Fast Food Fat Levels Vary Significantly from Country to Country

We live in an era of obese children, in which a happy child is that one taken out weekly (at least) to the McDonald's. Not to mention what a disaster would be a birthday party not celebrated there... All this, while fast food chains mock on their clients with the worst food content...

At an international obesity conference kept on Monday in Budapest, a Danish team led by Professor Steen Stender signaled that the fat content in fast food meals delivered by the same chain can present extreme variations in different countries, with the highest fat content found in Eastern Europe.

"It is a "myth" that fast food meals are the same around the world," said the researchers from the University of Copenhagen in their research presented at the European Congress on Obesity.

The two years investigation focused on French fries and fried chicken at McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) outlets in 35 countries, and discovered particularly high amounts of industrially-produced trans fatty acids in Eastern European KFC restaurants.

In Eastern European countries like Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, these toxic fats represented about 29 to 34 % of the total fat content at KFC outlets while in India, Russia and Spain their level was below 2 % of the total fat content.

"The results show that the same product by the same provider can vary in fat calorie content by more than 40 % and in trans fat content by several orders of magnitude," revealed the Danish researchers, in whose country there is a ban on trans fats since 2004.

McDonald's products also presented high variations, from 20 % trans fat levels found in Oman to 15-16 % in London.

"A steady stream of papers showing how these fats interfered with the normal metabolism of the essential oils and altered cholesterol blood levels disadvantageously. So it is alarming that the food industry has paid so little attention to this and still includes trans fats in such astonishingly great amounts in fast foods," explained Professor Philip James, the chair of the International Obesity TaskForce.