Oh No - Not Oreos !

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SAN FRANCISCO, May 13 — A lawyer who says he has spent much of his life enjoying Oreo cookies has sued Kraft Foods Inc., seeking to ban the much-loved cookies in California because they contain trans fat, an ingredient he says is inedible and dangerous.

Kraft says that people have eaten 450 billion Oreo cookies since they introduced the chocolate wafer sandwich cookies with a creamy filling in 1912.

But if attorney Stephen Joseph has his way, that culinary love affair will come to an end, at least until Kraft stops using hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils to make the cookies.

Kraft calls the suit filed in Marin County Superior Court just north of San Francisco baseless but Joseph says he is taking advantage of a provision of the California civil code that holds manufacturers liable for common products if not “known to be unsafe by the ordinary consumer.”

Trans fat is used in thousands and thousands of products. In an interview on Monday, Joseph said, “I am probably full of hydrogenated fat because until two years ago I didn’t know about it. I resent the fact that I have been eating that stuff all my life.”

Hydrogenation adds hydrogen gas to vegetable oil, helping to solidify it into products such as margarine. Health experts say the process makes them as unhealthy as real butter, if not more so, as the hydrogenated fats act like cholesterol in the body. Trans fats are common in cookies and crackers and part of both the cookie and filling in Oreos.