How Often Should Frying Oil Be Changed to Ensure Safety? | Seeking Your Opinions and Insights

I once called the local KFC and asked how often they change the oil. They said around once in a couple of weeks and they don't have a regular schedule for it. I asked ChatGPT about the cancer risk. Just wondering what everyone thinks

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ChatGPT:

If KFC changes their frying oil every two weeks, there could be a higher risk of carcinogen formation due to the extended use of the oil. The likelihood of cancer risk increases with prolonged use of oil because harmful substances like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), heterocyclic amines (HCAs), and oxidized lipids accumulate over time, especially with repeated high-temperature frying.

Factors Increasing Cancer Risk with Extended Oil Use:
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs): Formed when oil is repeatedly heated and food particles burn. PAHs are known carcinogens.

Heterocyclic Amines (HCAs): Produced when meat is cooked at high temperatures for extended periods. HCAs can damage DNA, leading to cancer.

Oxidized Lipids: Prolonged use of oil leads to oxidation, creating toxic compounds linked to cancer.

Acrylamide: Although more common in starchy foods, high temperatures over long periods can still cause acrylamide formation, a probable human carcinogen.

Measures to Reduce Risk:
Frequent Oil Changes: Ideally, oil should be changed more frequently than every two weeks to minimize the accumulation of harmful substances. In the fast-food industry, best practices often suggest changing oil daily or after a specific number of uses.

Oil Filtration: Regularly filtering oil to remove food particles and impurities can help extend the oil's usable life while reducing the formation of harmful compounds.

Temperature Control: Maintaining optimal frying temperatures and avoiding excessive heat can reduce the formation of carcinogens.

Conclusion:
While KFC likely follows stringent safety protocols, changing oil only every two weeks can still pose a significant health risk. Frequent monitoring and filtering might mitigate some risks, but regular oil replacement is critical for minimizing carcinogen formation.

Comments

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  • Too hard for me to compute on a Sunday morning. I'm off to church for my sins.

    • Same

      Priest: * press intercom to assistant * Rhonda, can you go ahead and cancel the rest of the weeks appointments, this guy will be a while

    • I'm off to church for my sins.

      Remember to give other people a turn too….!

    • Had to light so many candles, the CFS were called out.

      • Candles makes scents. Cheers.

    • You get your sins from a church! That is soooo sophisticated.

  • Former KFC Area Manager with over 10 years experience.
    Oil from the Collectramatic or Henny Penny Pressure Fryers is supposed to be drained nightly and is filtered using high density filter pads + Diatomaceous Earth mixed into the oil and filtered for a minimum of 20mins.
    The maximum number of uses for the oil in each Collectramatic or Henny Penny is set at 400 head of fried chicken.
    If procedures are followed the oil is still in good condition however it is disposed of and replaced.
    With potato chips and nugget oil this is filtered nightly (as per chicken) but dumped every 5 days, this is due to the very high moisture content of the frozen chips and salt contamination.

    • Where do you reckon all that oil ends up?

    • Thanks. That sounds way better than I imagined.

    • With potato chips and nugget oil this is filtered nightly

      Pretty sure theres also a forced filter every 20 times something is cooked in it. Otherwise the fryer goes into filter lockout. At my store its also filtered in the morning during open

    • I worked at KFC for a couple of years in the early 90s, and the store I was in was reaonably busy. The pressure cookers had the oil drained and changed very often - certainly wasn't 2 weeks, im pretty sure it was set by the electronics if the cooker on when the oil needed to be drained, the enitre pressure cooker scrubbed clean, and the filter changed.

      This had to be done between cooking cycles, and being down a cooker meant it was harder to keep up with orders. So one got pretty good at doing it quickly and getting used to the heat of the cooker whilst cleaning it. Not a lot of fun on 40 degree days.

      I did find the hygiene standards and protocols were excellent. All food had to be thrown out after a certain time after being cooked, and I never saw exceptions to the rules. Maybe it was just our store but we always got a perfect score from the mystery customers who reviewed the stores for cleanliness, service, and time to service. The boss would give movie tickets to all the staff on a shift if that shift got a report for a perfect score.

