Have it your way: Burger King sued over trans fat

The good folks at the Center for Science in the Public Interest are at it again. In the mid-90s I wrote about this group for Business Week, when it made the claim that Chinese food was bad for you. Shocking!

In the crosshairs this time? Burger King. The public advocacy group is suing Burger King (Burger King Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: BKC)) because it's bad for you.

Not quite the same shock effect as the Chinese food report had. Fast food bad for you? Stop the presses!

But what better way to get your point across than with a shocker of a lawsuit? According to the group, the home of the Whopper is increasing its patrons' risk of heart disease and early death by knowingly using trans fat in its cooking. The CSPI is asking a District of Columbia Superior Court judge to order the chain to stop using the ingredient, or at least put a suitable warning on its packaging. Hey, skulls and crossbones are in fashion these days. Might work. Anything has to be better than that creepy "King" the company is using these days.

The larger point: Burger King is the last of the large fast food chains to address the very real issue of trans fat. In February the chain announced that it had been testing alternative oils, and that it hoped it would be able to roll something out in late 2008. This came two days after McDonald's Corp. (NYSE: MCD) announced it would stop using trans fat.

Given the well-documented perils of trans fat, it's hard to be critical of whatever methods are used to ban the cancer-causing substance. I'm not ragging on CSPI. The group does good work, and it's been an early and vociferous agitator in bringing childhood obesity into the light of day. But sometimes I wonder if the group isn't a little Quixotic. Suing a fast food chain because the food is bad for you takes a particular kind of chutzpah.