By Cindy Hazen, Contributing Editor
For the last few years, the food industry has had an image problem. Congress is pressing for increased food-safety legislation; consumers are skeptically eyeing ingredient labels; and consumers are turning to locally grown and produced foods. In my town, that includes buying home-baked goods from neighbors. It seems that trust lies heaviest where there is zero regulation.
At last the industry has some good news, at least in the realm of healthier fats. A recent study failed to validate this consumer mistrust. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), affectionately known as the food police, collaborated with Harvard researchers to see if food manufacturers have simply replaced trans fats with potentially "bad" saturated fats. The results, published in the May 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, (362(21):2,037-2,039) found that after reformulation, almost all of the 83 brand-name packaged and restaurant foods had lower amounts of trans and saturated fatty acids than their earlier counterparts. The researchers concluded that the industry has met the trans challenge by producing heart-healthier foods.
There is still room for improvement, though. Some foods have faced a more-difficult transition than others, including baked goods.
The road less trans
The journey to zero-trans baked goods is full of challenges. The history of baked goods—and most of our standards—were originally created using fats that were available at the time and provided certain properties. These were of animal origin, including butter, tallow and lard. They have a creamy texture, and “they are semisolid at room temperature due to the presence of saturated fat,” says Gerald McNeill, Ph.D., vice president, R&D, Loders Croklaan USA, Channahon, IL. “They have a small crystal size that promotes air entrapment in dough and gives a smooth texture. Due to the presence of very low levels of polyunsaturated fat, they have a very long shelf life and do not easily develop off flavors.”
When liquid vegetable oils were first available in large quantities about a century ago, it was quickly recognized that they did not have the functionality needed for baked goods. “The process of hydrogenation was invented to convert the liquid oil to a semisolid with a low level of polyunsaturates. In addition to an increase in saturates, a byproduct called trans fat was also formed. The trans fat is also solid and contributes to a smooth, creamy texture,” says McNeill.