  • What about the mash potato and gravy tubs that kfc reheat to the point they change shape, you can’t tell me the hot toxic plastic isn’t leaking into the potato.

    • You should see what happens when you microwave those containers…..says it all really.

      • You shouldn't microwave plastic anyway

    • Tbf, when you're eating KFC… the off-gassed chemicals leaking into the shitty mash is only one among a long list of health hazards.

  • don't eat fried food. problem solved

    • What other type of food is there?

      • Steam vegetable

        • He said food.

        • The day they make vegetables out of meat products is the day when I eat vegetables.

        • We're talking about food though.

        • I prefer raw vegetables.
          Just chop and eat. No need to use gas/electricity.
          No need to wash dishes.
          Environment friendly

          • @Suricate: So you don’t even eat KFC? Let the rest of us kill ourselves on the Colonel’s finest, and find something more productive to do with your time than harass the staff earning minimum wage.

            • @Randolph Duke: I do eat KFC but not as often as I used to. I'm getting old. I feel tired after having deep fries like donuts/KFC. And I eat vegetables while hoping to detox Sometimes I laugh at myself after having KFC… I know it's not healthy but I pay for it. Quite interesting… haha

          • @Suricate: If you care about the environment. Then it is a great thing that they don't change their oil more often right?

            I presume cooking oil is recycled to some degree maybe but still a lot of energy would have to be spent dealing with 3x the oil consumption.

            Seems reasonable to me that oil is changed on a color and condition threshold rather than a time threshold. Given that time doesn't mean a lot at all for oil.

            • @bp2000:

              Given that time doesn't mean a lot at all for oil.

              You need to consider oxidation as well

      • Exactly! It's like engine oil, you never change it just top it up.

      • baked, chilled, raw, bbq, smoked, grilled, preserved (pickled, dried, dipped in olive oil/ tomato, …) … take your pick

  • If you're eating that much KFC I don't think cancer is going to kill you first.

    • My friend said he cleaned and oiled the gun we use for Russian roulette with an oil known to cause cancer… Chat gpt says I should be worried about the oil.

  • I once called the local KFC and asked how often they change the oil. They said around once in a couple of weeks and they don't have a regular schedule for it. I asked ChatGPT about the cancer risk. Just wondering what everyone thinks

    You should ask ChatGTP what it thinks of that answer.

      • Then you have your answer.

          • @Suricate: Funny, I thought the same. Yet here we are.

            • @rumblytangara: Yes, various opinions as everyone has a different background/experience/knowledge
              people mentioned different types of fats/oils, vaccinations, etc. A former KFC area manager explained how the oil is treated.
              Thank you everyone for your input!!

          • @Suricate: Are you implying AI has no empathy, or insights, or that it often makes mistakes?

      • Stop using a LLM which is essentially fancy predictive text to research for you and learn how to use google to do your own research, ya smooth brain.

  • 2 weeks??? Damn must be some awesome filtering. Even the local carvery by Wednesday you can really taste the oil hasn’t been changed since Monday. Like I’ll still be getting the family chips with large gravy, 2 Dagwood dogs, large iced coffee and chase it with a dart for smoko but it just ain’t ‘fresh’? Iunno

  • Depends on the oil, saturated fat (Tallow / Lard) is much harder to oxidise than poly-unsaturated fat (ie. Vegetable Oil) …

    PAH's and HCAs can often be filtered out after use …

    Now look up the original inventors of Vegetable Oils (ie Nazi's) and what they bragged about using them for (ie diesel engine lubrication)!!

    • I'm guessing a GAB user here who saw Torba's email about seed oils.

      • No idea what GAB nor Torba is …

        I get my info from practising doctors that have 1000s of patients' data to draw upon (not PhDs / medical intern that has never seen a patient) ;)

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lRXZfs6Sjs

        • Fair enough, the timing was interesting, thought you may have been aware.

