Interesterified Oils… that’s new…

I am surprised when I notice something new in food. An ingredient, a new manufacturing method, or even a new dietary theory. I live in this world and few things are new to me in this way. That is why I was so excited to read the ingredient list on the side of a box of Applause crackers.

Interesterified soybean, canola, corn oils… plus good old hydrogenated oils.

But what is interesterified oil? I set out to find out.

I had come accross the esterification of oils in past research, but never noted it as worth remembering because I hadn’t ever seen it in food as an ingredient. So I never thought it worth knowing about, until now of course.

I absolutely love being a food detective. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it was a not so trivial game of triviall pursuit as a child that galvanized a need to know more about one facet of life than other people. Whatever the reason, I am becoming a walking encyclopedia of cross referenced nutritional data.

I set out to discover what this is at the first place we all look. Google. Now the trick to searching google is to know the source, know the how, what and where of search engine protocol and to always have an offline back up to research as well.

I have my trusted on-line sources. Weston Price Foundation. The on-line education forum for the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (a private forum for professional health counselors around the world), Mercola.com, and several on-line encyclopedias.

On my search, I decided to go to the source, the industrial refiners of edible oils. Here is the scoop on interesterified oils from BUNGE, a large manufacturer / producer of edible oils:

” As research continues to identify the health implications of dietary fat, many consumers are focusing on the inclusion of certain fats in their diet. The advantages of reduced-trans fat, over traditional fat, have led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to consider changes in labeling a product’s fat composition. With a new, reduced-trans shortening from Bunge Oils®, food processors can positively impact the fat profile while maintaining product quality… Bunge Oils revolutionary technology produces a reduced-trans product with the functionality of traditional shortening, which enables the delivery of high quality baked goods.”

-from, http://www.bungefoods.com/ReducedTransShortening.htm

Here is what I found from the Archer Daniels Midland company.

NOVALIPID™ INTERESTERIFIED ALL PURPOSE SHORTENING (LOW TRANS)
NovaLipid™ Interesterified All Purpose Shortening is an interesterified (IE) shortening with low trans. 1 gram of Trans Fat per serving. Baking – a wide plastic range makes it ideally suited for pastries, cookies, cakes, and most other baking applications…

NOVALIPID

As food manufacturers prepare for the upcoming 2006 FDA requirement to label trans-fatty acid content on food labels, ADM is ready to help right now—with our NovaLipid line of fats and oils, each one specifically formulated to contain little or no trans fat. NovaLipid products have an extremely low taste profile, making them an excellent addition or alternative to a vast number of food applications such as shortenings, margarines, confections and many other prepared foods.

Product:  NOVALIPID™ INTERESTERIFIED ALL PURPOSE SHORTENING (LOW TRANS)

Product Trademark:

NOVALIPID™

Product Code:

106-055

	General Description:
	NovaLipid™ Interesterified All Purpose Shortening is an interesterified (IE) shortening with low trans. 1 gram of Trans Fat per serving. Baking – a wide plastic range makes it ideally suited for pastries, cookies, cakes, and most other baking applications. Contains no tropical oils. Available in 50 pound cubes.

excerpted from three pages off of the main site at: http://www.admworld.com/naen/brands/novalipid.asp or at http://www.admworld.com/naen/food/other.asp

Here is my take on this new development. Food manufacturers are not going to give up the market share of refined polyunsaturate oil, so they are getting around the trans fat labeling by mixing small amounts of fully hydrogenated oil with liquid polyunsaturate oils and calling “interesterified oil.” They claim that fully hydrogenated oil is healthier. Since there is less trans fat, they can sell this product to food manufacturers for use in commercial dressings, baked goods, candies and anything else that used to have partially hydrogenated oil in the ingredient list.

In plain english, interestification means mixing fully hydrogenated oil with liquid polyunsaturate oil to produce a consistency similar to partially hydrogenated oil, which is the source of trans fats. The solution to the trans fat problem; from the manufacturer perspective!

Well, it looks like I am going to have to get used to telling my clients to look for ‘interesterified oil” as well as partially hydrogenated oil in the ingredient list. Of course, no one can ever trust the label regarding trans fat anyway, since the FDA allows .5 grams of trans fat per serving to be labeled “no trans fat.”

Hey, I am not saying food companies are evil. No way. They are in the business of turning a profit. This major shift away from domestic hydrogenated oil by savvy consumers must have many food industry reps scared. If it was my business, would I face the facts and look at the health implications if my paycheck were on the line. I hope so, but security and safety are powerful motivators of human behaviour.

The bottom line for my work remains the same. Eat unprocessed oils. Eat mostly high quality monounsaturated oils and some high quality saturated fats. High quality means heat, light and oxygen protected oils that have not been chemically extracted. That solves the whole freakin’ problem of trans fats and gets you past the other problems we haven’t even covered, rancidity, oxidation and pro-inflammatory factors.

This entry was posted on April 6, 2007 at 6:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.