Walking through the kitchen of Coastal Flats in Tysons Corner during the lunchtime rush, it would seem this restaurant is operating much like any other eatery in the area. Chefs are flipping filets, servers are rushing out to the floor juggling multiple plates, yet, a fundamental change that has taken roughly three years to accomplish has finally been realized unbeknownst to many of the patrons. The menu is entirely trans fat free.
“It was because of the trans fat issue, but we didn’t have a grand master plan,” said Randy Norton, CEO of the Falls Church-based company Great American Restaurants, which owns seven restaurant chains in the area, including Coastal Flats, Sweet Water Tavern, Artie’s, Mike’s American and Best Buns Bread Company. “We just started chipping away at it. Occasionally we had guests that asked questions but they were focused more on the obvious: oils. But so many things we were buying, we found, had trans fat.”
Initially, Norton says the restaurants focused on finding a trans fat free oil for their fryers, settling on Canola oil, but after accomplishing this the owners began realizing just how difficult it was get trans fat out of the kitchen.
“We use frozen french fries in our restaurants,” said Norton. “But they were already blanched in trans fat.”
This led to one of the biggest challenges in gradually phasing out trans fat — convincing, or switching to, food vendors that used healthy alternatives. Norton believes that much of the success was due to pressure from within the food industry.
“We would have had no success if it wasn’t an industry focus,” he said. “Sometimes we switched vendors because they couldn’t adapt. It’s really more the effort involved in getting the vendors to change their products.”
A NATIONAL HEALTH debate that has grown over the past few decades, the issue of trans fat moved from kitchen to court room in 2006 as New York City became the first metropolitan area in the United States to limit the use of trans fat in restaurant food. Since then, many state, county and city governments across the country have either adopted legislation or attempted to pass laws, which regulate the use of this ingredient; which, according to a journal report of the American Heart Association published in March of this year, is directly associated with an increased risk of heart disease.
Created in the early 1900s, trans fat, or trans fatty acid, was manufactured through the process of hydrogenating liquid oil. The ingredient grew in popularity with both cooking and baking as it has a higher boiling temperature and allows food a longer shelf life. During the 1980s, trans fat became a staple in the fast-food industry as it was considered a healthier alternative to the saturated fat-based cooking oil.
“Twenty years ago we moved from saturated fat to trans fat because scientists were telling us that it was healthier,” said Sue Hensley, senior vice president of media relations at the National Restaurant Association. “Now science is coming back to tell us that it’s not a healthy alternative.”
For companies such as the Great American Restaurants, Hensley says the National Restaurant Association applauds pro-active efforts within the industry to find healthier alternatives to trans fat.
“We are supportive of efforts of industry companies to phase out trans fat,” she said. “It’s been a strong national trend in the past six months. There is such positive momentum in eliminating trans fat in restaurants large and small.”
BUT DEALING WITH vendors isn’t the only struggle a restaurant endures when redesigning its menu. Norton said, one major concern with the process was maintaining the taste and texture of the food, especially since the company had to redevelop its seasonings.
“We had to make sure we liked our taste profiles,” said Norton, equating the process to a treasure hunt. “Changing the seasoning like that is a very subjective thing.”
Chris Osborn, vice president of kitchen operations for the company, agrees that the biggest challenge was “maintaining the taste profiles our customers know,” which was accomplished through a series of taste testings and consultations with the chefs at each restaurant. Inside the restaurants, kitchens are outfitted with a series of computer monitors linked to the company’s network of recipes. Osborn said after each trans fat free recipe was created and uploaded to the system and the change was immediately available for kitchen staff to see.
“We feel we have a responsibility to the health of our guests,” said Osborn. “Trans fat is a significant issue where we felt propelled.”
But even though the company is free of trans fatty acids, Norton decided not to advertise this switch or even print it on the menus. A process that began three years ago, Norton said that the company would have phased out trans fat regardless of the publicity the issue has received over the past year.
“We haven’t made much mention of it,” he said. “It’s not something we try to market. I’m not into bragging a whole lot on our menu. People will figure it out on their own eventually. If you do the right thing often enough, you win, and this is something we wanted to go after.”