The Fat Heads at CSPI

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has once again taken a stand. As always, it is controversial. And in the true spirit in which the organization was formed, they are not about to bend to mere popular opinion, or indeed, even to the facts.

The target of this Ralph Nader inspired group, as always, is food. The latest attack is against the mushroom cheeseburger served up in a number of restaurants which the Fib Finder will not name to save them any further embarrassment in this slanderous campaign.

Jayne Hurley, who dares to call herself the chief nutritionist at CSPI, has declared that one mushroom cheeseburger and an order of onion rings contain as much fat as

• five strips of bacon and
• four Dunkin' Donuts chocolate frosted donuts and
• three slices of Domino's Hand Tossed Pepperoni Pizza and
• two Dairy Queen banana splits and
• one Big Mac.

This story was widely reported by all the various media and no one questioned it. At a first reading it sounded so ridiculous that it was time for the Fib Finder to do some research.

The numbers presented here have been taken from The Fat Counter by Annette B. Natow, Ph.D. and Jo-Ann Heslin, M.A. They in turn collected their information largely from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Two million copies of this book are in print and it is widely regarded as an authoritative and fairly comprehensive text.

1. The fat content of bacon varies widely. There is no standard slice of bacon. The values reported range from 2 grams to 13 grams per slice. The average is about 3.5 grams, but we will generously give the CSPI the benefit of the doubt and consider the low value. Therefore, we will say that five strips of bacon contribute 10 grams of fat.

2. The chocolate frosted donut from Dunkin' Donuts contains 16 grams of fat. There is also a chocolate glazed donut available at 24 grams of fat each. We will again use the smaller value. Four of them adds 64 grams of fat to the total.

3. The CSPI cleverly did not specify the size of pizza used in their manipulations. A slice from a large Domino's Pepperoni Pizza contains 9 grams of fat while a slice from the same kind of pizza in small size has 7 grams. We will continue our generous ways and consider the small pizza. Three slices is an additional 21 grams of fat.

4. The banana split from Dairy Queen contains 11 grams of fat. There should be little argument that two of them would contribute 22 grams.

5. Finally, we have the Big Mac which contains 26 grams of fat.

As we add up the numbers, keep in mind that we have made the choices that result in the smallest possible value for these items. The total is 143 grams of fat.

It is interesting that the CSPI attacked the mushroom burger at no fewer than 13 different restaurants. And yet, somehow, they managed to avoid choosing a single one which appeared in The Fat Counter. The Fib Finder has written to CSPI for more information, but the request has so far gone unheeded. So here we have to guess a bit.

Only two mushroom cheeseburgers appear in The Fat Counter. One contains 42 grams of fat; the other has 27 grams. Since mushrooms contribute no calories at all, let us look a little further at cheeseburgers as well. Standard cheeseburgers range in fat between 11 and 18 grams of fat (based on four examples). Double cheeseburgers can be as high as 39 grams or as low as 23 grams of fat. The average of seven examples is 28 grams of fat. We will be sporting and use the 42 gram example.

We also have to make a guess about onion rings since the CSPI chose examples not in the book. Thirteen entries for onion rings were found . Fat content ranged between 3 grams and 38 grams of fat. The average value was 19 grams. We will keep things interesting and use the value of 38 grams.

The total for the mushroom cheeseburger plus onion rings is 80 grams of fat in the worst case. Compare that to the 143 grams of fat for the various items cited by the CSPI and you can see that they have erred by 180% at least.

Using more reasonable numbers the error soars to over 300%.

An error of this magnitude is not mere exaggeration. It is a flat out, bald faced lie. Shame on the CSPI for so shamelessly trying to scare the American Public. And shame on us for accepting this preposterous analysis unchallenged.