re: The official fast food French fry power rankings

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McDonald’s fries are awesome. Probably their best item.

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He discovered that in 1992, McDonald's changed the way it made its fries. He explained:

"They went from frying them in beef tallow to frying them in some combination of vegetable oil. And as you dig into this, what you realize is that that is not an inconsequential move. It's not like when you're frying an egg where it doesn't really matter what you fry it in. A fried egg is a fried egg. A french fry is a combination of a potato and some kind of cooking element. The thing you fry it in becomes a constituent part of the fry."

Around that time, Gladwell said there was hysteria around saturated fat and McDonald's thought its business model would be doomed unless it was able to some how make its products seem healthier. But on this note, Gladwell said it was also wrong.

"It turns out to be false that vegetable oil is healthier for you than beef tallow," he said. "So not only did they destroy the french fry, they gave us something that was worse for us from a health perspective. So everything about it was a mistake."

And he hopes McDonald's admits its wrongs and changes the frying recipe back to the original.

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