Why Doesn’t the Government Go After KFC?

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a non-profit organization, says it has a message for fast food fried chicken chain KFC: "See you in court, Colonel Sanders." CSPI is suing KFC over its use of trans fat in its fried chicken, which it says is responsible for 50,000 deaths annually in the U.S. It wants a court to force KFC to either stop using trans fat or to post warning signs in its stores.

Just one extra-crisp KFC chicken breast has 4.5 grams of tans fat, which is more than double the government’s maximum recommendation for an entire day’s worth of meals. Trans fat is now known to be more dangerous than saturated fat, and can significantly raise one’s LDL cholesterol, the so-called "bad" cholesterol.

The question I have is this: Why isn’t the FDA filing this suit? The FDA regularly goes after producers of healthy products like cherries, raw milk, and assorted nutritional supplements, threatening to close them down (and sometimes following through) if it feels they emphasize health benefits too strongly. This isn’t to say the FDA has been silent about trans fat. It now requires food producers to include on the ingredients label the amount of trans fat contained in products we buy in grocery stores. But restaurants and fast-food joints like KFC aren’t covered by the rule.