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Chicago mulls trans-fat ban Chicago, which one magazine called the fattest US city, debated Wednesday a city council ban on oils said to raise “bad” cholesterol. Sponsors of a city ordinance want Chicago, home to stockyards and barbecued ribs, to become a model trans-fat-free city. The ordinance would prevent fast-food chains with at least 20 million dollars in sales from using trans fats in their oils and margarines. “We want to pressure the big restaurant chains so that they voluntarily limit to very small amounts the use of trans fats,” said Donald Quinlan, press secretary for powerful Alderman Edward Burke. The Chicago Tribune newspaper reported that businesses covered by the legislation would have two years to comply, and that Burke had initially wanted to apply the law to all restaurants before changing his mind in order to save small mom-and-pop stores. The ordinance came up for debate Wednesday, one month after the US health magazine Men's Fitness declared Chicago America's “fattest city” after a study showing six in 10 adults here were overweight. Trans fats are unsaturated fatty acids commonly found in grease. They are believed to raise the amount of so-called bad cholesterol in the human body and eliminate the “good” cholesterol, which people naturally produce. Trans fats “raise bad cholesterol and lower good cholesterol. It increases heart disease,” said Jeff Cronin, spokesman for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who testified at city council Wednesday. Passing the ordinance would be “historic,” Cronin said. He said trans fats are used by fast food chains because they have a higher boiling temperature and their oils do not need to be changed as often in fryers -- leading to major savings. Officials from his center, based in Washington, were due to testify at the Chicago hearings. There was no immediate comment on the proposal from the fast-food chains themselves. Their executives have been asked to testify at the city hall hearings on the ordinance.
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