Frying Without The Trans Fats

Trans fats are in the news a lot these days because a new regulation that requires that they be included on food nutrition labels is now in force. Trans fats occur when liquid oils are made into solid materials by a process called partial hydrogenation. This increases the shelf life and flavor stability, but at the expense of increased health risks.

These fats have been found to increase levels of LDL (or "bad") cholesterol. This means that a significantly increased risk of heart disease.

Partially hydrogenated vegetable fats are present in about 40 percent of the shelves of grocery food store. Biscuits, crackers and microwave popcorn are the main sources of trans fats, as well as other processed foods such as sprouts butter, margarine, shortening or cooking, and the type of oven, salad dressings, desserts, donuts, snacks, chips , chocolate candies, some breakfast cereals, french fries and other fried snacks. Since January 2006, manufacturers must list trans fats on nutrition as part of a box of all food labels.

Therefore, there is a movement to reduce and eliminate trans fats from food.

The new regulation does not yet apply to people buying food in restaurants and other away from home and restaurants. However, food service operators, including major fast food chains, we know we share the responsibility to provide good food that can be part of a healthy diet.

Most of the 925,000 U.S. restaurants have deep fryers, deep fryers and using nearly 18,000 tons of fat per year, most partially hydrogenated fats and oils. These restaurants are looking for ways to reduce trans fats in their menus without breaking the flavor, and that includes the search for alternatives to partially hydrogenated.

One possibility is to have interest in the oil is called low-linolenic soybean oil, soy specially bred. It 'was developed specifically to replace partially hydrogenated oils, and can be used alone or mixed with other vegetable oils that are low or no trans fats to reduce or even eliminate trans fats in foods fried in it.

To protect your health when choosing food to eat at home, read the nutrition information panel and the ingredient label on packaged foods. And when you eat, you ask what type of oil, the restaurant is using. In both cases, he seeks to avoid partially hydrogenated oils and tropical oils (which contain high levels of unhealthy saturated fat). When you see the "soybean oil with low linolenic," you know you're a healthy diet.