.036 --> 0:17:23.716 vegetable oils aren't nearly as stable as hard fats. All 0:17:23.796 --> 0:17:26.116 kinds of nasty things happen when you heat them up. 0:17:26.716 --> 0:17:29.556 The deep frier suddenly becomes a kind of witches cauldron 0:17:29.876 --> 0:17:31.636 spewing dangerous elements. 0:17:31.956 --> 0:17:34.956 There's a big cloud of electrons there and it can 0:17:35.036 --> 0:17:37.596 react with the oxygen that might be present in the 0:17:37.676 --> 0:17:39.276 oil or above the surface. 0:17:39.836 --> 0:17:43.396 Gerald McNeil, he's global vice president for fats, oil and 0:17:43.516 --> 0:17:47.596 Nutrition for Lotus Croklin, a big multinational. He's part of 0:17:47.596 --> 0:17:48.756 big cooking oil. 0:17:49.156 --> 0:17:51.996 And that will start degrading the oil very rapidly, and 0:17:52.396 --> 0:17:56.676 certainly the breakdown products have a lot of aldehydes as 0:17:56.716 --> 0:18:04.156 a byproduct, and aldehydes they attack the proteins and DNA 0:18:04.276 --> 0:18:05.156 you know in our bodies. 0:18:06.356 --> 0:18:08.196 You don't really want to know what the current thinking 0:18:08.276 --> 0:18:11.756 is on aldehydes, trust me, but in case you do, 0:18:12.476 --> 0:18:18.036 it's a l D e hydes. Google that and the 0:18:18.076 --> 0:18:21.116 words scary. 0:18:21.276 --> 0:18:25.756 So while the big companies that are touting probably unsaturated 0:18:25.836 --> 0:18:28.716 or else and saying they're healthy, well, as soon as 0:18:28.756 --> 0:18:30.756 you put them in a fryer, it's the last thing 0:18:30.756 --> 0:18:31.396 you want to eat. 0:18:32.476 --> 0:18:35.596 Crazy stories when around the industry, as the fast food 0:18:35.636 --> 0:18:38.156 chain struggle to figure out how to make these vegetable 0:18:38.156 --> 0:18:41.316 oil mixes work. Turns out that after a lot of frying, 0:18:41.436 --> 0:18:43.316 a kind of paint would form in the fryer. 0:18:43.916 --> 0:18:46.276 And what happens is it breaks down in the fryer 0:18:47.076 --> 0:18:49.876 and then you know, fumes come out and it goes 0:18:49.876 --> 0:18:53.676 all around the restaurant, let's say in McDonald's, and the 0:18:53.796 --> 0:18:57.436 surface of the furniture is sticky because this stuff that 0:18:57.476 --> 0:18:59.516 they call a mist, you know, comes out because of 0:18:59.516 --> 0:19:00.596 the breakdown products. 0:19:00.836 --> 0:19:03.756 The myst gets on everything, including the uniforms of the 0:19:03.756 --> 0:19:07.596 fry station workers, which creates a nightmare when the overalls 0:19:07.636 --> 0:19:08.876 have to be laundered. 0:19:08.716 --> 0:19:11.876 And they went into the truck, you know, to go 0:19:11.916 --> 0:19:16.396 off to be cleaned. Sometimes just by piling the coats 0:19:16.436 --> 0:19:21.236 on top of each other, those coats would spontaneously combust 0:19:21.316 --> 0:19:24.836 and go on fire. Because the breakdown products from the 0:19:24.836 --> 0:19:27.956 oil were highly flammable. 0:19:28.156 --> 0:19:35.036 They would spontaneously combust. The point is that this is 0:19:35.076 --> 0:19:38.596 not some trivial matter. It's not if you order a 0:19:38.636 --> 0:19:41.636 fried egg in a restaurant, you don't stipulate the medium 0:19:41.636 --> 0:19:43.436 in which you would like the egg to be cooked. 0:19:43.996 --> 0:19:46.276 It doesn't matter that much. A fried egg is a 0:19:46.316 --> 0:19:49.156 fried egg. But think for a moment about what a 0:19:49.196 --> 0:19:52.596 French fry is. You start with a potato, and a 0:19:52.636 --> 0:19:56.356 potato is basically starch and water, maybe eighty percent water. 