Rick Faust lowered two heavily breaded oysters into a vat of grease and watched them sizzle.
He's been serving up fried oysters at the Original Oyster House for more than 30 years, but only recently was the recipe stripped of a substance quickly becoming as taboo as smoking: trans fat.
New York City's ban on trans fat -- which took effect Tuesday -- prompted a growing number of Pittsburgh-area restaurants to follow suit.
"We said, 'Let's do this now and be ahead of the curve in the city,' " said Faust, manager of Original Oyster House in Market Square. "We might be forced to do this in the future."
An Allegheny County ban on trans fat might be years away, but that hasn't stopped the Pittsburgh Steak Co. and Tom's Diner, both in the South Side, and the Eat N' Park chain of restaurants from voluntarily using healthier oils.
"This is anecdotal and we don't compile information on this, but we're definitely in the very early stages of this trend," said Guillermo Cole, a spokesman for the county Health Department. "It's in the infancy."
Nutritionists say anything restaurants do to make their food healthier is a positive step, but if a double bacon cheeseburger is still slippery with grease, does it matter if it's free of trans fat?
"Oil is oil," said Rob Harper, the Original Oyster House bartender. "I'm a firm believer that anything in moderation isn't a bad thing for you."
Wrong, says Eugene Goldberg, a nutritionist in North Hills. He said the human body doesn't recognize trans fats as food so the oil sits forever in the arteries and organs, undigested.
Goldberg said oil producers inject hydrogen into the cooking oils, turning them into solids and vastly prolonging shelf life. Then the chunk of pure fat is melted for cooking. This complicates the fats way too much, confusing our bodies, Goldberg said.
"You're raising the temperature so high, your body doesn't recognize it as food anymore," Goldberg said. "We've been on this planet for thousands of years, and this is the first time we've ever eaten anything like this.
"But most people eat it because it tastes good," he said.
Tony Furgiueli of West View is one of those people. He eats to taste.
Banning trans fat "will help the younger people, but I'm 74 years old -- am I going to worry about that?" said Furgiueli, who has been eating at the Original Oyster House for 60 years. "I have my knees to worry about."
In 2004, the last time the Health Department compiled such information, 233 residents out of 100,000 died of heart disease, compared to the national average of 217.
Heart disease each year kills 4,000 Allegheny County residents and 650,000 people nationwide, according to the Health Department, which likely will begin compiling a list of all area restaurants that don't use trans fats, Cole said.
Terry McCoy can be reached at tmccoy@tribweb.com .
