Wendy’s Natural-Cut Fries Are Covered in Chemicals, Sugar & Higher in Sodium than Original

Wendy's Natural Cut Fries

On closer inspection, Wendy’s Natural-Cut Fries With Sea Salt turn out to be not so natural, laden with chemicals, sodium and sugar.

When the new version of French fries debuted last fall, the company began its campaign to sell the American public on the supposedly more natural food.

However, CMO Ken Calwell told BNET recently that it would be too difficult to provide an all-natural fry product within the Wendy’s parameters.

“People are saying they want high integrity ingredients, things their grandmother would have used, that don’t look like they came out of a chemistry lab,” Calwell told BNET. “But they’re also saying I’ve got a family to feed and can only afford to spend about $4 on my lunch, and I’ve only got about a minute or two to eat it.”

“Natural cut” means that inside the processing plant, the potatoes skip the step of getting steamed at such a high temperature that the skins burst off. Wendy’s potatoes go straight to the high tech cutters to be sliced.

Then, the fries are sprayed with sodium acid pyrophosphate, a chemical that prevents them from turning brown from two baths in frying oil. One bath is at the factory and the other at the restaurant. After the oil, they are dusted with dextrose, a sugar derived from corn, for similar purposes.

For comparison, In-N-Out fries do not need sodium acid pyrophosphate or dextrose because they are only fried once and are not frozen.

Wendy’s frying oil, as well as most other fast-food chains’ oil, is dosed with dimethylpolysiloxane, a silicone-based chemical that helps keep the vegetable oil from becomming foamy after countless rounds of frying.

Wendy’s also advertises that it uses “100% Russet potatoes,” but John Keeling of the National Potato Council says that this is not a selling point.

“Virtually all processed French fries are Russets,” he said in an email to Yahoo Finance.

Wendy’s hired an outside firm to do a national taste test, and the results showed that 56% of people taking the test chose Wendy’s skin-on fries, only 39% preferred McDonald’s and four% had no preference. At Wendy’s 6,600 stores, orders that include fries have increased almost 10%.

The skins on the fries add one extra gram of fiber per serving for a total of six grams in a medium. However, the sodium content went up by 43% to 500 milligrams for a medium, an increase that likely helps with the taste factor.

Calwell attempted to save face for Wendy’s saying, “We’re taking it product line by product line to make our food closer to this real ingredients story. Over time, you’ll see our ingredient labels getting shorter and more of those high integrity ingredients. It just takes time.”