PHIL WHO?
Exactly. In America, one man can still make a difference, especially if he is a workaholic with a highly personal mission, an expert in show-biz advertising techniques-and a multimillionaire. This is Phil Sokolof the anti- cholesterol crusader from Omaha, the man who has used full-page newspaper ads to make ”cholesterol,” ”saturated fats” and ”tropical oils” into household names for bad nutrition.
The ”cholesterol era” is only seven years old, dating from 1984, when Time magazine put two eggs on its cover and sounded the battle alarm. Sokolof has caught the wave. Armed with passion, deep pockets, a telephone and the ability to write his own ads in a compelling style and pay to have them published from coast to coast, he has helped lead the charge.
Almost single-handedly, he has taken on this nation`s food giants and created a ”reformulation revolution”-that is, a change from traditional high-cholesterol, high-fat offerings to the new low-cholesterol, low-fat substitutes, a swap that promises to help keep people`s blood vessels clear and to reduce the incidence of heart disease-the nation`s No. 1 killer.
In recognition of this act of magic, Sokolof, 68, was honored in 1989 by the trade publication, Food Business, and he has become a minor celebrity, appearing on network TV and showing up in publications ranging from Advertising Age to USA Today.
Dr. William Castelli, the director of the famed Framingham (Mass.)
ongoing study of risk factors for heart disease, calls Sokolof ”my folk hero. He`s made Americans aware that too much saturated fat leads to too high cholesterol.”
Indeed, Sokolof has redefined the terms ”saturated fat” and ”tropical oils” to the nutritionally illiterate and has driven home the saving truth that high fats convert to high cholesterol, even in foods labeled to have
”zero cholesterol.”
Sokolof`s finest hour, perhaps, came last spring when McDonald`s announced that it would begin offering the ”McLean Deluxe,” a hamburger developed by researchers at Auburn University to stay tasty with only 9 percent fat, way down from the 20 to 30 percent found in most burgers.
The new lean hamburger replaces the extra fat with water that is bound to the beef with carrageen, a seaweed derivative. The low-fat burger still tastes good, according to early reports, but the final verdict remains unknown. Persuading the fast-food chains to offer low-fat beef had been Sokolof`s No. 1 goal.
Capitalizing on this apparent capitulation by industry-leader McDonald`s, Sokolof promptly wrote an ad and a press release praising the change that he had helped force.
He paid for full-page ads in newspapers across the country to mimic his earlier ads that had trumpeted, ”McDonald`s, your hamburgers have too much fat!” He repeated the arresting heading, but this time he added a big black overlay proclaiming: ”not any more! McDonald`s new low-fat hamburger has only 9 percent fat! Burger King, Wendy`s and Hardee`s. We are calling on you to follow McDonald`s leadership and offer the public this revolutionary lean, only 9 percent fat hamburger!”
Pressing on, Sokolof`s message added: ”We are also calling on the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, which administers the National School Lunch Program, to introduce this revolutionary product into all our schools. Forty-four percent of the meat we eat is in the form of hamburger. This innovative ground beef will substantially reduce the cholesterol levels of the American public as it replaces greasy hamburger.”
Sokolof`s press release, mailed to food-industry opinion leaders, noted:
”Sokolof and McDonald`s are working in tandem to promote this breakthrough in low-fat nutrition. The public need makes strange bedfellows.”
It was a typical performance for the former song-and-dance man who quit his entertainment career to make millions in the construction industry and the stock market. Sokolof has spent the last six years-and $3 million of his fortune-to take his cholesterol crusade directly to the American people through a series of hard-hitting ads headlined, ”The poisoning of America.” The campaign, targeted at the big food firms and at the congressmen who can help force labeling changes, has proven that it pays to advertise.
In July 1990 Sokolof paid for ads telling McDonald`s that ”Your hamburgers have too much fat!” and ”Your french fries are cooked with beef tallow.” Days later, the chain announced that it would cook its french fries in vegetable oil, though company officials emphatically denied any connection to the ads, contending the change was the result of eight years of research.
