New Fully-Hydrogenated Oil

[Marilee13]

I was at the store today and I saw in the oil section a "shortening" that had "No trans fat." It was palm oil and it was either "Fully-hydrogenated" or "Fully-Saturated." Sorry, I can't remember the exact terminology. Does anyone know what this is? Is this the "new oils" that they are using in crackers, etc. that they are stating contain "no trans fat". I'm really curious. What are the health risks and studies relating to this new shortening?

[Gaelen]

Marilee...do you kjnow the brand or name of the product? With that, you could try an online search to see if there's information about the product on the manufacturer's website...

Hope this helps.

[Marilee13]

The brand name is Crisco. The ingredients are as follows:

SOYBEAN OIL, SUNFLOWER OIL, FULLY HYDROGENATED PALM OIL, MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, TBHQ AND CITRIC ACID (ANTIOXIDANTS).

and the website for information is:

http://www.crisco.com/about/prod_info.asp?groupID=17&catId=63&FlavorId=344

Does anyone have any additional information, i.e. studies on this palm oil or other Fully Hydrogenated oils? I found a website that stated that artificially fully hydrogenated oils are hard at room temperature. So, they blend them with liquid oils to soften them. From time to time, we do eat Triscuits and/or Wheat Thins and they have no trans fat or partially hydrogenated oil. However, they do contain soybean oil. I have to wonder if they are using a fully hydrogenated oil/liquid oil blend. There are some other foods as well that used to contain trans fat and no longer do...I'm wondering if they use something similar to this and what issues we are going to see with this product. It took what, 80 some years to identify the dangers with shortening.

I would love more information on this if anyone out there has it.

[lowcarbgirl]

Personally (just me here) I'm leary of fully hydrogenated fats. Ummm, unless I don't understand it, it has still been manipulated and therefor not a natural occuring fat. Some how I just don't picture Freddy Flinstone eating them. Remember back when margarine was healthy and butter was bad for you? How long were we told that for? Only to find out it was the other way around and that the margarine was doing us some major harm. So this is why I'm leary of it. But that's just me.

Hugs,
Willow

[Marilee13]

Believe me, I'm leary of it as well. The problem is, where are we going to be seeing this new fat? Will it be in the low-carb tortillas we eat, what about low-carb breads? I have to have some of these comfort foods around and manufacturers are great at hiding what's in the food. Basically I'd like to learn more about this so I can be fully informed and ask the proper questions when calling the manufacturer's consumer information lines.

[cmcole]

Do All Foods Listing Hydrogenated Oils Contain Trans Fats? From Fiona Haynes (http://lowfatcooking.about.com/mbiopage.htm),

Foods that contain trans fats have "partially hydrogenated oil" or "hydrogenated oil" listed in the ingredients. Before trans fats were required to be listed on nutrition labels, from January 2006, this was our only way of knowing whether these harmful fats were present. Yet a number of products state "0g Trans Fat" or declare themselves to be trans-fat free but still have these oils listed in their ingredients. How can this be?
A. There are two reasons why foods containing hydrogenated oils may be labeled trans-fat free, or list 0g trans fats on the label. First, items that list partially hydrogenated oils in the ingredients but contain less than 0.5g of trans fats are considered by the government to be trans-fat free. A good example of this would be commercial peanut butter, which contains a tiny amount of partially hydrogenated oil to prevent separation. Second, products that contain fully hydrogenated oils are trans-fat free. Crisco’s trans-fat free shortening, in the green packaging, falls into this category. Let's take a closer look at hydrogenation.
Hydrogenation is the chemical process by which liquid vegetable oil is turned into solid fat. Partially hydrogenated oils contain trans fatty acids, or trans fats, which are more harmful than saturated fats. zSB(3,3)
Trans fats raise levels of bad cholesterol and lower levels of good cholesterol. You can read more on this in my profile of trans fats (http://lowfatcooking.about.com/od/healthandfitness/p/trnasfats.htm).
When liquid vegetable oil is fully hydrogenated, however, almost no trans fats remain. The resulting fat is even more solid, taking on a hard, waxy consistency, even at room temperature. Full hydrogenation increases the amount of saturated fat, although much of it is in the form of stearic acid, which is converted by the body to oleic acid, a monounsaturated fat, which doesn’t raise levels of bad cholesterol. This makes fully hydrogenated fats less harmful than partially hydrogenated fats.
Crisco’s trans-fat free shortening contains fully hydrogenated cottonseed oil, which is blended with sunflower oil and soybean oil to soften what would otherwise be a too-hard fat. To be clear: just because it is trans-fat-free doesn’t make it low fat. One tablespoon of trans-fat free shortening contains 110 calories, 12g of fat, 3g of which is saturated. It is cholesterol free, however. Beware: if a package simply lists "hydrogenated oil," without expressly stating whether it is partially or fully hydrogenated, it may not be trans-fat free. Sometimes the terms "hydrogenated" and "partially hydrogenated" are used interchangeably. If the package clearly states that it contains fully hydrogenated oil, then it will be trans-fat free. With the new labeling laws, trans fats are more transaparent than they used to be, and many food manufacturers continue to look for healthier alternatives for their products.


http://lowfatcooking.about.com/od/faqs/f/hydrogenated.htm

http://www.sustainableenterprises.com/images/smselogo.jpg Hydrogenated fat and health

