Most french fries today are fried in unhealthy, inflammatory seed oil. These brands use better, natural, low-PUFA cooking oils for their fries.
| Fries | Cooking Fat | Estimated PUFA | Artificial additives? (including Iron) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outback Steakhouse | Beef Tallow | ? | A lot |
| Buffalo Wild Wings | Beef Tallow | 0g | Likely |
| Fry The Coop (Illinois) | Beef Tallow | 0g |
These are the places where you can get french fries without seed oil that we know of, so far. Let’s hope there will be many more!
Finding restaurants that don’t use seed oils
Two resources for finding places that use good oils:
- Some restaurants listed here
- A really helpfull map of restaurants that use good oils like beef tallow
Restaurants that do make french fries with seed oils
| Fries | Cooking Fat | Estimated PUFA | Artificial additives? (including Iron) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freddy's | Canola Oil | 7g | ? |
| Culver's | Canola Oil | - | ? |
| Five Guys | Refined Peanut Oil | - | ? |
| In-N-Out | Sunflower Oil | - | ? |
| Dairy Queen | Vegetable Oil blend | - | Yes |
| UNO | Vegetable Oil blend | - | ? |
| McDonald's | Vegetable Oil blend | - | ? |
| Burger King | Vegetable Oil blend | - | ? |
| Wendy's | Vegetable Oil blend | - | Yes |
| Arby's | Vegetable Oil blend | - | ? |
| Applebee's | Soybean Oil | - | ? |
| Wayback Burgers | Soybean Oil | - | ? |
The forgotten war on beef tallow
The biggest fast food company in the world uses a combination of soybean oil and canola oil for their fries, but a few decades ago, they actually used primarily beef tallow! Beef tallow is low PUFA, and these fries were so delicious that people still remember them and wish that they would come back.
In fact, before about 1990, many top fast food chains fried their french fries in beef tallow, or a blend composed mostly of tallow. But there was a misguided protest against this in the name of health, according to this article from the time, and eventually the chains caved in and foolishly switched to the worse tasting seed oil. Ironically, it now appears that it is actually SEED OIL that is so bad for our health, and not the traditional and natural beef tallow.
Make your own fries without seed oil!
If you can’t find a restaurant to supply you french fries without seed oil, you can make them for yourself! Here is a recipe that uses tallow.
You’ll probably have to order the tallow online, or stop by a local farmer!
This post is a work in progress!
Quitting seed oil? You don’t have to stop snacking!
Our site guides you to find all kinds of foods cooked in healthy, traditional oils (which are probably tastier than nasty seed oils!) Check out our guide to potato chips without seed oil. More coming soon!