In the fall of 1990, Sokolof took on Congress in a series of ads that thundered: ”It`s wrong, America! Special interests are trying to deprive you (of the benefits of a food labeling bill).” Legislation to tighten food labeling was passed, and Sokolof was named an honorary cosponsor. He was exultant. ”Let`s say that only 15 percent of the population are label-readers,” Sokolof says. ”Well, to please those label-readers, the manufacturers are going to have to improve their products, and everyone will benefit!”
Sokolof has been the right man at the right time for the right trend before. In 1955, he also had a bright idea.
”Drywall was replacing plaster in the construction industry at that time,” he recalls, ”and I was astounded to learn how much was being charged for the metal strips that protected the wall boards. I decided that I could build a better corner beam.”
He rented a building for $75 a month, bought a $15,000 machine and was turning a profit by the second month. ”I went on the road to sell the product,” he says, ”and returned home to manufacture it. I even typed the sales orders.”
In short order, Phillips Manufacturing was a major manufacturer and distributor of steel components for the construction industry, and Sokolof was a millionaire. ”I gave the company my first name,” he adds, ”because it sounds a little zippier than `Sokolof`s!` In the early days, I was a one-man band.”
Before that, Sokolof sang for the big bands. ”My father had wound me up early to be an aggressive go-getter,” he explains. ”I learned how to tap-dance when I was 6, and as a kid I did a song-and-dance act across the state of Nebraska. Later, instead of going to college, I went on the road as a singer with the big bands. My favorite song was `Embraceable You.`
”It was quite an education. This was the 1940s, and I was making, maybe, $100 a week-big money then. Still, I was mature enough at 21 to realize that I was never going to be a star and to get out. I knew that life was much more than hats and horns.”
Today he is applauded for his dietary crusade, but, his newfound celebrity aside, Sokolof remains a modest and soft-spoken man, deeply committed to his crusade, which is strongly rooted in two personal events-his heart attack and the death of his wife, Ruth Rosinsky, from cancer.
On Oct. 27, 1966, Sokolof suffered a heart attack. He couldn`t believe it.
”I was only 43,” he says. ”I was thin. I did the Royal Canadian Air Force exercises every day. I ran a mile every day-under seven minutes. My blood pressure was low. I didn`t smoke. I knew how to handle stress. I had a wonderful wife and a happy marriage. I was a millionaire many times over.”
Sokolof recovered and resolved to become an ”amateur cardiologist,”
reading everything he could find about heart disease. He learned that he had only one known risk factor-a cholesterol level of 300, a level that even in 1966 was recognized as high. ”I had never heard of cholesterol before,” be says, ”and I loved greasy food. I was always eating things like hamburgers and hot dogs and chili, especially chili. My ignorance almost killed me.”
Today, believing that awareness is therapy, Sokolof is determined that others will not be as ignorant about cholesterol as he once was. Still, almost 20 years passed before he acted. The heart attack had made him rethink his life, but he had rationalized, ”Well, my life may be shortened, but it`ll come when the years are less sweet.”
The turning point for his activism came in 1982 when his wife died after a long fight against cancer. Sokolof says: ”My wife`s death is the one true sadness in my life. She had an indomitable spirit, and she is the inspiration for everything I do.” Ruth Rosinsky Sokolof developed an incurable tumor of the parotid gland (a salivary gland found in front of the ear) when she was 26 and, despite 15 surgeries over the next 30 years, died at age 56.
”To have a terminal illness at 26,” Sokolof says, ”well, that`s pretty young. Ruth could have taken to bed and loaded up with painkillers, but she was determined to lead a full life. She became an expert teacher of the blind and the handicapped and helped found a school for the handicapped. These kids were shut off from the world, and to see Ruth crack through to them and draw them out and make them a real person, or, in the Yiddish word, a mensch, well, that was unforgettable. She taught me how to help others.”
By 1985, Sokolof decided it was time to crack through with his fight against cholesterol. In January of that year he wrote a check for $1 million to establish the National Heart Savers Association (NHSA), an enterprise he runs out of his office with two employees.
