Tuesday, January 6, 2009

January 2009


Defeating Gluttony and Imitation Designer Handbags
So, I am in this situation where one brother throws his lot in with a Reuben's image of health and the other is running a half marathon, bemoaning a genetic predisposition to a pot belly and being called stick legs by brother, a.k.a., “Reuben's Fat.” Not to mention, that Reuben's Fat is telling us all he, himself, is beautiful and we should buy imitation designer handbags. Is this the new gluttony?
I listen as Ruben’s Fat speaks dodgy science about transfats –“When you cook with olive oil it turns into transfats”- and eats at some deep deep fry joint. The rebels speak in secret, the contra language supported by refereed publications available on PubMed(www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/). We wince in frustration as getting along with stubbornness dominates informed talk. And we wonder why Reuben's Fat’s two children are growing round. Facetious.
My 62-year-old heroes, Vittorio and Vittoria, have blown the lid off what to do with a life and adopted a second child. They will help him along the road to hero. He shows up from Ethiopia, 40% below typical body mass for a 4-year-old his height. Is Paul Klee's “Angelus Novus” looking back at this spectrum? Let's talk about childhood obesity, let's go for Part 1: what was that rubbish, on olive oil converting to transfats when heated, imitation designer handbags and the like. Why am I going on about imitation designer handbags, I have nightmares of crushed humans, children, making them. Wake up.
Is there a relationship between being in the river of dodgy information and eating at some deep fry joint? I believe there is; this constant uttering of the just plain wrong is as indicative of things amiss, the error of ways, as is a declining spotted owl population in North American forests is indicative of the collapse of the forest ecosystem.
Transfats are formed during hydrogenation and high temperature heating of oil. The heating of olive oil on a home stove is very unlikely to result in the formation of transfats. Hydrogenation (and oxidization) may occur if the oil is repeatedly exposed to high temperature heating, as in commercial frying dens of mishandling food.
By the way, virgin olive oil and pomace oil are highly monounsaturated oils and consequently somewhat resistant to hydrogenation and oxidation. Raising the temperature of olive oil will cause the alcohols and esters that contribute to the taste and aroma, to evapourate. The alcohols and esters have a relatively lower evapouration point than the other components.
So, let’s not lose touch with Reuben’s Fat; he is in the kitchen Burning Chrome, I mean olive oil. And he has pulled it off, turned olive oil into margarine (high in transfats); I neglected to mention in addition to the heating to 400°C, he induced partial hydrogenation by bubbling hydrogen gas through the hot oil in the presence of a nickel or platinum catalyst. He’s a genius.
I retreat to do a few Vinyasas. Not a chance on the transfat nonsense.
Go eat.
*******Health notes*******
(1) Transfats are found naturally in small quantities in, e.g., dairy products, beef and lamb. Transfats and saturated fats are unhealthy fats because they tend to raise the risk of heart disease.
(2) Blood levels of LDL-cholesterol (“bad cholesterol”) are raised and blood levels of HDL-cholesterol (“good cholesterol”) are lowered by transfats. LDL-cholesterol raises the risk of heart disease, whereas HDL-cholesterol protects against heart disease.
(3) Saturated fats also raise blood levels of LDL-cholesterol and to complicate the story raise blood levels of HDL-cholesterol.
(4) In general, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats tend to lower your risk of heart disease; polyunsaturated fats are believed to have a greater effect than monounsaturated fats. On the downside, monounsaturated fats (and unsaturated fats) promote insulin resistance, whereas on the upside, polyunsaturated fats are protective against insulin resistance.[1]
So, make you choice, live happily ever after and walk, run, sometimes sprint.
*******More oil*******
We recommend frying with Safflower oil or Canola oil, two high temperature oils, with a high smoke point – see the below table. The smoke point is the temperature at which oil begins to breakdown (possibly including oxidization and hydrogenation), and usually emitting a nasty smell and filling the air with smoke. It is believed that the process of oxidation results in the production of oxidative compounds (free radicals), which can cause DNA damage; we're talking "carcinogenic potential".[2] So, if you are cooking at a high temperature, cook with high temperature oil. It is sad to see a great olive oil smoke and even sadder to risk damage to your DNA.
The Little But Growing Oil Table
Oil
Saturated Fat Content
(%)
Monounsaturated Fat Content
(%)
Polyunsaturated Fat Content
(%)
Smoke Point
°C/°F
Uses
Canola oil
5%
63%
32%
238°C /460°F
Frying
Olive oil
14%
77%
9%
190°C /375°F
Dressings
Safflower oil
10%
13%
77%
265°C /509°F
Frying
By the way, there is a general lack of consensus on the smoke points of many oils. Note. The formatting of the table on the blog is off, but it will print beautifully.

Canola and Olive oil are high in monounsaturated fats and Safflower is high in polyunsaturated fats. A modified Mediterranean diet, in which polyunsaturated fats were substituted for monounsaturated fats, reduced overall mortality in elderly Europeans by 7%.[3] Consider, doing the same and use, e.g., Safflower Oil.
Kitchen Tip: polyunsaturated fats are more vulnerable to becoming rancid (lipid peroxidation) than monounsaturated fats, but that is not while they are in you, ... that’s out on the shelf and left to collect dust.




[1] Hu FB, van Dam RM, Liu S: Diet and risk of type II diabetes: the role of types of fat and carbohydrate. Diabetologia 44:805–817, 2001. Summers et al: Substituting dietary saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat changes abdominal fat distribution and improves insulin sensitivity. Diabetologia 45:369–377, 2002. Salmeron et al: Dietary fat intake and risk of type 2 diabetes in women. Am J Clin Nutr 73:1019–1026, 2001. Tapsell et al: Including walnuts in a low-fat/modified-fat diet improves HDL cholesterol–to–total cholesterol ratios in patients with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care 27:2777–2783, 2004
[2] Dung CH, Wu SC, Yen GC. Genotoxicity and oxidative stress of the mutagenic compounds formed in fumes of heated soybean oil, sunflower oil and lard. Toxicol In Vitro. 2006 Jun; 20 (4): 439-47. Epub 2005 Oct 10
[3] Trichopoulou et al: Modified Mediterranean diet and survival: EPIC-elderly prospective cohort study. BMJ 330:991, 2005