Suit Seeks to Ban Kids From Eating Oreos

Mon May 12, 2003

SAN FRANCISCO - Kids in California may have to give up their Oreos, if a lawsuit filed by a San Francisco public interest lawyer is successful.

The lawsuit, filed last week in Marin County superior court, seeks a ban on the black and white cookies, arguing the trans fats that make the filling creamy and the cookie crisp are too dangerous for children to eat.

Stephen Joseph said he filed the suit against Nabisco, the maker of Oreos, after reading articles that said the artificial fat is hidden in most packaged food, though consumers have no way of knowing.

The big difference between this suit and others that have targeted tobacco and McDonald's fast food is that consumers know that tobacco is bad for their health and that McDonald's food contains a lot of fat, Joseph said.

"Trans fat is not the same thing at all. Very few people know about it," he said, explaining that his suit focuses on the fact that trans fats are hidden dangers being marketed to children.

Nabisco officials were not immediately available for comment. They have 30 days from the May 5 filing date to respond to the suit.

The National Academy of Sciences (news - web sites)' Institute of Medicine (news - web sites), which advises the government on health policy, said last summer that this kind of fat should not be consumed at all. It is directly associated with heart disease and with LDL cholesterol, the 'bad' kind that accumulates in arteries.

But the U.S. Department of Agriculture (news - web sites) said partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, which contain trans fats, are present in about 40 percent of the food on grocery store shelves. Cookies, crackers, and microwave popcorn are the biggest carriers of trans fats, which are created when hydrogen is bubbled through oil to produce a margarine that doesn't melt at room temperature and increases the product's shelf life.

The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) has tried to force food companies to list trans fat content with other nutritional information on food packages, but manufacturers have challenged the rule. Even food labeled "low in cholesterol" or "low in saturated fats" may have high percentages of trans fats.

Informing customers about trans fats on food labels could prevent 7,600 to 17,100 cases of coronary heart disease and 2,500 to 5,600 deaths per year, the FDA has estimated.

Joseph said he has targeted Nabisco because, while other major snack food makers have reduced the amount of trans fats in their products, Nabisco has not.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...u=/ap/oreo_suit

OR...Nabisco could make the product trans-fat free.
Not that I'd eat them even then (WAY too high in sugar and carbs), but at least those that do choose to eat them would be getting one less thing that's bad for them.

Unfortunately, Kraft is resisting changing away from trans fats; see below.

Suit seeks ban on Oreo cookies

Tuesday, May 13, 2003 Posted: 5:57 AM EDT (0957 GMT)

link to article


SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- A lawyer who has spent much of his life enjoying Oreo cookies has sued Kraft Foods Inc. seeking to ban the much-loved cookies in California because they contain trans fat, an ingredient he calls inedible.

Kraft boasts that people have eaten 450 billion Oreo cookies since they introduced the chocolate wafer sandwich cookies with a creamy filling in 1912.

But if British-born attorney Stephen Joseph has his way, that culinary love affair will come to an end, at least until Kraft stops using hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils to make the cookies.

Kraft calls the suit filed in Marin County Superior Court just north of San Francisco baseless but Joseph says he is taking advantage of a provision of the California civil code that holds manufacturers liable for common products if not "known to be unsafe by the ordinary consumer."

The ingredient is used in thousands and thousands of products. In an interview on Monday, Joseph said, "I am probably full of hydrogenated fat because until two years ago I didn't know about it. I resent the fact that I have been eating that stuff all my life."

Hydrogenation adds hydrogen gas to vegetable oil, helping to solidify it into products such as margarine. Health experts say the process makes them as unhealthy as real butter, if not more so, as the hydrogenated fats act like cholesterol in the body. Trans fats are common in cookies and crackers and part of both the cookie and filling in Oreos.

'Shocking' case
"That's what's so shocking; that it has been so well hidden," said Joseph, who has set up an advocacy group called BanTransFats.com Inc. "I hope if nothing else comes of this lawsuit that more people know about trans fat than before."

Kraft says it is already testing alternatives to trans fats but said they will vigorously fight the lawsuit.

Its parent company Altria Group Inc. is also the owner of cigarette maker Philip Morris USA, itself no stranger to legal battles over product safety.

"We know the importance of good nutrition and we are committed to helping people lead a healthy lifestyle, but we have no choice than to draw the line against baseless lawsuits like this," Michael Mudd, Kraft's senior vice president for corporate affairs, said in an interview.

"We've been ... exploring ways to reduce trans fat in Oreos and those efforts are continuing," he continued. "You can make a cookie without trans fat but what you're trading off is the unique taste and texture that people have come to expect."

U.S. companies, the world masters in processed foods, are showing an awareness of trans fats. Frito-Lay, part of PepsiCo Inc., announced last year it would eliminate trans fats from snacks such as Doritos. McDonald's Corp. also said it would make French fries with less trans fat.

