Across the country last week, it was front-page news. By the end of April, the fast-food giant McDonald's would begin offering the McLean Deluxe, a hamburger that contains only 9% fat, less than half the fat content of its traditional burgers. The new hamburger, exulted McDonald's president, "is good news for people who like beef but who want to reduce their fat intake."
Health experts and nutritionists hailed the decision. But no one was more delighted than the lone man who through persistence and intimidation practically coerced McDonald's into making the move: Omaha industrialist Philip Sokolof, 68. Besieged by the press last week in the wake of the announcement, Sokolof, a dead ringer for actor Hal Holbrook, adopted a modest pose. "This is a very great day for the American people," he declared.
It was a pretty good day for Sokolof too. For it marked the greatest victory yet in his remarkable crusade to improve the diet and protect the hearts of millions of Americans. Single-handedly, with messianic zeal, a keen public relations sense and some $3 million of his own money, Sokolof has persuaded many of the nation's largest food processors and fast-food chains to change both their ways and the ingredients of their products. In the process he has outraged corporate executives, given tropical oils a bad name and turned supermarket aisles into America's new libraries, clogged with shoppers reading ingredient labels.
Sokolof's motivation comes straight from the heart, his own heart, which nearly stopped beating in 1966. He remembers the day of his heart attack well. "Oct. 27," he says. "It's not like the birth of your child, but it's memorable." And it came out of the blue. As founder and president of Omaha's Phillips Manufacturing Co., Sokolof drove himself relentlessly but seemed to be in good shape. "I was thin," he recalls. "I'm 5 ft. 10 in., and I weighed only 145 lbs. I did the Royal Canadian Air Force exercises regularly; I worked out and ran a mile once or twice a week."
Luckily for Sokolof, who was addicted to ice cream, hamburgers, hot dogs and "anything greasy," his doctor was one of the early believers in the association of fatty foods with high cholesterol and heart disease. He warned Sokolof that his cholesterol reading, at 300, was dangerously high and prescribed a low-fat diet. Within a few months, Sokolof's cholesterol level had dropped to 190 (it is now 150). During his recovery, he pestered his doctor with questions about cholesterol, plaque and other heart-related topics. "Phil," he recalls the doctor saying, "I can't make you a cardiologist." But Sokolof pressed on. "Now I consider myself an amateur cardiologist," he says, "and I know a lot more about cholesterol than some of them do."
In 1984, after a federally sponsored study confirmed cholesterol's role in heart disease, Sokolof decided to act. With a million dollars drawn from his personal account, he founded the National Heart Savers Association, which consists mainly of Sokolof and two assistants. NHSA's goal: to call attention to the dangers of high cholesterol levels and, says Sokolof earnestly, "to save people's lives."