The NHSA membership card, free to anyone who asks, contains the somewhat simplistic incentive, ”For every 1 percent you lower your cholesterol, your risk of heart attack drops 2 percent.”
The card`s handy informational chart plays the ”good” foods (grains, salads, vegetable, fruits, pasta, skinless poultry, fish, skim milk, low-fat dairy products, lean meats) off against the ”bad” foods (fast-food hamburgers, fatty meats, organ meats, egg yolks, butter, 2 percent milk, sour cream, bacon, ham, hot dogs, ice cream, cheese, chips, chocolates and any food made with butter, lard, beef tallow and palm, palm kernel and coconut oils).
In October of 1985, working with the local health department, Sokolof underwrote a free city-wide cholesterol testing program in Grand Island, Neb., and was astounded to see 8,500 people show up-many of whom registered high cholesterol.
”The portable cholesterol testing machines come in for criticism,” he concedes, ”but they`re very reliable at the high end of the scale. The first time we found a person with a cholesterol over 300 and were able to counsel him to reduce his dietary intake of fats, well, that was a real high. To think that we might be able to save a life is the reason I`m in this business.”
Sokolof was off and running.
Next he created ”National Know Your Cholesterol Week” in April 1987, expanding it in April 1988 to ”National Know Your Cholesterol Month.”
More than 20,000 congressmen and staffers had their cholesterol tested by NHSA on Capitol Hill. Sokolof, the little guy from ”Podunk, Nebraska,” as he likes to describe himself, was photographed with all the congressional movers and shakers, including a rotund Sen. Ted Kennedy, who pinned a ”Know Your Cholesterol” heart on Sokolof`s lapel.
After these educational efforts, Sokolof decided to launch a ”nationwide assault” (his phrase) on the nation`s food firms.
In late 1988, he paid for the first ”Poisoning of America” advertising blitz to indict companies for their use of coconut and palm oils, both of which are high in saturated fats. The campaign worked.
Though they are loathe to credit Sokolof, nine giant firms-Kellogg, Sunshine Biscuits, Pepperidge Farms, Keebler, Quaker Oats, Ralston Purina, Borden, General Foods and Pillsbury-agreed to remove tropical oils from their products. Sokolof`s press release explained, ”Food giant `Goliaths` bow as
`David` perseveres in battle against cholesterol.”
Emboldened by success, Sokolof next set his sights on the big game-the dairy and meat products that constitute 75 percent of all the saturated fats eaten in America. The prime target was McDonald`s, where some 250 people worldwide queue up every second.
”McDonald`s has been so successful,” Sokolof says, ”that their attitude is that they don`t have to listen to or work with anybody. I tried to talk to them, but all I got was a statement that they were `disappointed` in me.”
Indeed, when Sokolof`s ”Poisoning of America-III” ads took on the fast- food giant in 1990, McDonald`s initial response was a letter of warning written to ad-carrying newspapers by high-powered Washington attorney Joseph Califano, who, ironically, had been Jimmy Carter`s secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.
The fast-food firm made a mistake, however, in striking back at the man from Podunk. A Gallup poll commissioned by Advertising Age reported that 57 million Americans were aware of Sokolof`s ads and that 21 million of these readers were cutting back on fast-food hamburger chains.
McDonald`s had also vigorously challenged Sokolof`s claims that its hamburgers were 21 percent fat. They were right-tests commissioned by the New York Times in independent labs found that the standard McDonald burger was only 19.5 percent fat!
Sokolof used this new information to intensify his ad attack, blaring,
”McDonald`s, your hamburgers still have too much fat!” He was driving home his message that the chain was a ”fat factory.”
For its part, McDonald`s downplays Sokolof`s impact. Michael Goldblatt, a nutritional biochemist who is the firm`s assistant vice president for nutrition and product development, says: ”Criticism that our food is a `fat factory` is utter nonsense. Our menu is constantly evolving to satisfy consumer demands, we use only the finest ingredients, and our hamburgers are lean by government standards. . . . We`re driven by the long-term goal of enhancing nutrition in accordance with consumer tastes.”