One day, hydrogenated fats and oils will be conclusively linked to heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, clogged arteries, at the least. One day, studies may also link obesity, lethargy and chronic pain to the consumption of hydrogenated fat.
Happily, that day is approaching much more rapidly than we would have thought. A plethora of new studies, and a new labeling law (http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/qatrans2.html) in the United States, promise to raise awareness among consumers. One group leading the charge, Ban Trans Fats (http://www.bantransfats.com/), filed a lawsuit against the makers of Oreo cookies, which have poisoned kids all over the world with their high levels of hydrogenated fat. Kraft foods, one of the world's largest food producers, responded to that effort (http://www.bantransfats.com/news.htm)by promising to reduce the amount of trans fats in many of their products. Large commodity companies are now offering low and no trans fat products for commercial bakers.
Hydrogenated oils went mainstream in America in the 1920s, when the vegetable oil cartel finally became more powerful than dairy farmers, and cardiac arrest has been going up ever since. According to the Harvard Medical School, the chemicals found in hydrogenated fats may be responsible for as many as 100,000 premature deaths per year (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/reviews/transfats.html), in the U.S. alone.
We feel there is no question that hydrogenated fats are closely related to the epidemic of heart and arterial disease in America and the rest of the "developed" world. We urge you to eliminate at least 95 percent of the hydrogenated fats from your diet. On July 10, 2002 the United States Academy of Sciences basically agreed with us. They said there is "no safe level" of trans fatty acids in the American diet. What is the primary source of our trans-fatty acids? It's the hydrogenated vegetable oils found in so many of our corporate prepared, pre-packaged foods. Read the story. (http://www.sustainableenterprises.com/Body/nosafehydro.htm)

What is hydrogenated fat?
Food factories create hydrogenated fat by cooking liquid vegetable oils at very high temperatures and pressures. Machines pump hydrogen into this brew, along with a metal catalyst, often nickel. The hydrogen gas fills in the missing hydrogen bonds on the oil molecule, turning the liquid oil into a solid or semi-solid form. Animal fats like butter or lard are hard at room temperature because there are few or no missing hydrogen atoms. These fats are called "saturated." Hydrogenated fats are "artificially saturated."

http://www.sustainableenterprises.com/Body/hydro.htm#What

It should be healthier than regular shortening, but at one time we were sure that regular margarine was healthier than butter, and now we aren't so sure of that. In any case, in 2006, trans-fats have to be listed on Nutrition Facts labels so you can expect to see lots of similar products since all the food manufacturers will want to reduce or elimate trans fats from their products.



http://nutrition.about.com/od/askyournutritionist/f/fully_hydro.htm

[Marilee13]

Thanks for all that info cmcole. I am wondering if this new "fully hydrogenated oil" will have to be disclosed in the ingredients. I know they have to list "partially hydrogenated oil" and list trans fat but I wonder if we will know by looking at ingredients whether the oil would be "artificially saturated" or in its natural state?

Also, since you seem to be so good at providing information, I have had a looming question regarding oxidized cholesterol. I understand that powdered eggs contain oxidized cholesterol but the Eades in their book recommend not cooking eggs to long because the cholesterol oxidizes. How exactly does this happen? and how do we know how long is too long? Does oxidization also occur in meats when overcooked?

My kids love scrambled eggs and I do cook the whites first and then after the whites are cooked, I break the yolks and scramble those in just until they are no longer runny (they are actually better this way I think) but my husband thinks any breaking and cooking of the yolks creates oxidized cholesterol....Is there any way to prevent the oxidization in a cooked egg, or meat, etc?

[lowcarbgirl]

but the Eades in their book recommend not cooking eggs to long because the cholesterol oxidizes. How exactly does this happen? and how do we know how long is too long? Does oxidization also occur in meats when overcooked?

If I remember (and understood) what I read in PPLP correctly it doesn't have to do with cooking the eggs too long but rather exposing the yolk to both air and heat. In other words cooking the eggs with the yolk broken (then exposing it to the two elements). So soft/hard boiled is good. I know poached is ok. They also say that the occasional broken yolk omlette isn't going to harm you. Otherwise better to cook them with mostly egg whites.

I don't believe this happens in meats. I have never seen that mentioned anywhere. But that is a good question.

hugs,
Willow

[LisaS]

I looked around a little bit - we all know oxidation, right? Turns bananas and avocados brown - so we know that things like light & air & heat can cause oxidation - even of lipids/cholesterol. I tried to find something on dietary cholesterol oxides (other than eggs) and it was hard to find references to humans and food rather than rats & studies -
I found one that implicated ghee - another that studied sausages stored over a multi-week period - and another that hinted about foods & storage & techniques -
here they are:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1440-6047.2002.00270.x
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2887943&dopt=Abstract
http://www.ejpau.media.pl/volume7/issue2/food/art-07.html

I think eating your own fresh and lightly processed food seems to be the ticket with today's state of knowledge. I did find an article on Mercola's site about hamburgers mixed with cherry pulp and how they had less cholesterol oxides after 4 days. So - we know that antioxidants "take a bullet" for what they are trying to protect - and apparently the antioxidants in the cherries protected the meat while it was being stored. I would think that taking precautions about air tight storage, cold storage, dark storage -- all good things to do.
Grind your meat at home - no need to expose all that surface area to heat and air until the last minute - that sort of thing.

[Marilee13]

LowCarbGirl and LisaS thanks so much for the clarifications and information. I appreciate the help!

I wonder if the Eades know about the ghee study. They do mention ghee in their book as something good to use. In addition, they make only a small mention of oxidized cholesterol and I believe, it was mainly in relation to eggs. Is this something we should all be paying more attention to?

Marilee