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Comment by teslabox | Hacker News Reader

> If you eat out, all restaurants and fast food is either cooked in it or it's in the food they are serving.

Was recently searching for information about the restaurant industry’s switch from classic fryer oils to seed oils. I ran across something about Buffalo Wild Wings (BWW) getting sued by a vegetarian because they’d assumed BWW used ‘vegetable’ oil in their fryers. BWW’s attorneys got the suit thrown out.

On learning this, I added BWW to my list of restaurants to patronize.

Had a friend buy me lunch last Thursday. She ordered fried shrimp from the appetizer menu. They were very greasy - I pulled off the breading to hopefully avoid the oil. The next day I cautioned her about eating foods fried in vegetable oil. We went to BWW that night. I ordered wings and French fries. Would order again.

[0] BWW lawsuit report: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-buffalo-wild-lawsuit-idUS...

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> about the restaurant industry’s switch from classic fryer oils to seed oils

What is classic fryer oil made of for you? Perhaps a country/region difference but for me fryer oil is sunflower oil?

I think it depends on how long ago you need to go to be “classic”. I bet they were originally lard and tallow.

"Vegetable" oils weren't commonly used as food until it was figured out how to deodorize them. Mostly they were used to preserve wood (as paints and stains), then the paint industry figured out how to use petroleum distillates. The moniker 'vegetable oil' is a marketing term to trick people into thinking these products are edible.

McDonald's formerly used a blend of tallow, lard and coconut oil, iirc. The Tipping Point guy... .. . Malcolm Gladwell, had a podcast about this, McDonald's Broke My Heart: https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/mcdonalds-broke-my-heart/

BWW uses seed oils in all the sauces.

And in all the dry rubs.(no shit.. I have some aging shakers of it here in the house and soybean oil is an ingredient on all 3)

So they fry in tallow but then slather it in seed oils anyways

Ok thats good to know but the amount of oil absorbed in breading would be more of a concern for me. At some point I just admit fried chicken is probably never going to be perfect and enjoy it sparingly.

their wings arent breaded.

Also, bc of what we feed chickens has changed radically over the years, chickens are themsleves particularly high in omega6s. .

And they store most of it in their skin. A skinless breast isn't so bad.

Wings? Even without sauce or being fried, you might as well be taking a shot of canola oil

Good point, thanks. The fried shrimp I had was soaked in oil. My understanding is that unsaturated oils are somewhat stabilized by saturated fats. Maybe I'll take some coconut oil chasers if I go to BWW again.

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