Posted on 08/23/2007 5:35:51 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Whether restaurants should eliminate artificial trans fats from their menus has been a topic of sizzling debate in Madison, and Marv Miller, owner of the Greenbush Bakery, had been one of the skeptics.
He wasn't sure that a trans fat-free oil could replicate the consistency and quality of the partially hydrogenated oil he used to fry doughnuts.
But now, the bakery has made the switch to oil with zero trans fat, Miller said. The shop found a company called Bunge Oils that makes a new, non-trans fat cooking oil and made the switch about a week ago.
"Bakery is pure science," Miller said. "We've finally been able to get a quality product that is compatible to the quality level of items we manufacture. We're just absolutely elated."
The bakery sells apple and blueberry fritters; glazed, old-fashioned and filled doughnuts; and crullers, among other pastries. The Regent Street shop is particularly popular with college students jonesing for a treat after bar time.
"Right now I'm the only guy in the state of Wisconsin who is frying non-trans fat doughnuts, to my knowledge," Miller said. "That's what I'm hearing from my suppliers."
The bakery decided to make the change after realizing that it was "only a matter of time" before trans fats were banned in Madison, Manager Nels Labansky said. In July, the City Council passed a non-binding resolution that encourages all restaurants to consider ditching unhealthy artifical trans fats, but there is no law in place that mandates the conversion. Last year, New York City passed a ban on trans fats in its restaurants.
To make the transition, staff at the Greenbush Bakery had to adjust some frying temperatures and make ventilation changes to the establishment. Labansky said he was concerned about interrupting the bakery's regular shipments of packaged baked goods to local grocery stores during the switch, but the change was pretty seamless.
Eli Persky, co-founder of Informed Consumers Equal Improved Health, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student group that is seeking to reduce trans fats in Madison restaurants, said he was surprised by the news, but applauded the change.
Earlier this year, "it sounded like they were having genuine difficulty in converting," Persky said. "The fact that Greenbush can do it means that every restaurant owner should look hard at the possibility."
Persky's group honors restaurants that are moving away from using artifical trans fats, have a low amount of trans fats (silver award) or eliminate the substance from their menus altogether (gold award).
"If they think they can make food as good that's a little bit healthier, that's what we want," Persky said.
Labansky said that customers haven't commented one way or the other on the change, which he considers a positive. He's noticed that the doughnuts seem to have a more buttery flavor now, "which is something we're really pleased with."
Yet while the new oil has eliminated trans fats, it's increased the amount of saturated fat in the oil. Like trans fat, saturated fat has been linked with health problems.
"I'm not sure how much better that is for you," said Richard Hartel, a professor of food engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"The more unsaturated fats there are, the healthier they are for you," he said. "There's a certain amount of fats we need in the diet."
But unsaturated fats are liquid fats. At this point, some amount of solid fats are necessary in order to give some foods, like doughnuts, the right texture and taste, Hartel said.
"The goal is to use the minimum amount of saturated fats to get the functionality that we need," Hartel said. "It's been something everybody has been working hard on in the last five to 10 years."
Remind anyone of the tens of thousands of dollars bars and restaurants spent to upgrade their air systems...and then the local Smoke Gnatzies shut them down anyway?
Fools.
Nanny State Ping & Foodie Ping, all rolled into one. :)
How did the bakeries in the days before transfats survive?! /sarcasm
they had to use real butter, and eggs etc.
They should go back to that....OTOH, they shouldn't have to put up with the nanny gov't telling them what to do either.
What do you want to bet if they ran a true taste test and asked customers what they thought they would find many do not like the new taste.
The more the “PC” crowd bitches about trans fats the more I want to eat em. If trans fats kill me oh well,sooner of later life will eventually kill me !!!
Nanny state PING.............
Here we go AGAIN with the I didn’t want to say it, but we told you so.........
“Artificial” they always say,”it’s as good as real.”
(But it never is.)