In February, a federal court threw out a lawsuit against McDonald's that claimed its burgers and fries cause obesity.

The commissioner for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said the agency will soon require labeling information about trans fats in foods.

Prey on consumers for their weaknesses and nostalgia... make a big buck. Cha-ching.

No kidding, Skamito.

Why not offer 2 versions - original, and no trans fat, and let people choose?

Maybe because offering a "healthier" version will cause people to think twice about the original? Can't give people that option, after all, I guess - might hurt sales.

I can only hope some enterprising competitors develop an alternative with sucralose and butter (or whatever) that kicks their asses.

Wasn't palm oil or coconut oil, which is naturally solid at room temperature, the fat of choice back in the days ? Can't they just go back to that.

Oreo have been around since 1912, has trans-fats?

Maybe they should go back to the original receipe if it was so successful.

I believe TFAs have been around since 1911. They were definitely around before 1953, because they have GRAS status...which basically means they did nto have to go through the FDA approval process. But, TFAs were the poor man's food until WWII. Due to rationing, more people began using TFAs. But, they didn't really take off until the 1970s when they decided Saturated Fat was bad for you.

McDonalds immediately changed from lard to Trans-Fatty oils. Numerous other companies changed around that time also. o, even if TFAs were around when Oreos first came out, it is unlikely they contained TFAs until the 40s or 70s.

I just saw this. Amazing.

Speaks for itself... Give me real butter, please!

;-Deb

Dragging Oreos into court

link to article

One thing you can say about California: We know threats to our health when we see them.

Car emissions. Cigarette smoke. Assault weapons. Motorcycle helmets. Protecting ourselves from ourselves is our mission.

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that we may become the first state to be saved from the Oreo. A lawsuit filed in San Francisco seeks a statewide ban on the sale of the popular brown and white cookie.

The suit charges that Oreos are bursting with hydrogenated (or trans) fats, which, in the great big world of saturated, unsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, are the ones most likely to make you dial 911. We're talking heart disease and clogged arteries. The coronary cookie.

The good news is that I have a new excuse to explain the first-round flame-out of my boys' soccer team last fall. The postgame snack-of-choice was Oreo six-packs, all around. The way I see it, the moms over-hydrogenated the players.

Not that Oreos are accused of being on the table of death by themselves. There are numerous culinary culprits causing waxy buildups in our cardiovascular systems. Many fast foods and baked goods are laced with trans fats, like french fries, crackers, potato chips, doughnuts and microwavable popcorn.

But the Oreo has been singled out, partly because its maker, Nabisco, allegedly failed to follow the lead of some other food producers and eliminate the hydrogenated fats, and partly because it is a high-profile icon an endearment of kidhood that also hitched a ride into our adulthoods.

We're past the point where we complain about such news. At this point, you have to assume that everything you breathe, eat, drink or do has the capacity to kill you.

We've been studying our diets so long that some things that at first we thought killed you faster than others, as it turns out, may even make you live longer. No-nos such as eggs, wine, butter, red meat, beer and chocolate have all been cleared by one "expert' or another. Bacon, for crying out loud, is an Atkins Diet staple.

Not so with hydrogenated fats. The Food and Drug Administration, which sets guidelines on safe levels of food products, suggests zero intake of trans fat.

I don't understand the precise scientific reasoning, but they are accused of raising the bad cholesterol, lowering the good cholesterol, stealing cars, robbing banks and bilking senior citizens out of retirement funds.

But what a shame the Oreo has to be the poster food for bad parenting.

It's a toy as much as a cookie. How many foods spawn debate about how you eat the thing. Do you twist it apart and scrape the cream filling off with your teeth, or do you just bite it? Do you dunk it in milk?

Hopefully the issue will go away soon. Nabisco says it has been exploring its non-hydrogenated fat options, and claims its reduced fat Oreo is only half as loaded as the regular. (Half a sleeve is half as sinful, too.)

In any case, it's game-on in California, the first state to drag the Cookie Monster into court.

Gregg Patton's column appears Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He also writes "Like Nowhere Else,' which appears occasionally. Readers may call him at (909) 386-3856, fax him at (909) 885-8741 or e-mail him at gregg.patton~sbsun.com.

Lawsuit dropped as Oreo looks to drop the fat
Wednesday, May 14, 2003 Posted: 8:46 PM EDT (0046 GMT)

Link to Story

SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) -- A lawsuit seeking to ban Kraft Foods from selling Oreos to children because the chocolate-cream cookies are allegedly unhealthy will be dropped, the San Francisco lawyer who filed the suit said Wednesday.

Stephen Joseph's suit alleged that Oreos are unhealthy because they contain trans fat, which the National Academy of Sciences has linked to heart disease.

Joseph said he will drop his lawsuit because he has learned that Kraft is working on ways to reduce trans fat in Oreos.

Kraft spokesman Michael Mudd confirmed the company has been working on ways to reduce trans fat in the cookie, including introducing a reduced fat version now on the market.

