Wizard Recipes

Fats, no matter what their source, play an important role in the food we eat. For centuries, every culture has taken advantage of the unique chemical properties of fats - for example, fats easily absorb other flavors.

Fats also are used to cook foods, add a pleasing texture, impart tenderness to baked goods, and, in societies where food is scarce, increase the calorie content of a food. Fats, therefore, are a basic ingredient in cooking.

The term “fats,” however, is broad, encompassing many different substances - from butter to lard to vegetable oil. All oils, for example, are fats. But not all fats are oils. Although definitions vary, for cooking purposes fats are generally characterized as follows:

Fats - Generally defined as substances that are solid at room temperature, fats include butter, cocoa butter, lard, margarine, suet, and vegetable shortening.

Oils - Oils remain liquid at room temperature. Oils can be made from various plants and seeds: vegetables, olives, rapeseed (from which canola oil is made), sunflower seeds, corn, peanuts, soybeans, walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, safflower seeds, grapeseed, sesame seed, mustard seed, and coconuts are among the most commonly used.

No matter what form they take, fats are made up of fatty acids, which are the molecular building blocks of fats in the same way that amino acids combine to form protein. At their most basic, fatty acids are molecular chains of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen atoms.

The differences in the chemical structure of fats make some better for you than others. Sometimes a process called hydrogenation is used to make liquid oils solid at room temperature. This also converts unsaturated fat into trans fat.

Trans fats are used in many processed and fast foods, such as doughnuts, crackers, chips, and french fries. Trans fats also give margarine its butter-like consistency. Trans fats tend to increase your cholesterol level and therefore should be eaten in only limited amounts

Nutrition

Fat is an essential nutrient. Our bodies require small amounts of several fatty acids to build cell membranes and to support life-sustaining functions. That said, the old adage about “too much of a good thing” is appropriate in discussing fat.

Virtually all health experts agree that fat intake should be limited. The federal government, the American Heart Association, and other organizations recommend that fat intake for a healthy individual should be less than 30 percent of total daily calories. They also recommend that less than 8 to 10 percent of total calories come from saturated fat.

Although various kinds of fat have different effects on your blood cholesterol, all foods that are high in fat are high in calories. High-fat foods can easily increase your calories, making it difficult to maintain a healthful weight.

Fat packs more calorie punch than any other type of nutrient group. Per gram, fat has 9 calories (about 100 calories per tablespoon, or 250 calories per ounce). In contrast, protein and carbohydrates have just 4 calories per gram. Because of this, you do not need to eat very much fat before reaching the 30 percent threshold.

If a low-fat diet is good, is an even lower-fat diet better? Not necessarily. Upper limits of fat intake have been established, but the same is not true for lower limits. Talk with your health care provider about the recommended fat intake that is best for you.

Even a low-fat diet can lead to weight gain if you cut back on fat but take in excess calories by ignoring the rest of what you eat. Too many calories from any source result in added pounds. And if they add up to obesity, you are at increased risk for health problems.

Selection

Be discriminating in the type of fat you consume. Limit animal fat (saturated) and trans fats (hydrogenated oils). Instead, use small, sensible amounts of plant-based (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated) fats.

When purchasing products, always check the expiration dates. Rancidity is a concern with any type of fat. Purchasing oils, of which there are dozens of varieties, involves a close reading of the package label.

Most cooks prefer to buy “cold pressed” oils, which means that minimal heat and pressure are used to extract the oil from the original plant or seed. This type of processing is considered important because it allows oil to maintain more of the plant’s natural flavors and textures.

With the exception of extra-virgin olive oil, however, it is difficult to find coldpressed oils.

A good alternative is to use so-called unrefined oils. Unrefined oils are extracted with heat. Unlike other oils, unrefined oils undergo minimal processing after this point. The result is a more flavorful oil and, sometimes, a more darkly colored oil.

Unrefined oils generally include virgin olive oil and corn, nut, soybean, canola, and sesame oils. Unrefined oils break down easily under heat and thus should not be used for deep-frying.

Because deep-fried foods are not typically part of a healthful diet, you should not have to trade a flavorful oil for one with more cooking versatility.

Most oils in your supermarket, however, are not only extracted with heat but also undergo much more processing, including using chemicals to de-gum, refine, bleach, and deodorize the oil. The result? Less flavor.

After experimenting with cold-pressed or unrefined oils, you will likely appreciate the difference between these oils and their more highly processed counterparts.

Butter is a common ingredient in most of our cooking. It is absolutely crucial in French baking, in fact, in any French cooking. But the majority of western cuisines also choose butter as the principal cooking fat. Oriental cuisines generally do not. Only Indian cooks use it extensively in its clarified form, ghee.

While perishable, butter doesn’t spoil nearly as quickly as milk. When Indian cooks remove its milk solids (by clarifying), they don’t even need to refrigerate butter. In clarified form its shelflife is as long as that of any vegetable oil.

The major problem posed by butter in our culture today is its high saturated fat and cholesterol content. (The fat in butter is called butterfat, a chemically distinct type among fats). Many U.S. households have banned butter from their kitchens with regrets, substituting margarine or oil.

