NEW YORK - After two years of secret taste tests, KFC said Monday it would stop frying chicken in artery-clogging trans fats, but New York City restaurants being urged to do the same say it's not so easy.

KFC's announcement, which won praise from consumer advocates, came an hour ahead of a public hearing on a proposal that would make New York the first US city to ban the unhealthy artificial fats.

Edward Patterson, a Kentucky Fried Chicken employee, chows down on some of the company's trans fat-free product in New York, Monday, October 30, 2006. KFC said Monday it is phasing out trans fats in cooking its Original Recipe and Extra Crispy fried chicken, Potato Wedges and other menu items, but hasn't found a good alternative yet for it's biscuits. [AP]

Industry leaders dished up a plateful of reasons why such a plan shouldn't be adopted in the nation's restaurant capital.

The move would be a "recipe for disaster that could be devastating to New York City's restaurant industry," said E. Charles Hunt, executive vice president of the New York State Restaurant Association.

The shift by KFC and a handful of other fast food chains - and the effort by New York health officials - mark an aggressive crackdown on an ingredient that is consumed in large doses around the country.

An average American eats 4.7 pounds of trans fats a year, and the oil is used as a shortening in baked goods like cookies, crackers and doughnuts, as well as in deep frying. Experts say a ban in New York would reverberate across the country because the city's food industry is so large.

The ban initially would have been a harsh one for KFC. But the company now says that by next April, all 5,500 of its US restaurants will have switched from trans fat-rich partially hydrogenated vegetable oil to a new soybean oil believed to be less likely to cause heart disease.

Some KFC sites have already made the switch in secret trials to see if customers would notice a difference. They did not, and KFC President Gregg Dedrick said he was confident the switch won't prompt complaints about taste.

"There is no compromise," he said at a Manhattan news conference. "Nothing is more important to us than the quality of our food and preserving the terrific taste of our product."

Health advocates applauded the company's switch. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which sued KFC last spring over the trans fat content of its food, announced Monday that it was withdrawing from the lawsuit.

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