As the nutrition world holds its breath over the McLean Deluxe, Goldblatt concludes: ”As always, we will let the customer make the choice. That`s why we market-test.”
In the meantime, Sokolof ”lies awake nights” planning his next moves. Remember, we`re talking total dedication. ”I don`t have a set schedule,” he says, ”and I probably spend 80 percent of my time on business for National Heart Savers.” That`s 80 percent of a work week that usually runs 100 hours- or more.
At 5 feet 10 and 145 pounds, Sokolof`s own cholesterol is 150-”or less.” His typical diet includes orange juice, one slice of melba toast and tea for breakfast; a packet of soup mixed with hot water at 4 p.m.; and a late-night snack ”whipped up with a can opener, frozen foods and my microwave.”
Once a month, the widower will drive his white Mercedes sports coupe out to a favorite restaurant and indulge in a steak, but, he adds, ”on many days, I doubt if I eat more than two or three grams of fat.” He urges people to eat frequently and lightly throughout the day, rather than one or two heavy meals. Sokolof says that his new fame has forced him to do his supermarket shopping at 11 p.m. or so. ”Before, people were coming up to see what I had in my shopping cart,” he says. ”After checking it out, they`d tell me, `Gee, it`s good to know that I can eat that!` ”
Sokolof`s dietary ”hit list” for the future includes:
”Low-fat” milk. ”This is a misrepresentation,” Sokolof charges.
”The milk being sold as `low-fat` actually is 2 percent fat, which is not much less than the 3.6 fat content of whole milk. True low-fat milk should contain less than 1 percent fat or, better yet, it would be like skim milk, with only traces of fat.”
– Girl Scout cookies. ”I like the Girl Scouts,” he says, ”and I know that their cookies go for a good cause, but they`re using the wrong manufacturer. The Girl Scout chocolate-mint cookies are made with three kinds of tropical oils-coconut, palm and palm kernel. That`s no good.”
– Theater popcorn. ”It`s made with coconut oil, not the healthier vegetable oil,” he explains. ”I called the executive director of the national association of theater owners, and he was sympathetic.
”The reason theaters serve oily popcorn is simple: They have a cleaning problem! Since vegetable oil is more porous than coconut oil, it leaves a residue of grease on the bottom and sides of the popcorn kettles. The kids that theaters employ to make popcorn don`t have the time or the inclination to clean the kettles, so it`s simpler to use coconut oil, which keeps all the grease in the popcorn kernel!”
– Hostess Twinkies. Sokolof says: ”They`re made with lard and are loaded with saturated fat. The manufacturer basically told me to go away, arguing that the cupcakes are an `indulgent` food and are going to stay the way they are.”
– Cool Whip. Too much coconut oil, according to Sokolof, but the manufacturer says it`s needed for ”acceptable” taste.
– Restaurants that refuse to provide low-cholesterol, low-fat menu choices. ”These people are not in tune with the mood of the consumer,” he says.
– School lunches. If Sokolof has his way, all the nation`s schools will serve the low-fat hamburger for lunch, and this change will become the cornerstone of an expanded school educational program on nutrition. The USDA has purchased 300,000 pounds of the new low-fat beef for use this fall in selected schools, and Sokolof is confident ”the kids will love this beef. Then we can use it in all the schools.”
As he takes aim at these and other targets, Sokolof often unwinds at home by pedaling furiously on his exercise bicycle. Of course, to make maximum use of his time, he watches pre-recorded TV programs. He is especially fond of sports, and he loved watching Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls win the NBA title.
He also enjoyed watching the McDonald`s ads during the NBA playoffs.
”The Jordan Burger,” which was advertised in Chicago spots, ”is a horrible product,” Sokolof says, ”but Jordan is the perfect man to pitch the new McLean Deluxe, as he did in McDonald`s national spots.”
Sokolof is a student of advertising, and he couldn`t help but notice McDonald`s tagline for its McLean Deluxe ads: ”Our critics call it revolutionary.”
The crusader allows himself a sense of satisfaction. Phil Sokolof concludes, ”I wrote that commercial!”