Erzats Brothers Doughnuts: Look for the picture of the doughnut!
Real butter always tastes better.
But the gov should stay out of it.
I'd take that bet. They boosted the saturated fats. :-)
In reality I don’t smoke and I hate to talk on the cell phone while driving and I always wear a seat belt....the donut sounds good though
Don’t forget to keep one hand free to swat your kids in the seat behind you, LOL!
And they’d better not be in safety or booster seats, either! ;)
Trans Fat is NOT FOOD. It is a kind of deadly plastic derived from a food source. It SHOULD be illegal for foods marketed for human consumption. It should no more be legal than putting plaster and water in milk, or sawdust in oatmeal. Flame away, “conservatives.”
Nothing wrong with getting rid of trans fats.
But, we don’t need a govt mandate to do it. The evidence is pretty strong that trans fats are bad news. People should just avoid them, we don’t need a govt nanny forcing us to.
Turn to the 1900’s century, food makers were using all sorts of non-food items as ingredients. For example coals was used as a food coloring.
But for government regulation, factories were using anything for a buck philosophy.
Lard!
Remember it started with “no smoking on flights of less than 2 hours”.
That is like saying we should not regulate using colored wax with artificial color and flavoring passed as chocolate.
“That is like saying we should not regulate using colored wax with artificial color and flavoring passed as chocolate.”
Different issue. Trans fats are a known quantity, what you described is fraud and deception.
If we follow your logic above, then all food will be regulated based on a govt measure of how “healthy” it is.
Thanks. I try to tell these people and they don’t get it. They think it’s about gaining weight. Transfats were put into food as a preservative and has nothing to do with weight gain.
The market is actually driving this trend of getting rid of transfats. I won’t go to Burger King until they get rid of transfats. On the other hand, I like going to a chain called “Jason’s Deli” and they have a large sign saying they are transfat free.
I have been trying to find out if Taco Bueno has transfats. I’m guessing they do.
The PC crowd is going to have to ban Ben and Jerry’s liberal ice cream.
Oh, PULEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE.
Isn't there enough government regulation in your life as it is, and you're looking for more?
As I said...........
What they don’t tell you is that one of the new fats, called interesterified, is worse than trans fat. It seems to cause an increase in blood sugar.
Could we please just go back to what they used to use before the food fascists started harping on saturated fats?
I'll not be surprised if they do. When you watch these health studies for a few decades, you find that they reverse themselves time after time. Caffeine bad, caffeine good, beer bad, beer good, aspirin bad, aspirin good, blah blah blah.
I see that some of the "zero trans fat!" baked goods I buy now have palm oil instead of hydrogenated vegetable oil. Ten years ago they were telling us how bad palm oil is for our health.
And then there are the "heart-healthy" butter substitutes like Smart Balance. Well what happens if I eat other fats with my meal? Does that upset the smart balance and become bad for my heart?
I make my own donuts with canola oil, but they're not as rich-tasting as trans fat donuts.
Five years from now, they will tell us that canola oil causes cancer.
they had to use real butter, and eggs etc.
that is exactly what we do at our bakery. everything is make from scratch. you can pronounce all the words to the ingredients.
Ping
This statement goes directly against the idea that it must be made illegal.
No kidding. When you heat the stuff on a pan, it polymerizes - turns into plastic. Try scrubbing it off - very very hard. Think about what it is doing to your arteries. Neither olive oil, nor even butter, do that.
“Could we please just go back to what they used to use before the food fascists started harping on saturated fats?”
Sounds good to me. Lard, Beef tallow, and butter.
I have lots of relatives who ate that stuff all their lives and lived healthy lives into their 80’s and 90’s.
Transfats are essentially rancid oils which were made rancid by chemical infusion while being heated. That’s why they don’t spoil.
Saturated fat is actually what’s good for you. It doesn’t cause heart disease. Since it is saturated, it doesn’t change chemical composition when heated, and it will last for a long time without becoming rancid.
