What kind of plastic is in that batter?
3
anyone who orders fries for delivery deserves whatever they get.
5
I’m not going to pretend to be the healthiest eater. But, c’mon these are not French fries. They’re mass produced potato products. If I want French fries, I’m going to go to a restaurant that does them right. I do get delivery at least once a week, but know better than to order fries. (The fast food fries emoji pops up as I type!) I guess if you consider these edible to begin with, you won’t care what it takes to keep them crisp.
3
In the book "Fast Food Nation," the author wrote about the awful conditions in slaughter houses and meat packers used to generate ground beef for hamburgers.
But he was equally horrified by the potatoes dug out of the ground and processed for fast food french fries. To meet demand the potato fields, particularly in Idaho, are just dumped with all sorts of chemicals.
Tater tots are the most vitiated, because they are constituted by the ground ends of the potatoes that cannot be turned into french fries.
Hence, I never buy potatoes that look particularly dirty (might be fatuous thinking). And I try to get them from a reputable source, not a discount vendor. Of course, I scrub my potatoes thoroughly.
Alas, I am past the age to care about french fries. I don't care if the fries at In 'N Out are only cooked once, and look white and not as crisp. The good service by happy employees who are paid well plus benefits make the french fries taste better at In 'N Out.
1
thanks for the interesting pix of the factory - I'm always fascinated to see mass production processes
but batter to stay crisp ? I'm thinkin' meh - I don' like so much batter - to take away from the actual potato taste - even thin Japanese tempura batter has me thinkin' 'why take away from the actual original taste ?'
but sure - if junk food it is, then delivering that satisfying "crunch" to the tastebuds is gonna sell more I'm sure
just not to me - I like my potatoes - cut into eighths, tossed in olive oil, and baked in the oven until golden, then sprinkled with salt - oh moah goh ... !
5
Is there a part 2? Seems it just sorta ended without the promise the title seems to proffer: the crispy for 60 min fry. Did they do it?
15
William Safire, who wrote for this paper years ago, reminded us in one of his weekend columns that “crispy” is not a word, we already have “crisp.” The former was invented to rhyme with “crunchy” which is the adjectival form of the noun “crunch” so legitimate.
I wish NYT kept up his tradition of proper grammar and vocabulary!
4
Language has this habit of evolving. Shakespeare would not understand us were he to plop down in a McDonalds. Safire, may he rest in peace, could be cranky. In any case, be assured "crispy" is a word, by default, cuz we say it and understand it.
10
French fries with "a special batter" on them? And people wonder why I don't eat fast food.
Pro tip — if you don't want soggy fast food French fries don't order them.
4
So are their 'hour-long' fries available in a grocery store?
the picture which caught my eye was the one of cut spuds being loaded into a series of layered bins, i do not know where they go from this point but the yellow colored short stair right next to the bins were dirty and stained from foot traffic.
I can only hope those loaded bin fries were cooked in the next following process. hopefully the fries had not been already coated and sent along to the cooking process.
either way it was a very poor example of cleanliness for a food product.
2
It's fast food so eat them fast. Spare us further processing of American processed food and the article on the process.
6
Nothing beats my oven made baked potato crisps with olive oil, a sprinkle of sea salt and fresh rosemary. Eat deep fry and die.
3
Read Michael Pollan’s chapter on potatoes in his book “The Botany of Desire.” Big Agra foods like this are some of the most toxic on earth. Harmful to the workers who farm it, the farmland itself, and the people who eat it. This stuff is poison.
The tone of too many food articles in this paper read like soft marketing for giant corporations, not actual reporting.
20
These people are giving a whole new meaning to the term “junk food.” Watch heart disease and diabetes rates soar in America during the next few years. Then after poisoning America, this hellish company will spread its toxic product throughout the world, with Trump threatening trade sanctions on countries that attempt to ban this garbage.
America has become a threat to all of mankind.
14
"Batter" does not = "french fry".
13
One important question that is not addressed in the article is whether the new coating (batter) will change the amount of frying fat retained by the fries. A reduction in the amount of frying fat retained could significantly lower the caloric content of fries, while the opposite would make fries even more devastating against in our loosing battle to lower adult and childhood obesity. The current state of affairs is that (crispy) fries taste addictively good, but are a nutritional disaster - basically large helpings of starch and fat, but little protein, minerals, vitamins and dietary fiber. So, do these new-and-improved crisper fries contain less fat, the same, or more as the current ones? Many of us who would like to know.
