Fri, 05 Jan 2007

Why Your Oil Became Partially Hydrogenated

Well, most of the truth at last comes out. They neglect to mention the government's role in this mess, of course, but that's to be expected.

What I didn't know is the "solution" the food industry has come up with: how to do get rid of partially hydrogenated oils without going back to lard?

Many of the new margarines that are free of trans fat mix completely hydrogenated oil, which is very solid, with unsaturated oil, a liquid, to achieve a desirable consistency without making the oil form the trans configuration. Experts say that the new oils and margarines should be more healthful. Of course, experts also once thought that about partially hydrogenated oil.

So go ahead and enjoy that 0 grams of trans fat margarine made from totally hydrogenated soybean oil. I'll be sticking to real butter, myself.

Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, the current villain of the food industry, was once considered a shining achievement for reducing saturated fat intake. "A lot of people have demonized partially hydrogenated soybean oil, but they forget how it came about," says Mark Matlock, senior vice president of research at Archer Daniels Midland. "If you go back 15 or 30 years, french fries were fried in beef fat, and the effort at the time was to remove the saturated fats that it contained." It also helped that partially hydrogenated oil was cheap to produce and lasted considerably longer than regular oil.

(link) [U.S. News & World Report]

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