They used lard! It tasted better too. Lard makes the flakiest pie crusts.
Not food? Deadly plastic? A course in basic chemistry and nutrition could help you with this misunderstanding.
I am as alergic to government regulation as anyone on this forum, however, I shouldn't have to resort to a private testing laboratory for each food item I purchase to ensure it does not contain arsenic or strichnine or any other known to be deadly chemical. It should also go for artifically made so-called fats that turn into hard plastic in your arteries on the slightest provocation.
Trans fats? Feh! Who needs them? Good old lard and butter will do the job.
I’ve been using lard and butter and olive oil for baking for over 20 years now. When I first got married, Mr. mm and I decided to eat better than we were raised so started making changes to our diet. Some were easy, some were tougher.
After reading the labels on margarine packages and finding out how crisco was made, we decided that we’d rather take our chances with real food. At least our bodies would be able to recognize and digest it.
One thing I won’t do is fry with any vegetable oils other than olive oil. I found out that paint varnish is made by heating one of several oils (sunflower, safflower, or soybean) to high temperatures for several hours. After looking at the sticky gunk on the bottom of my frying pans that I had been told for years was called varnish, I realized that it WAS varnish. That was it for me. Olive oil is much more resistant to polymerizing from the heat than other kinds.
Independent of beer bad beer good, most of us know that good beer more or less conforms to the German purity laws of 1516 "the only ingredients used for the brewing of beer must be Barley, Hops and Water."
It is a good law, with the exception of Hefeweizen, and I should not have to be subject to the predatory behavior of brewers who want to mess with perfection and ruin a perfectly good evening by serving swill. I could care less if they go out of business, eventually, for selling subgrade beer. I am more concerned about them ruining my evening by experimenting with cheap ingredients than I am with whether they eventually go bankrupt, which, as Miller has demonstrated, can be a very very long eventuality.
That was our philosophy about margarine. If I couldn’t pronounce the ingredients, I wasn’t going to eat it.
Actually, it’s varnish. See post 39.
Try lacquer solvent to clean your pans. That cuts varnish better than mineral spirits or petroleum distillate.
I have had that course and then some. Unfortunately, what you will learn is that when said transfats are subjected to heat, what results is, in fact, a deadly polymer (plastic). You can observe the same by trying to scrub out your pan after cooking with it.
varnish is a plastic.
Trans fats are used for many reasons. Extending shelf life is just one. They also create better texture and better flavor. Cooking oils with TFA's won't rancidify as quickly. The new trans-fat free cooking oils will oxidize faster allowing free radicals to form. Consumers, thanks to this stupid nanny state legislation, will be getting a lot more free radicals in their diet as operators try to stretch the fry life of their oil as much as possible. This poses more danger than the small amount of trans fats we consume.
The average American gets less than 2% of their total caloric intake from trans fats. Conversely, the average American will derive 12-15% of their total caloric intake from saturated fat. All fats, regardless of the source, offer 9 calories per gram. So, yes, it is about weight gain. This whole issue is a calorie distraction orchestrated by people who aren't really interested in science or health, but are highly motivated by exercising more control over your life.
The same things are said about second hand smoke, where do you draw the line?
You should try grapeseed or macadamia oils.....olive oil really shouldn’t be “fried” with.....
BINGO!!!!!!!!!!
You get the kewpie doll :)
I do draw a firm line against second hand smoke, and any other noxious effluent, water born, soil born or air born. Sorry man, but I am a firm believer in anti-confined space public smoking regulation. Your right to punch ends at my nose, and so does your right to emit deadly poisons. I am sorry that it takes government regulation. I suppose a pure libertarian would tell me I have right to hunt you down with a firearm when you assault the health and safety of me and my family, but that is what is regarded as a constraint of modern civilization. Regulation cuts both ways. It stops you from poisoning me and it stops me from discharging a 30-06 carefully aimed at your medula when you so do.
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