How do we obtain our butter? First the milk processor pasteurizes, then ages the cream for at least 8 hours and finally churns it into butter by physical agitation. Aging the cream allows the milk fat to crystallize and weakens the fat globules.

The forceful agitation of churning breaks each tiny globule’s delicate membrane and allows the globules to clump together into a solid, that we call butter. The churning action expels a byproduct liquid, that the industry calls buttermilk. This is not the kind of buttermilk we drink, it only has the same name.

After the cream becomes butter, it goes through washing and then a mechanical manipulation (something like kneading bread dough) to reduce the size of the fat crystals. This makes it softer and more spreadable.

Butter oxidizes (turns rancid) at room temperature relatively fast. Chilling slows down the oxidizing process. Antioxidants would help reduce rancidity, but U.S. law restricts adding anything but salt and a coloring agent to butter. Salt extends its shelflife, coloring enhances its appearance.

Salting butter is a habit left over from the days before refrigerators. By the time refrigeration was common, people were used to the flavor of salted butter, and processors encouraged its use because it extended the shelflife. The amount of salt they use in butter is 1.5 to 1.8 percent (about 1¾ teaspoons in a pound or 450 g).

The most common coloring agent is annatto, a natural reddish-yellow dye. Without coloring, most butter is too white to look like the real thing. The natural color depends on what the cows, who produce the cream, eat so in some seasons they must use coloring to boost the yellowness-or consumers start complaining.

That 15 to 16 percent water you see in the table is the reason butter sizzles when you heat it in the sauté pan. The water boils in the hot pan, turns into steam and tries to escape from its covering blanket of fat. The bubbles of steam pop and they make a symphony of sound that we hear as sizzle. Oil, lard and vegetable shortening never sizzle in a hot pan because they are free of moisture.

Don’t confuse unsalted butter with sweet cream butter. The sweet cream label refers to the fact that they started the churning process with sweet instead of soured cream. North American processors don’t use soured cream to make butter, but the French and several other Europeans do as consumers prefer it. They let the cream sour slightly before churning it.

The difference in flavor between the two types of butter is slight-the European style has a slight tanginess. No one knows why we still retain the outdated term sweet cream butter, but it has nothing to do with its salt content.

Butter blends and dairy spreads are a combination of butter and vegetable oils. Mixing oil in butter reduces the price since oil is far cheaper than butter, but it also reduces the cholesterol while maintaining some butter flavor. Don’t be fooled-total fat and calories remain about the same. In low-fat spreads, water replaces some of butter’s fat, reducing not only fat but calories, cholesterol and flavor

Margarine

Margarine is not a dairy product but since so many people substitute margarine for butter, this is a good place for its discussion.

A food scientist in France, H. Mège-Mouriès, developed margarine in 1869 as a substitute for butter in case of unexpected dairy shortage. He produced it by churning together high-quality beef fat, called suet, and milk, but production was limited because of shortages of suet.

In 1902 W. Normann, a German scientist improved on the technique, and was able to bypass suet and harden oil with the addition of hydrogen (this is the process called

hydrogenation), which changed liquid oil into a solid fat that we know as today’s margarine.

Margarine is mainly oil and water. The processor uses huge hydrogenation converter drums with a nickel catalyst at 200°C (392°F) and violent agitation in contact with a flow of hydrogen gas. Then they cool and filter the resulting margarine to remove traces of the nickel catalyst.

To continue the subject of previous post, let’s now see the disadvantages of consuming these oleaginous fruits and seeds , because, believe it or not, there are some worth mentioning

Disadvantages :

-         First of all, you must know that these fruits and seeds contain 40-60 % fats, so they contain a lot of calories! Be careful when consuming these if you’re on a diet

-         The so called ‘good fats ‘ -non saturated fats- also contain 9 cal/g, meaning 45 cal/ tbsp

-         Our organism consumes less energy for fat assimilation, so calories from fats fatten more than calories from sugars!

-         Coconut and palm oil contain only saturated fats and no cholesterol, but lose all nutrients found in vegetable oils.

-         When heated, oil releases toxic products and fried foods can cause indigestion due to the formed crust. The only manner in which we can take advantage of all oil nutrients is consuming it raw.

-         Fat hydrogenation represents a process of adding Hydrogen to a non saturated fat (liquid) to make it oxidation resistant and to transform it into solid fat. So margarine is born !

-         Hydrogenated fats are very dangerous for our health, because they increase LDL, TGL, insulin resistance and decrease HDL. THESE FATS ARE CONTAINED IN LOTS OF PRODUCTS, SO BE CAREFUL AND READ THE LABEL EVERYTIME!

-         Margarine has the same amount of calories as butter, but does not contain cholesterol. As the margarine is softer, is also healthier. It contains less hydrogenated fats.

-         Fats do not dissolve in water or acid environment- this is why these ones float in the gastric liquid in our stomach. Once in our intestine, these get mixed with enzymes from the gall bladder, digestive and pancreatic enzymes, forming an emulsion that is soluble. People suffering from gall bladder or digestive problems may have serious trouble when consuming fats, so be careful!!