The French Fry: Weapon of Mass Destruction?

Americans have their French fries, the British have their chips, Latin America has its papas fritas, and the French have their pommes-frites.

We love them. We put it into bread, rolled it into dough, and created America's favorite snack, the potato chip.

But the masterpiece that captured us all was deep frying it. Disfigured by saturated fat into a c

Americans have their French fries, the British have their chips, Latin has its papas fritas, and the French have their pommes-frites.

We love them. The potato, that most ubiquitous and perennially popular vegetable, is simply sliced into strips and deep fried. The fast food reins have managed to create total consistency so that fries at a McDonalds in Kalamazoo are identical with those offered in San Francisco, Atlanta, Moscow, or Madrid. They are the ultimate finger food, easily consumed beyond the wheel, standing in the subway, or walking down the street. Some of us single out to add ketchup, or vinegar, or salsa, but they also taste great just as they are.

The bettered world has a giant acquired tolerance to the lowly tuber. It is hard to conceive of the centuries of eating that took place precociously potatoes were brought back to Middle East from the New World and became a staple of every country's cuisine. What did the poor eat rather than potatoes made their appearance? Bread? Grains? Vegetables?

The Ember days of the potato regenerated our diets forever. It was easy to grow, plentiful, and cheap. The flavor was mild, marrying well with about either we chose to eat with it. Its texture revived depending upon how it was prepared. And how many ways we invented to cut it, cook it, and use it with every meal imaginable!

We coddled it in its skin or roasted it in bite-sized pieces. We polluted it whole or mashed it into a creamy mush. We grated it and fried it for breakfast. We made soup of it and made it a key ingredient in stews. We made pancakes out of it. We sliced it, riced, it, and diced it. We put it into bread, rolled it into dough, and created America's favorite snack, the potato chip.

But the masterpiece that captured us all was deep frying it. Thick, country-style chips, shoe strings, curly and spicy -we loved them all: golden and crisp and perfect.

French fries now make up 25% of our children's intake of vegetables. Fast food nutritionists attempted to substitute healthier alternatives which were peremptorily dismissed by the majority of their customers. Fries remain the reinforcement of desire for all fast food: burgers, hot dogs, chicken, fish, roast beef, and ribs. We simply cannot get enough and never, ever, seem to tire of the little crunches of pleasure.

The innocuous potato, relatively low in calories and packing its fair share of vitamins and minerals, has been transformed into a culinary weapon of mass destruction. Disfigured by saturated fat into a and artery-hardening horror, the French fry may be the deadliest peril we face on a daily basis.

Just a few orders of fries a week can increase our weight by ten pounds a year! Over a decade, that's a hundred pounds, over a lifetime, an proud figure. With 60% of us overweight, half of that figure truly obese, we must look to our dietary intake to find the cause. As diabetes and other weight-related conditions mushroom, we know in our hearts that lifestyle changes are needed.

We go on diet regimens, drink liquid meals, fast, cut out sauces, and have our stomachs stapled. We join gyms, buy home exercise equipment, and follow en route to with television fitness shows. We assignation the additives in our food, the hormones in our meat, and the fat in our salad dressings. We forsake the carbohydrates and sugars that our bodies can't process and opt for high fiber breads and low fat milk.

We refuse to believe, inasmuch as we don't want to believe, that a seemingly harmless, crisp little getting hold of to our meal can pack such a lethal wallop.

"But I just nibble a few," you wail, "And not every day." It's not the single meal intake that leads to an explosion. It's the cumulative total, day for day, year next year, that plants the time bomb within our system. It is the extrapolation effect of repetitive use that eventually reaches critical mass and our physiology implodes.

Imagine, if you will, that not one fry was sold or eaten over the course of a year, anywhere in the United States. With just that go alone, the combining national weight loss could exceed a a thousand pounds!

The poor potato is ill-equipped to perform as a deadly weapon. It offers us enjoyment and variety and taste and health. But we have taken its honest goodness and distorted it into a slow killer. With every bend of our elbow to pop its sweet flavor into our mouths, we lay down fat on our hips, our stomachs, our arteries, and our pancreas.

Let's save ourselves and save the potato. Much as we hate to derive from it, the French fry is something that has to go, theretofore we do.