10
Awesome, I was worried innovation in the US was stalling, but fry cooks are going to save us all apparently.
5
Beware of doing too much to fries though. Ore-Ida makes a crinkle cut fry that my sister bought and prepared for her toddlers (she has a day care). Even though these fries looked great and were prepared right, they were not delicious at all. They were like nothing. The kids absolutely would not eat them. Not a one! They seem to be made of potato flakes. Yuck.
4
As much as I feel for the disappointed toddlers, good for them! Fries can be tasty, but they are really not good for us. Lots of starch and fat = high calories, but no nutritional value to speak of - obesity and type 2 diabetes in the making. Maybe those kids have some of that innate preference for good, healthy foods left, so there is hope! Maybe your sister can try apple slices and other fruit (not from the can) as yummy treats. And, if none of the kids is allergic, some mixed nuts alongside.
When I grew up, fries were a "reward " food, which led to them becoming a cheap way to treat myself whenever I wanted a treat. Years later, I literally weaned myself off these nutritional landmines, prompted by signs of bad health. If we learn early in life that fresh fruits are a tasty treat, we are much more likely to never have to fight the battle if the bulge.
6
This is not progress, just another junk food option for an obese country. And it's lousy fries. Good french fries are not fried in batter, but are handcut potatoes fried in oil till crispy, maybe twice fried. I can tell a batter fried fry from 10 feet away, and it tastes inferior to a well made french fry, as any good chef or someone with a palette will attest. The world does not need new ways to torture good food into lasting longer or any other expletive, but needs to rediscover what real food tastes like and live with the 'inconveniences' of real food, rather than corrupt it and lose the flavor and the nutrition that was part of it in the first place. This is nothing but crispy soylent green, so to speak.
28
There has to be something profoundly wrong with our society that we would put this kind of effort into something so trivial.
No thought put into tracking children being taken from immigrant parents, but by god we can't live with take out french fries not being able to survive for an hour.
I guess food scientists need new frontiers to conquer.
20
Chill out a little Jay. More than one issue can be considered by people at a time.
7
Anyone who has taken McDonald’s to go, knows that fries never travel!
When I’m in a fix for French fries, after a long day or a sweaty run, I drive by the local McDonald’s and order a large fries, nothing else.
Then I park in the lot and enjoy the hot, crispy fries. If I were to drive home first, the enjoyment would be gone because the fries would have turned into a chewy, lukewarm disappointment.
7
True, Mc Do fries taste good. They also leave you an aftertaste a few hours later. Like another reader said, make your own in the oven or in some oil on the stove. To get crispy, cook them longer. Eat as a treat, not every day and let big Agra go the way of the Do-Do.
1
Does anyone remember the way that French fries used to taste, crispy on the outside and creamy inside. Now, almost everywhere except for upscale restaurants, you find a fry with a powdery coating on the outside, tasting nothing of potato. You have to go to an upscale restaurant and spend 8 dollars to get "pure" French fries. Just another way to benefit big, fast food junk food.
3
Yes, the best fries are those cooked to order at an expensive French restaurant, steak and frites!
Try it in France - they have restaurants that only serve steak and fries. Endless fries. Thin, golden, crispy fries! Yum!
7
I have to admit that, appropriately, the best French Fries that I ever had in my life were in Paris. At the time, I thought that the key was frying in olive oil, but when I tried it at home, I couldn't match my memory of the Paris taste. The food aficionados say that French Fries have to be fried in two stages at different oil temperatures. I've been too lazy to try it.
BTW, can delivered fries be any better than the frozen product reheated in the oven? I seriously doubt it. Unless you're living in a hotel room without an oven, why not just buy the frozen product. I doubt that it'd be worse than the delivered product and a lot cheaper.
While I'm impressed with the technology of making french fries and other "food products" on a massive scale, I'm basically frightened by the fact that this whole business's operating philosophy is profits first, people's lives second...
These companies are creating life styles that are basically inimical to life.
Get people to make a sandwich out of last night's left overs and take that to work. Cheaper, healthier, and probably better tasting as well.