"This is not something that we've just started" in response to Joseph's lawsuit, he said.

"We're very pleased with Mr. Joseph's decision. We share his concern for public health, and we're doing our part," Mudd said.

Kraft boasts that people have eaten 450 billion Oreo cookies since they introduced the chocolate wafer sandwich cookies with a creamy filling in 1912.

Joseph aimed to force Kraft to stop using hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils to make the cookies.

He called Kraft's move to reduce trans fat in Oreos "a home run" in efforts to make the public more aware of the problem of trans fats in food products, as well as what he termed their "extremely negative effects" on human health.

Joseph said very few parents are aware that the partially hydrogenated soybean oil used as an ingredient in Oreos is a trans fat.

The ingredient is used in thousands and thousands of products. In an interview with CNN Monday, Joseph said, "I am probably full of hydrogenated fat because until two years ago I didn't know about it. I resent the fact that I have been eating that stuff all my life."

Hydrogenation adds hydrogen gas to vegetable oil, helping to solidify it into products such as margarine. Health experts say the process makes them as unhealthy as real butter, if not more so, as the hydrogenated fats act like cholesterol in the body. Trans fats are common in cookies and crackers and part of both the cookie and filling in Oreos.

Frito-Lay, part of PepsiCo Inc., announced last year it would eliminate trans fats from snacks such as Doritos. McDonald's Corp. also said it would make french fries with less trans fat.

In February, a federal court threw out a lawsuit against McDonald's that claimed its burgers and fries cause obesity.

The commissioner for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said the agency will soon require labeling information about trans fats in foods.

Now, if McDonald's would just remove the sugar and Corn Syrup they use in their French Fries...the MSG they use in the their Seasoning, the 3-4 different sugars they use in their dipping sauces...yet even with 3-4 sugars, HFCS is the first or second ingredient on all of them. They use 5-6 sugars in their Sweet & Sour Sauce and 3 of those are in the first 4 ingredients...HFCS being the first ingredient.

Oreos were originally made with lard rather than hydrogenated vegetable shortening like today. Not too long ago, in an attempt to make the Oreo more “healthy” I guess, or just cheaper, the lard/sugar center was replaced with that transfat/sugar goop in there now.

A quick search on the net found the following Oreo history/trivia:

A history of Hydrox and Oreo cookies

Hydrox today seems a rather unappetizing name for a yummy cookie. It sounds more like a fuel for your Scout-class starship in Traveller. Hydrox was introduced in 1908 by a company called Sunshine Biscuits. Sunshine wanted a cookie that synched with the name as well as capture a sense of purity. What was more pure than sun and water? Water was, of course, made up of hydrogen and oxygen, so Hydrox seemed a pretty sweet name.

In 1912, Nabisco released the look-alike Oreo. Nabisco, even then, was a large company. It dwarfed Sunshine Biscuits in terms of distribution channels and advertising budgets. It wasn't long before people came to think of Oreo as the original vanilla-goop-surrounded-by-two-chocolate-wafers cookies and Hydrox as some cheap knock-off brand that the downstairs help and French Canadians ate.

Similar in appearance, there was a chief, early difference between Hydrox and Oreo cookies. Hydrox was made from vegetable oil while Oreo cookies, for a long time, used lard. Although Oreo sales dwarfed Hydrox by about 300 to 1, Hydrox attracted an earnest cult following. Chief among Hydrox's followers were Jews who couldn't eat lard-based Oreos but could eat Hydrox and keep kosher. Later Hydrox attracted vegetarians.

In 1996 Keebler, those bastard elves, bought Sunshine Biscuits and retired the brand. A few years later they changed the recipe and released a wafers-goop-surrounded-by-two-chocolate-wafers cookie called "Droxies". Though the name seemed more whimsical and in keeping with the company notion that obese stunted tree elves bake their products, the Droxies name only managed to confuse most consumers. Where as many thought Hydrox was a cheap knock off of Oreo, many today believe Droxies to be a cheap knock off of Hydrox.

And here is a little more Oreo history/trivia >>> http://www.culturefreak.com/oreo.html

Here is a little interesting history on hydrogenated vegetable oils and Crisco in particular >>>
http://www.westonaprice.org/know_yo...ats_crisco.html

"Kraft boasts that people have eaten 450 billion Oreo cookies since they introduced the chocolate wafer sandwich cookies with a creamy filling in 1912. "


I like how Kraft (and other companies) keep repeating this. As if people having eaten 450 million Oroeo cookies since 1912 somehow makes them safe!

And the earlier poists were right: Oreos were originally made with lard and other cookies were either made with lard or coconut oil. There was a type of vegetable shortening available then, but it was made of lard and coconut oil--not partially hydrogenated vegetable oils which came later.

Another link to add is Dr. Mary Enig's site on Trans-Fats:

http://www.enig.com.