0:19:56.916 --> 0:19:59.716 You plunge the potato into a vat of cooking oil, 0:19:59.996 --> 0:20:02.676 and the heat of the oil turns the water inside 0:20:02.676 --> 0:20:06.356 the potato into steam. That steam is the key to 0:20:06.396 --> 0:20:09.716 the fry. First, it makes the heart hard starch of 0:20:09.756 --> 0:20:13.556 the potato swell and soften, which is why the interior 0:20:13.596 --> 0:20:16.236 of a fry is so fluffy and light. At the 0:20:16.236 --> 0:20:19.836 same time, the steam rising from inside the fry keeps 0:20:19.836 --> 0:20:22.556 the cooking oil on the surface of the fry instead 0:20:22.596 --> 0:20:25.316 of seeping into the middle. That's why a fry is 0:20:25.356 --> 0:20:31.156 brown and crisp on the outside. Elizabeth Rosen once whatt 0:20:31.196 --> 0:20:34.316 a great book called The Primal Cheeseburger, where she calls 0:20:34.356 --> 0:20:37.836 the French fry the quote near perfect enactment of the 0:20:37.916 --> 0:20:41.276 enriching of a starch food with oil or fat. And 0:20:41.316 --> 0:20:45.356 she's absolutely right. You can add fat to potatoes without 0:20:45.396 --> 0:20:48.676 deep frying. That's called mashed potatoes. But at the end 0:20:48.716 --> 0:20:52.716 of the day, mashed potatoes are just mush. They don't 0:20:52.716 --> 0:20:55.796 have that crucial contrast between the fluffy and the crispy. 0:20:56.676 --> 0:20:59.396 The point is that the oil in which you deep 0:20:59.436 --> 0:21:02.436 fry the French fry is not incidental to the creation 0:21:02.556 --> 0:21:06.156 of the French fry. A French fry is by definition 0:21:06.516 --> 0:21:09.476 a potato derivative in which the water has has been 0:21:09.556 --> 0:21:13.196 replaced with fat. The fat is as much a constituent 0:21:13.276 --> 0:21:16.316 of the French fry as the potato. So when you 0:21:16.436 --> 0:21:19.676 change the oil in a French fry from hard to liquid, 0:21:19.716 --> 0:21:25.436 fat from saturated to unsaturated, you change the French fry. 0:21:25.556 --> 0:21:30.476 In nineteen ninety, McDonald started serving us a different product. 0:21:34.076 --> 0:21:36.516 That's why I had to go to the food scientists 0:21:36.796 --> 0:21:37.396 at Matson. 0:21:38.316 --> 0:21:40.836 So we're here in what we call the Matson Food Lab, 0:21:41.596 --> 0:21:45.716 and we are getting ready to fry some French fries, 0:21:45.876 --> 0:21:47.476 and so we have a standard. 0:21:47.516 --> 0:21:49.876 When you walk into Matson, you think you're at an 0:21:49.876 --> 0:21:53.076 accounting firm. There's a lot of beige carpeting and a 0:21:53.076 --> 0:21:56.516 big bland conference room. Then you go down the corridor 0:21:56.796 --> 0:21:59.316 and you see lots of people in white coats. You 0:21:59.396 --> 0:22:01.756 turn a corner and start to smell all kinds of 0:22:01.796 --> 0:22:04.876 strange things. All of a sudden, you're in a big 0:22:05.036 --> 0:22:08.396 kitchen with lots of little beakers and weapons, great appliances. 0:22:09.196 --> 0:22:11.116 On the day I was there, they were testing some 0:22:11.236 --> 0:22:14.636 plant based milk prototypes. They had them all out on 0:22:14.676 --> 0:22:17.356 the counter in little cups. I got to sample them. 0:22:17.756 --> 0:22:19.916 There was one in particular with a nut flavor that 0:22:20.036 --> 0:22:21.036 was kind of fantastic. 0:22:21.196 --> 0:22:24.036 Carf fried and power and then beef. 0:22:24.076 --> 0:22:26.916 Tello Matson agreed to stage a taste test for me. 0:22:27.636 --> 0:22:29.796 They would get a batch of frozen fries from the 0:22:29.836 --> 0:22:32.796 same suppliers that the fast food chains use and they 0:22:32.796 --> 0:22:35.316 would cook them in vegetable oil, just how they cooked 0:22:35.316 --> 0:22:37.956 them in a McDonald's. They would also do a pre 0:22:38.116 --> 0:22:41.396 nineteen ninety French fry cooked in something as close as 0:22:41.436 --> 0:22:44.556 they can fined to formula forty seven, so I would 0:22:44.556 --> 0:22:47.916 get a chance to compare the contemporary French fry with 0:22:48.036 --> 0:22:51.596 something no McDonald's customer has tasted in a generation. 0:22:52.356 --> 0:22:57.316 So we have a standard food service to bay fryer. 0:22:57.676 --> 0:23:00.716 Do you know what temperature were frying at, by the way. 0:23:00.756 --> 0:23:04.396 Three sixty three fifty And what we've done in advance 0:23:04.396 --> 0:23:07.116 of you coming here is we filled the bins with 0:23:07.516 --> 0:23:10.196