FOOD
Fat Fighter
Multimillionaire Phil Sokolof has led a
highly successful battle to make America
change its high-cholesterol eating habits.
BARBARA BAELLOW
Special to The Jewish News
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76
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1991
core a victory for Jew-
ish multimillionaire
Phil Sokolof,
America's foe of fat. Just last
spring, Mr. Sokolof led an
attack against America's
food giants for selling too
many high-fat menu items.
On the top of his hit list was
McDonald's.
Recently McDonald's of-
ficials, as well as Wendy's
International, announced it
was joining other fast food
chains in switching to
vegetable oils for cooking its
french fries.
This chapter began in
April when Mr. Sokolof
lauched the "Poisoning of
America Part HI" campaign
with full-page adver-
tisements in major news-
papers nationwide. The ad
was paid for by Mr. Sokolof
and his organization, the
National Heart Savers
Association.
Mr. Sokolof, who owns
Phillips Manufacturing Co.,
said the campaign is a
"message to the American
public to cut down on their
consumption of meat and
dairy products."
In a nutshell, the NHSA
advertisement urged the
public to cut back eating
meat and dairy products,
which are high in fat con-
tent. These products make
up more than three-fourths
of the saturated fat consum-
ed by the public. Health ex-
perts have determined
saturated fat is a strong con-
tributing factor to high blood
cholesterol, which can lead
to heart attacks.
Mr. Sokolof's campaign
asked McDonald's and the
entire fast-food industry to
reduce the fat in their ham-
burgers by 10 percent. At
the same time, McDonald's
was also asked to eliminate
beef tallow from its french
fries.
Mr. Sokolof is waging this
war against the fast-food in-
dustry and has conducted
other crusades in the past
against the food industry in
general because his own
cholesterol problems caused
him to suffer a near-fatal
heart attack 23 years ago.
Barbara Baellow is a staff
writer for the Kansas city Jew-
ish Chronicle.
"I had a good health pro-
file, I thought. At 43 years
old, I didn't smoke, I exercis-
ed and I was trim," Mr.
Sokolof said.
After his attack, his blood
cholesterol level measured
at 300, 100 points above the
cholesterol level recom-
mended by the National
Heart Lung and Blood In-
stitute. By changing his
eating habits, Mr. Sokolof
has brought his cholesterol
level down to 150.
Since his own heart attack,
his father and brother-in-law
have died of heart attacks,
and his 9-year-old grandson
has been diagnosed as hav-
ing high cholesterol. That
prompted Mr. Sokolof to
found the NHSA in January
1985 with a $1 million con-
tribution. He continues to
" . . .you don't have
to choose those
things that are high
in fat. It's up to the
consumer to make
those choices."
— Kellie Zych
finance the association
himself and does not solicit
contributions.
Mr. Sokolof said $500,000
was budgeted for the most
recent crusade, but only
$400,000 was spent, since
five newspapers objected to
the ad.
Although NHSA's most
recent campaign targeted
McDonald's, Mr. Sokolof
said the fast-food giant did
not threaten him with any
legal action.
However, Mr. Sokolof said
McDonald's had asked
newspapers to discontinue
the ads due to misleading in-
formation.
"The major component of
that story was that one of
the top dieticians in the
country was quoted as say-
ing, 'Yes, McDonald's ham-
burgers have too much fat,'
which got an extra go-
round," Mr. Sokolof said.
"The New York Times ran
their own test on
McDonald's hamburgers and
came up with a higher
number than we did."
He said the story has
"gotten unbelievable
coverage" and was picked up
in countries where
McDonald's restaurants are