Spanish study: Fried foods not so bad for you after all

I knew it, fried foods aren't that bad for you.  Certainly most people I know who eat fried chicken regularly are happier – at least happier than I am. I love Southern cooking as much as one Yankee can but have spent decades denying myself maximum consumption because of fears of heart disease.

But a Spanish study conducted following more than 40,000 adults from the mid-1990's to the mid-noughties showed that is not true. The results have just been published in the British Medical Journal, (the language is a bit technical but you can read it here)

The money quote for fried food lovers, "For definite coronary heart disease events, no association with fried food consumption was observed … "

The caveat is that in Spain they don't fry with Crisco, they use olive oil.  I think you can make perfectly good fried chicken with olive oil and I've had excellent okra prepared that way but I'm not sure about hush puppies.