10
This article fails to mention whether this “uncooked starch” involves gluten (especially wheat). If so, it means celiacs or people who are gluten intolerant (I am not talking about gluten avoidance as a fad - I am talking about people who get sick) will not be able to eat fried potatoes, which under normal circumstances are naturally gluten free. Must be now be suspicious of all fries?
8
I had exactly the same thought. It's always a risk with fast food, because naturally GF potatoes can be cross contaminated when fried in oil also used to fry battered fish or other "gluten" products, but if they add wheat starch, french fries will become an absolute "no-no"
2
they use potato starch
Just more processed foods from Big Ag which does not divulge what chemicals (plastics) are included in processed food. Not to worry Big AG! Republicon deregulation has your back!
Excuse me, I am on my way to a farmers' market!
(If you do not eat chemicals, it enables you to taste the difference between plastic food and real food!)
21
Well, I'm with you, but come on, there seriously are no "plastics" in food and there are no "plastic foods" - at least not in this quickly disintegrating country and at least not quite yet. Not in the sense your comment attempts to imply. There is a lot of other voodoo, and it is to be avoided or rather refused entirely. However, unless you can grow and cook your own, it is getting harder and harder to not be plugged into the rapidly consolidating food industry. Amazon owns Whole Foods, and you can only imagine where that leads. And Whole Foods pretty much wiped out alternative organic grocery stores and now sells little organic products - sadly most especially true in its produce section. And the "organic" label was co-opted for Big Ag quite a while back, so it ain't really what you think it is. Eventually your options will be flattened down to the choices this article puts out there as merely innocent good neighbors, nutrition be damned.
Finally, we all eat chemicals because everything in the entire infinite universe is chemicals. We are mostly carbon.
2
I used to like food, when we had it available in this country.
31
How is this article complete as information to consumers if it doesn't talk about what the coating is made of? Ingredients = due diligence in journalism. Other than an interesting (if not slightly horrifying) examination of a particular method of factory farming and food production, it reads like a promo.
30
Article says "starch". It wasn't really an article about nutrition. It wasn't really an article about much of anything. You are right: a subtle yet insidious "article" mostly to reinforce the notion that we all should be happy, happy, happy to chomp down on fast food via expensive delivery services. And enure us to the fact that no matter where you get your "food" from it all comes from the same manufacturer. It's very Orwellian.
Let's all opt out.
3
French fries make America fat.
13
America makes Americans fat.
5
I've actually always liked soggy fries. It unlocks the flavor of the potato, the salt and the grease. If you eat french fries plain without a condiment like I do, I think soggy fries are the way to go.
4
So, um, where can you buy these in a grocery store? I don't have fast food delivered.
3
Indisputably the best news I have heard all week!
14
Fortunately, as a food writer, it is my duty to expose corn sugar laden Franken-Foods as one of the reasons we eat the wrong things. They just taste too good to ignore.
But....French fries are meant to get soggy. It’s the fat. Maybe if this company used duck fat to fry their manipulated potato substitute, this would attract a more literary consumer of this fast food?
Nah.
8
Maybe if they coated raw cut potato sticks in glycerol while blew them through one of those industrial corn flake cereal machines with small injections of olive oil and spices, then cooked as blew through, then flash froze as blew through, immediately into a package.
All natural, all possible, sure it would work--I would LOVE to work on this project!
1
Why is this being featured as a positive? Big agriculture and mass-produced food are part of the problem. On my list of wants for the world, saving fries is not at the top.
36
Great insightful piece. American ingenuity at it's finest!
However, the employee eating fries everyday needs to talk to her cardiologist every day, as well...spitting out the fries still leaves some absorption of the grease into the body.
6
My wife is lactose-intolerant and had to stop eating McDonalds french fries several years ago. Apparently, at some point in time McDonalds added milk to their fry batter and that nixed them for her.
I wonder what the ingredients of Lamb-Weston’s fry batter is. I think most people think that when they eat french fries they are just eating potatoes, vegetable oil and salt. But apparently that is not the case. McDonalds tried to eliminate beef fat from their oil, but added it back for the flavor.
3
Super interesting piece. Firing potatoes, at high speed, into a cutter, cameras picking up defects, blowing away the blemished products with air...it's impressive.
The goal of keeping foods tasty for longer periods in order to accommodate new delivery systems, though, has me wondering about heightened risk of food-borne illness.
11