This person is evil!!

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AvsGirl41

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This is the fast food suit all over again. :huh:



Suit seeks ban on Oreo cookies
Tuesday, May 13, 2003 Posted: 5:57 AM EDT (0957 GMT)


SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- A lawyer who has spent much of his life enjoying Oreo cookies has sued Kraft Foods Inc. seeking to ban the much-loved cookies in California because they contain trans fat, an ingredient he calls inedible.

Kraft boasts that people have eaten 450 billion Oreo cookies since they introduced the chocolate wafer sandwich cookies with a creamy filling in 1912.

But if British-born attorney Stephen Joseph has his way, that culinary love affair will come to an end, at least until Kraft stops using hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils to make the cookies.

Kraft calls the suit filed in Marin County Superior Court just north of San Francisco baseless but Joseph says he is taking advantage of a provision of the California civil code that holds manufacturers liable for common products if not "known to be unsafe by the ordinary consumer."

The ingredient is used in thousands and thousands of products. In an interview on Monday, Joseph said, "I am probably full of hydrogenated fat because until two years ago I didn't know about it. I resent the fact that I have been eating that stuff all my life."

Hydrogenation adds hydrogen gas to vegetable oil, helping to solidify it into products such as margarine. Health experts say the process makes them as unhealthy as real butter, if not more so, as the hydrogenated fats act like cholesterol in the body. Trans fats are common in cookies and crackers and part of both the cookie and filling in Oreos.

'Shocking' case
"That's what's so shocking; that it has been so well hidden," said Joseph, who has set up an advocacy group called BanTransFats.com Inc. "I hope if nothing else comes of this lawsuit that more people know about trans fat than before."

Kraft says it is already testing alternatives to trans fats but said they will vigorously fight the lawsuit.

Its parent company Altria Group Inc. is also the owner of cigarette maker Philip Morris USA, itself no stranger to legal battles over product safety.

"We know the importance of good nutrition and we are committed to helping people lead a healthy lifestyle, but we have no choice than to draw the line against baseless lawsuits like this," Michael Mudd, Kraft's senior vice president for corporate affairs, said in an interview.

"We've been ... exploring ways to reduce trans fat in Oreos and those efforts are continuing," he continued. "You can make a cookie without trans fat but what you're trading off is the unique taste and texture that people have come to expect."

U.S. companies, the world masters in processed foods, are showing an awareness of trans fats. Frito-Lay, part of PepsiCo Inc., announced last year it would eliminate trans fats from snacks such as Doritos. McDonald's Corp. also said it would make French fries with less trans fat.

In February, a federal court threw out a lawsuit against McDonald's that claimed its burgers and fries cause obesity.

The commissioner for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said the agency will soon require labeling information about trans fats in foods.
 
oreo's are bad for you???

why didnt those sunsabitches at Kraft warn us??

I wonder if I can get in on a class action lawsuit.

:hmm:
 
I recently ate an entire package of double stuff Easter purple filling oreos... Meh. Whatever. Life's too short to sue someone over it.
 
the ironic thing is the guy said he would settle for a lifetime supply of oreos
 
Oreos. :up: I already said this in FYM, but I think this lawsuit is ridiculous. The guy knew that Oreos weren't the healthiest food ever but he ate them anyway - he can't sue the company now.
 
yes, but he didnt know they had trans fat. maybe if he knew that he wouldnt have eaten them. it's the trans fat that gets ya.
 
My parents and I were just talking about that this morning.

:banghead:

When in the world did people get so stupid?

Honestly...if I were a judge and I got this case, I'd laugh this guy right out of the courtroom. I hope a judge does that.

Oreos rock, by the way. :).

Angela
 
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This is ridiculous.. how many years and years and years have we been eating Oreos, is there anything wrong with us???? :rolleyes:
 
Yes.
freak.gif
 
What the fook ever happened to common sense?
It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out which foods are good for you and which ones aren't.
Suing McDonalds, and Kraft, etc....:down:
It's all about personal choice. No one shoved those fookin Oreos down his throat. And playing that angle "oooh I didn't know they contained fat". :barf:
Take a banana...or an apple for that matter. Compare to a freakin Oreo. Which one is healthier? No PhD needed here.
Dude is NOT going to win...not by any stretch of the imagination.
 
What makes this difficult is that the trans fat is not labelled. A product can be labelled "low in saturated fat" or "reduced fat" and have a hidden, high trans fat content.

I'll be curious as to how the courts react.

Melon
 
arw9797 said:


my brother does that all the time. I think I would :barf: if I ate too many.

It was over the span of a few days (very few!), so I didn't eat them all at once. But I did eat the whole package by myself. :reject:
 
Not very many foods label information about trans fat content. The only time you seem to hear about it is when they are making a point of mentioning that a product doesn't have them. Oreos is hardly the only product out there with a high content of trans fats.


Mmm. Oreos. :)
 
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