          But yeah, long history of people warning about seed oils. Guess what? Research has been suppressed, marginalised, defunded & researchers/doctors silenced. Shocker I know. Same goes for a whole lot of other topics "they" don't want us to realise.

          • @mrdean: Vegetable oils or seed oils are in everything though. Unavoidable even if you are careful and avoid junk food like kfc, mcdonalds, hungry jacks, etc.
            Almost everything you buy has vegetable oil in the ingredients list

            • @Mad Max: Nothing I knowingly buy has seed oils in it (ingredients list), although I'm sure there's either contamination somewhere along the line, or they are used in the refining or processing of certain products.

              But the point is that their development was industrial, or a repurposed product that made some people extremely wealthy to the detriment of a large portion of the population who believed that "science" showed them to be healthier than animal fats.

              • @mrdean: I try to avoid seed oils too, but literally every packaged food has it.
                Bread, crackers, biscuits, canned tuna, sauces, condiments.
                And if you eat in a restaurant seed oil is all they use. Because it is much cheaper than extra virgin olive oil.

                • @Mad Max: Make what you can. Bread is doable (I used to make irish soda bread which is fairly simple-also used to buy sprouted breads), as are sauces/condiments with a bit of effort. Avoid crackers/biscuits/cannedfish, unless you have the money to afford the good quality ones.

                  Can't remember the last time I ate out in a restaurant or got some take-away.

                  • @mrdean: Yeah I know, but it makes it a very difficult and laborious life. And a bit boring too.
                    I suppose we can't have everything!

                    • @Mad Max: I'm not sure I agree. It's about experimenting & being busy! Irish soda bread can be made plain, sweet or savoury. Many options to it. Downside is it's not really sliceable, can't be used for sandwiches like normal bread, but it does make a superb base for a blt+egg+smashed avo plate.

                      Truth be told, I can count on one hand the number of decent products available at supermarkets.

                • @Mad Max: Don't eat packaged food then? Pretty simple.

            • @Mad Max: I have no idea what you're talking about. I just double checked and nothing I eat has vegetable oil in it. The only source I get is the oil I add myself for cooking dinner in.

              I think this largely comes down to what you eat, and whether it's healthy or not.

          • @mrdean: And they even have successfully marginalised the consumer use of palm oil in developed countries. Palm oil has a combination of high saturated fat and high smoke point, one of the highest amongst other vegetable oils.

  • They said around once in a couple of weeks

    That's probably how they stop us reverse engineering their 11 secret herbs and spices

  • Because clean oil will enable you to continue eating fast food without any risks…

    • Sure they are literal trans fat bombs but god damnnnn how GOOD are freshly cooked and salted kfc chips

    • finally someone gets it !!!

      • Yeah, you're more likely to die from other diseases (i.e. heart disease) caused by consumption of KFC / KFC-style food than you are from cancer caused by the oil they cooked it in…

  • I wonder about smaller restaurants, I imagine extending the cooking oil change interval would be an attractive cost cutting measure, at the potential expense of the customer’s longer term health

    • what changes? just keep topping it up
      .

    • Usually they run them through a filter each day

  • Seed oils used in frying and many other foods contain a lot of unstable polyunsaturated fats which are probably the worst thing you can put in your body. Heating them to high temps only adds to the problem adding trans fats into the mix.

    Do your best to get those oils out of your diet and that's a good step in the right direction.

  • Wouldn't it depend on what type of oil they used?

    Oils aint oils after oil.

    If it's tallow (OK it's not) but if it was you can reuse it 3-4 times.

    Seed oils.
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/tests-show-reusing-deep-fry-13285…

    "A team of scientists in India and the US carried out tests on rats and found that animals given food cooked in reheated sesame or sunflower oil "showed increased oxidative stress and inflammation in the liver" as well as "significant damage in the colon."

    As bad as seed oils are (yes I'm aware of the marketing campaign that claims the opposite) KFC goes even lower.

    https://thecookingfacts.com/what-oil-does-kfc-use-to-fry-the…

    "In conclusion, KFC’s secret recipe for their fried chicken is a closely guarded company secret, including the type of oil they use. However, it is widely believed that they use a combination of liquid soybean oil and solid palm oil."

