McDonald’s is known for many things, but one of its most iconic items may be its crispy, golden fries.
A staple on the fast food giant’s menu since its inception, the McDonald’s french fry was once its crowning glory, although it appears things have since changed.
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Canadian historian Malcolm Gladwell shared in a recent episode of his podcast Revisionist History that McDonald’s stopped using beef tallow to cook their fries during the 1990s, switching to vegetable oil over cholesterol fears. As a result, the taste of the fries changed, Gladwell argues, and not for the better.
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“They made the world’s greatest French Fry,” he said. “Then they threw it away.”
Gladwell shared that he ate his first McDonald’s fry in 1992 at the age of 13, and “Right then and there, I gave my heart to McDonald’s…Then McDonald’s broke it.”
The crusade against McDonald’s using beef tallow was led by Phil Sokolof, who became an advocate for low-cholesterol diets after suffering a heart attack at age 43. He spent millions slamming companies like McDonald’s for selling fat-heavy fries, and his tactics worked — McDonald’s eventually made the switch to vegetable oil, followed by fast-food giants like Wendy’s, who switched to corn oil, and Burger King.
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As it turns out, experts have since learned that vegetable oil may be more harmful than previously thought, as it contains trans fats, which are now considered more dangerous than saturated fats.
Gladwell explained that the oil fries are cooked in is integral to their taste, and it’s this switch he believes affected the quality of McDonald’s fries.
“So not only did they destroy the French fry, they gave us something that was worse for us from a health perspective,” he said. “So everything about it was a mistake.”
Photo Credit: Twitter / @McDonalds
