Add 81 grams of saturated fat and you wonder whether local health departments should require restaurants to have a defibrillator in case their patrons' tickers need a jump start. And so it goes. From stuffed potato skins to fried mozzarella sticks to Buffalo wings, the typical appetizer menu brings good business to fat farms and funeral parlors. 2 Cultivate a fear of frying. And that means a hefty dose of trans.
Seafood restaurants are a good example.
A typical order of fried clams or the fried seafood combo packs about 50 grams of fat, roughly ten of them trans and almost as many saturated. At chains like Red Lobster, fried shrimp, fried fish, fried anything means heart trouble. Its Original Recipe Chicken Dinner has seven grams of trans, mostly from the chicken and biscuit. Of course, one restaurant food probably delivers more trans fat to the nation's circulatory system than any other. Even if the chains use liquid oil in the restaurants, they rely on hydrogenated fats to par-fry the taters before shipping.