On a Friday evening we either eat out or have a takeaway. Often this will involve eating something that's not totally in accord with the nutritional recommendations of the programme, but that's ok as you are allowed at least one 'cheat meal' per week. Our favourite is probably the Indian takeaway at the bottom of our road. Its food is every bit as good as any Indian restaurant.

Sometimes we have Kentucky Fried Chicken. Now I know that's not to everyone's taste, but we're curiously partial to it. So, I was pleased to see from this article on the BBC web site that KFC are planning to stop using trans fats in their frying process.

Trans fats are found in liquid oils that have been turned partly solid by a process called hydrogenation. This means they can be used in making foods that traditionally would have used solid fats such as butter, but they have the advantage (for the food industry) of being a lot cheaper and having a longer shelf-life. However, compared to butter they have almost no food value and are every bit as bad at clogging up your arteries.

The more responsible manufacturers are moving away from them. For example if you've found that your Rich Tea biscuits are a bit more crumbly and more tricky to dunk in your tea then it's because McVities have stopped using trans fats.

So, well done KFC. Meanwhile according to the same article "McDonalds promised to reduce trans-fats in its products four years ago, but has yet to find an alternative oil which it is sufficiently satisfied with". Now by 'sufficiently satisifed' I suppose they mean that their costs will go up or the products won't taste as good so their sales will go down. It would seem that they continue to put their profits ahead of any consideration of their customers' well-being.