Fast food has gone thin.
All of a sudden, many of the chains that have made their profits on the greasy backs of extra fries are racing to offer diet food. Or at the very least, detailed information at the counter about how many fats, carbs and calories are in the food they serve.
It's being called the inevitable — if counterintuitive — marriage of North Americans' twin obsessions of fast food and dieting. Not to mention a reaction by fast-food companies to threats of lawsuits from obese customers and to increased insurance premiums from insurers wary the claims will succeed.
The latest to jump on the trend is the ice-cream company Ben & Jerry's, which is set to announce today that it will tell consumers for the first time how many calories and fat are in its luscious products.
The move follows a letter from the public-interest law professor John Banzhaf, who recently pointed out in a registered letter to Ben & Jerry officials that the company may be legally liable for failing to provide nutritional information.
Prof. Banzhaf was the brains behind a spate of successful lawsuits against tobacco companies on behalf of smokers. He also helped make known the link between smoking and cancer. Two years ago, he turned his sights on the fat content in fast foods, saying information about it remains hidden to consumers.
He is using the same legal techniques that won the tobacco lawsuits to force fast-food restaurants to disclose exactly what they're serving, and in the process, fight the social costs of obesity.
But instead of trying to get people to stop eating fast foods, Prof. Banzhaf is urging fast-food companies to be nutritional leaders.
"Since, for better or for worse, we, because of our lifestyle, have gotten into the habit of eating fast food, then fast-food chains are one of the critical places where we can make a very important difference," Prof. Banzhaf said yesterday from Washington.
Earlier this week, the McDonald's chain announced a pilot project at 650 of its restaurants in the United States. Posters will tell customers how much fat, calories and carbohydrates are in its meals, and how to cut down on these by doing without biscuits or hash browns, for example.
And last week, the sandwich chain Subway, with 16,000 restaurants in the United States and 1,800 in Canada, began selling low-carbohydrate wraps that bear the full (and licensed) endorsement of the Atkins diet organization. Filled with chicken or turkey and bacon, and made of soy protein, wheat gluten and cornstarch, the wraps conform to the Atkins regime.
Subway also offers seven low-fat sandwiches and became famous in the late 1990s for advertising the stories of some obese customers — including college student Jared Fogle — who ate nothing but low-fat Subway sandwiches and lost weight.
Already, the Subway restaurants can hardly keep up with demand.
"We knew we had a hit on our hands, but we didn't think it would be like this," said Les Winograd, public-relations co-ordinator for the Subway chain.
What's the appeal?
"It's the battle of the bulge," Mr. Winograd said. "So many people are overweight. So many people are trying to lose weight."
Prof. Banzhaf said that insurers in Britain have begun raising premiums for fast-food chains because of potential claims by customers who are obese. He added that in a recent survey done by the Defence Bar of the United States, 60 per cent of the public agree that the fast-food industry is the major cause of obesity among children and would be apt to rule in favour of a fat plaintiff against a fast-food company.
A study published this week in the journal Pediatrics shows that nearly one in three children in the United States between the ages of 4 and 19 is likely to eat fast food, and that this increases a child's risk of obesity. A separate study in the International Journal of Obesity shows that 15 per cent of children between 2 and 19 in the United States were overweight in 1999, compared with 10 per cent in 1971. Figures in Canada are similar.
Mr. Winograd of the Subway chain said the decision to offer Atkins-blessed food was a direct result of the company's market research. He said 35 per cent of Americans surveyed said they were on a diet. Of those, just more than one-third said they were on a reduced-carbohydrate diet such as Atkins.
Not only that, but a poll done in September, 2003, throughout the United States found that one in every seven adults had either tried or was currently on a low-carbohydrate diet. That works out to roughly 32 million American adults. Proportions are thought to be similar in Canada.
The low-carb diet is such a rage that the U.S. bread industry had seen sales fall by 10 per cent in recent months, said Rena Mendelson, chairwoman of the board of Canada's National Institute of Nutrition.
But despite the focus on offering diet foods, salads and information, fast-food outlets are still only taking the first steps toward informing consumers, said nutritional consultant Barbie Casselman of Toronto.
She said some of the foods that consumers would expect to be lower in calories or fat are actually among the most loaded. A fish sandwich at McDonald's, for example, has twice the calories of the hamburger. And the taco salad at Taco Bell is the most heavyweight item on the menu.