    Reddit chat on frequency of oil changes here: https://www.reddit.com/r/kfc/comments/urwgs2/how_often_does_…

    • is a closely guarded company secret,including the type of oil they use. However, it is widely believed that they use a combination of liquid soybean oil and solid palm oil."

      Its really not that closely guarded, as they don't make it in-house. For example, Cargill make KFC oil here in Australia for KFC.

    • When I worked at KFC the 'oil' came as blocks of white waxy solid. It only becomes a liquid when heated.

  • If you are eating KFC I think cancer from the cooking oil is the least of your problems.

    • It is funny how the old group of vax cheerleaders are still out in forces to support each other against the unruly antivaxers!!!
      It has been ages since I have been in these forums and you fools are still all here talking the same old sh!t regardless of all the truths that has been unveiled about these vaccines.
      Enough fun for tonight. I guess I will check in again in a few months to see if the vax cheerleaders are still alive or if some have died of unexpected heart attacks.

      • It has been ages since I have been in these forums

        Should have stayed away.

      • Funny, I was thinking the same thing about the antivaxxers. Only you guys must be really pissed off your dire warnings haven’t been borne out. No massive increase in heart attacks due to vaccines. A few months? Come back in twenty years and you still won’t see an increase in the heart attack rate.

      • name checks out….

      • In a very big cheerleader of vaccines. I would love to see more introduced. Such as an RSA one for infants. WA is finally starting on that but the rest of the country should too.

      • The science isn’t on your side. If you look at the history of vaccinations the death tolls have plummeted since they were introduced. Funnily enough not so many dead kids in cemeteries.

          • @Mad Max: Make sure you buy yourself a BioCharger too, only fools wouldn't buy it!

            • @Ughhh: Go get a booster. You are due for it.

              • @Mad Max: Wait… So is BioCharger good or bad?

                • @Ughhh: You are telling the story.
                  Hopefully you got a few of the safe and effective Astra Zeneca vaccines. Those that were withdrawn for safety concerns.
                  The Fizzer ones managed to keep the safety concerns out of the media, for now.
                  I would be very worried if I was you. Good night and sweet dreams.

                  • @Mad Max: So how long do you intend to wait expecting a mass die off before admitting you were wrong? As the years go on you guys are going to get more and more pissed off. I suppose if you wait 100 years then all the people who got Covid vaccines will have dropped dead.

                    Me, I sleep well on a bed of science rather than random conspiracy theories. Vaccines come with a small risk but getting sick from Covid was a far higher one.

                    I love the way you guys manage to reduce your own credibility by your own comments.

                    • @try2bhelpful: Well.. I used up my daily downvotes, that was my contribution, good luck soldier.

                      • @buckethat: I know. But these people hang themselves so we don’t need a lot of downvotes. As I’ve said previously there search history must be completely bonkers. All the dark edge rabbit holes they go down.

                        Nobody is saying vaccination is perfect but a few minutes of open minded Googling will give a comparison of diseases managed by vaccination and those allowed to run rampant unchecked. The evidence is pretty compelling. If they’d developed a vaccine against bubonic plague, early on, they might’ve saved themselves a few hundred years of torment. If we’d had a vaccine against Spanish Flu we could’ve saved millions. Polio went from a horror show to a very small number of cases. Small pox basically disappeared. We quickly managed to get back to normality once large numbers of people were vaccinated against Covid. Prior to that people were dying in corridors because they couldn’t get them into beds.

                        Yes you will get the odd adverse reaction to vaccination, which is unfortunate, however this is a small number compared to those who are saved. Ignorance and stupidity are infecting society. Common sense is the inoculation against that.

                        • @try2bhelpful:

                          Nobody is saying vaccination is perfect but a few minutes of open minded Googling will give a comparison of diseases managed by vaccination and those allowed to run rampant unchecked. The evidence is pretty compelling.

