If you believe McDonald’s fries don’t taste as good as they did when you were a child, there may be a reason for that.
McDonald’s stopped using beef tallow to cook their fries during the 1990s, Canadian historian Malcolm Gladwell has revealed.
And he claims that the switch from beef fat to vegetable oil changed the way McDonald’s fries taste forever.
McDonald’s serves 58 million customers every day around the world, with most of them buying its famous fries
McDonald’s stopped using beef tallow after bowing to pressure from health campaigners over cholesterol fears.
But Malcom believes that it not only destroyed the taste of the iconic fries forever, but didn’t make them any less unhealthy.
He said on an episode of his podcast Revisionist History: ‘They made the world’s greatest French fry. Then they threw it away.’
Malcolm ate his first McDonald’s fries in 1992 at the age of 13. He added: ‘Right then and there, I gave my heart to McDonald’s… Then McDonald’s broke it.’
McDonald’s started selling fries in 1940 when the McDonalds brothers opened the first ever restaurant in the US
The campaign against McDonald’s using beef tallow to fry their fries was led by Phil Sokolof, who was an advocate for healthier, low-cholesterol diets for Americans after having a heart attack at the age of just 43.
He spent a whopping $14 million slamming brands that sold unhealthy fast food such as McDonald’s, and founded the National Heart Savers Association in 1985.
By 1990, he had convinced McDonald’s to produce a hamburger that was lower in fat and cholesterol.
The fast food giant also switched from beef tallow to vegetable fat, as it is lower in saturated fat – making the fries vegetarian for the first time.
Phil told the New York Times in 1990: ‘I can’t say we’re going to tear down the golden arches by the year 2000, but I am confident that by the year 2000 they are going to be serving more healthful food.’
McDonald’s used to fry its fries in beef tallow but changed the recipe in 1990 after pressure from health campaigners
However health experts have since discovered that vegetable oil contains dangerous trans fats, which are now thought to be more harmful that saturated fats.
Malcolm told his podcast: ‘It’s not like when you’re frying an egg where it doesn’t really matter what you fry it in. A fried egg is a fried egg.
‘A French fry is a combination of a potato and some kind of cooking element. The thing you fry it in becomes a constituent part of the fry.”
He added: ‘It turns out to be false that vegetable oil is healthier for you than beef tallow.
‘So not only did they destroy the French fry, they gave us something that was worse for us from a health perspective. So everything about it was a mistake.
‘If they had any balls at all, they would turn around and say, “We were wrong, and we’re going back to fries the old way.”‘
FEMAIL has asked McDonald’s for comment.