                          https://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(22)00572-8

                          "Surprisingly, little has changed with influenza vaccines since 1957 when they were first administered in US national vaccination programs. Over the years, influenza vaccines have never been able to elicit durable protective immunity against seasonal influenza virus strains, even against non-drifted strains. Although current influenza vaccines reduce the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, and death to some degree, their effectiveness against clinically apparent infection is decidedly suboptimal, ranging from 14% to 60% over the past 15 influenza seasons."

                          "As of 2022, after more than 60 years of experience with influenza vaccines, very little improvement in vaccine prevention of infection has been noted."

                          "Taking all of these factors into account, it is not surprising that none of the predominantly mucosal respiratory viruses have ever been effectively controlled by vaccines."

                          "Durably protective vaccines against non-systemic mucosal respiratory viruses with high mortality rates have thus far eluded vaccine development efforts."

                          Of course, the whole article, is pushing for future vaccine development for alleged respiratory viruses, yet they basically admit above, if you understand what they are really saying, that it has been a FAILURE.

                          And that is not some "conspiracy" site, it is an article co-authored by……FAUCI.

                    • @try2bhelpful: Ironically, we find people conveniently ignoring the excess death figures which are almost certainly caused by the vaccines and not just a random correlated effect.

                      These are statistically significant figures and cannot be hidden from the public. Although, maybe I should retract that because in England they adjusted the methodology to try and hide those excess deaths. They then stopped reporting on the figures altogether in some areas…

                      These excess deaths do not appear in countries with low vaccination rates, and there are quite a few of those around in the continent of Africa if you want to do research. The only way the pro-vaccine argument can win is if they argue it is merely correlation and you would also need to justify to yourself that you believe the covid virus is racist… So, nope, the pro-vaccine argument falls apart.

                      There is a lot of research coming out of Japan about the problems with covid vaccines, but I guess most people are asleep and busy watching their favourite fake science propaganda shown on television or the medical textbooks funded by the same cronies… People need to learn basic principles of mathematics which is severely lacking in the community… People need to be informed of the law so they can understand what is a crime as opposed to what are words written down on a piece of paper and enforced in a kangaroo court… Don't get me started on that.

                      Again, the only reason why they did not recall the covid vaccines was because the kill rate was not high enough to be recalled like they did with the original swine flu vaccine. It does not mean it did not end up damaging and a lot of people.

                      There is a lot of hyperbole being thrown around by the pro-vaccine lobby and fanbois…

                      Historical source - Swine Flu Program is halted in 9 states as 3 die from shots

                      Also, for those calling for Nuremberg Trials, gee, people forget that was the most Kangaroo court thing they did to the Germans. You could not mount a defence. Sure you might be happy to see Dan Andrews squealing, but we do not want to sink as low as the pro-vaccine camp and take away people's rights.

                      • @Chiyoko: And yet all the science is on the excess deaths and health effects of the unvaccinated rather than the vaccinated; just as they are with other vaccines. All I ask is people Google around to look at mortality figures, and adverse health effects, of the vaccinated and unvaccinated. In relation to heart issues unvaccinated people who get Covid are much more likely to have adverse heart issues. That is from reputable sources.

                        All I ask is people to apply the common sense rule. To think about what is more likely in this scenario. It isn’t a world wide conspiracy to spend billions of dollars in a giant hoax perpetrated across every country on the planet. Or is It that a virulent disease broke out and a vaccination method, that was forty years in the making, finally had a break through because there was enough money, and urgency, applied to it. Just like many other medical or technological breakthrough.

                        Honestly dude you hang yourself with your own nonsensical comments. Step back and look logically. Do you think people will be convinced by your closing comments? Does any of it make any sense? You are defending the Nazis. Vaccines do have a small risk, but they save many, many more than they hurt. If they’d had a vaccine for Spanish Flu they would’ve saved millions of lives.

                        I don’t expect you to get off the crazy train, my job is to stop others getting on it. I’m leaving it to other people to do their own research. It isn’t hard to find.

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