Fats, Part 1--Trans Fats

Growing up, my mom used to make cake icing by mixing Crisco, powdered sugar, vanilla, and water.  Gotta tell you...pretty yummy.  But I haven't bought Crisco in decades, concerned about saturated fats and, more recently, trans fats.  Yet, in researching this post, I found a tub of Crisco labeled "0 trans fats".  Does this mean I should give up my reliance on Duncan Hines tubs of frosting and go back to Crisco?  And what fats should I be feeding myself and my family? 

To me, fats is the most confusing topic I have taken on.  Many experts believe that in our collective quest years ago to go "low fat", our population started eating more refined carbohydrates (especially sugar), driving at least some of the current obesity epidemic.  But as the pendulum swings back the other direction, there are lots of opinions about types and amounts of fats in our diets.

For simplicity's sake, this post will focus on trans fats.  In the next posts, I will address unsaturated fats, including omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, and saturated fats.

Fat Basics

Before we dive into trans fats, a quick overview of the types of fatty acids:

Very simply, the main component of a fatty acid is a chain of carbon atoms.  These chains can be as long as 24 carbons or as short as 6. 

Saturated Fatty Acids--In saturated fatty acids, there are only single bonds between each carbon atom.  Because of this, saturated fatty acids can stack on top of each other like planks of wood and are usually solid or firm at room temperature (for example, butter).  Naturally occurring saturated fatty acids are found in animal-derived foods, like beef, milk, and eggs (fat is milk is considered solid, just suspended in the watery whey).

Unsaturated Fatty Acids--For these fatty acids, some carbons are joined by double bonds.  This makes the unsaturated fatty acids more bendy, meaning these fatty acids are more likely to be liquid at room temperature (for example, olive oil).  Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated just referred to the number of double bonds (mono=one, poly=2 or more).

Hydrogenated Fatty Acids--Unsaturated fatty acids can be unstable (hence the advice, for example, to store olive oil is a cool, dark place) and are not solid at room temperature.  To solve this dilemma, food scientists take an oil that contains a lot of polyunsaturated fatty acids (for example, soybean oil) and force hydrogen through it.  This converts some or all of the double carbon bonds to single bonds. 

If all of the double bonds are gone, the oil is fully hydrogenated (or simply hydrogenated) and has become at saturated fatty acid.  If some of the double bonds remain, these fatty acids are partially hydrogenated and contain trans fatty acids, a term used to describe the location of the hydrogens.  The key point here is that artificial trans fatty acids act more like saturated fatty acids.  Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that  artificial trans fatty acids should be particularly avoided as trans fat get you two ways: both increasing your bad cholesterol (LDL) AND decreasing your good cholesterol (HDL).

So many choices--Read the label!

Natural trans fatty acids do occur in products from cows and other ruminants (for example, beef and milk).  This trans fatty acid, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), is not thought to be harmful and some research suggests may be beneficial.

It is important to note that many foods are a mix of saturated and unsaturated fats.  For example, while saturated fat is the predominant type of fat in butter, it also contains monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Trans Fats
Frankly, I hadn't really been paying much attention to trans fats over the last couple of years, thinking I needed to focus more on increasing unsaturated fats in our eating.  Plus, I naively thought that manufacturers must have gotten rid of most trans fats...not quite the case. 

The current thinking is that artificial trans fatty acids should be avoided completely so the less in your diet, the better.  

Some of my husband's favorite foods
may need to be rethought

Where do you find trans fat?  Any item with partially hydrogenated oil.  Many store-bought bakery items and fried foods contain trans fats.  Other items include refrigerated dough, margarine, and non-dairy creamer (which Marion Nestle calls ""white sweet liquid margarine") and candy bars.

The key is to read two parts of the label:

Nutrition Facts panel--In the Total Fat section of the Nutrition Facts panel, there is a listing for trans fat.  Ideally, you want to select items with zero grams of trans fat.  However, this panel only tells part of the story.  If a food has less than 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving, it can be listed as "0 grams trans fat".  So multiple servings may mean a significant intake of trans fat. 

Ingredients listing--This is where the rubber meets the road.  If an item has partially hydrogenated oil (often soybean oil, but others as well), it contains trans fat even if the label reads "0 grams trans fat".  For example, my husband's beloved Pillsbury ready-to-bake cinnamon rolls list "0 trans fat", yet the ingredient listing includes partially hydrogenated oil, meaning there is trans fat in our breakfast treats.

Avoiding Trans Fats

Living in DC, I knew that Montgomery County had banned trans fats in restaurants.  However, I did not realize that this is actually rare, with MoCo being one of the few places to do so.  Whole Foods Market's policy is not sell any products containing partially hydrogenated oils.

The FDA is considering revoking GRAS ("generally recognized as safe") status for partially hydrogenated oils.  This has been in the works for awhile and, with any food regulation, I am hopeful, but I think there are no guarantees where Big Food is concerned.  If partially hydrogenated oils are not GRAS, it would be illegal to sell any product containing them.  Keep your fingers crossed!

Crisco

Back to good ol' Crisco.  Arriving at Giant, I am greeted with front package labeling stating "0g Trans Fat per serving".  Flipping the package over, however, I discover partially hydrogenated oil as one of the ingredients.  Again, the serving size allows Crisco to claim 0 grams of trans fat. 

This Crisco is reformulated from what my mom used which surely was a trans fat bomb.  The new (2007) formula contains "less partially hydrogenated cottonseed and soybean oils and more fully hydrogenated cottonseed oil — which contains no trans fat."  However, the partially hydrogenated oil is still present, just under the radar.

As companies responded to the freak out over trans fat, they looked for other options for solid fats like Crisco.  However, these options are more expensive and likely increase the saturated fat content.  While I will focus on saturated fat in another post, it is important to note that saturated fat should be limited to 10% of daily calories (or closer to 7% for decreasing heart disease risk)  For a 2,000 calorie diet, 7% comes to 140 calories or just under 16 grams of saturated fat (fat is 9 calories per gram).

Adding fully hydrogenated oils is one option for companies.  Many margarine-type products are created by mixing fully hydrogenated oils with liquid unhydrogenated oils until the mix spreads like butter.  Another option, which Crisco employs, is to use palm oil.  Palm oil is solid at room temperature because of its saturated fat content.  And while the focus of this blog doesn't include environmental concerns, I feel compelled to note that palm oil harvesting leads to deforestation.

Icing Choices

For a quick comparison, I looked at Crisco as compared to two tubs of icing.  All serving sizes are 3 Tablespoons. 

While the Betty Crocker frosting lists 0 grams of trans fat, it contains partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil.  For this comparison, I assumed their 2 Tablespoon serving contained 0.4 grams of trans fat. 

I made the same assumption for Crisco which lists 0 grams per one tablespoon (0.4 x 3 = 1.2 grams).  I realize that homemade frosting would be more than just Crisco, but as the predominant ingredient, I feel this is a fair comparison.

3 Tablespoons	Trans fat	Saturated Fat
Crisco	1.2 grams	9 grams
Betty Crocker Whipped Chocolate Frosting	0.6 grams	3.75 grams
Duncan Hines Whipped Fluffy White Frosting	2 grams	2.75 grams

 Basically, for these products and many others, your choice is trans fat or saturated fat (or both).  However, I won't be ditching my tub of Betty Crocker for homemade Crisco frosting, given Crico's high saturated fat content and Betty Crocker's likely lower trans fat content.

I think it is important to remember these items are treats, limited to a few birthdays a year.  As I look more closely at the products we buy, my focus will not be a complete elimination of trans fat, but a greater reduction.  When we eat out or our girls have a birthday cupcake at school, we are likely consuming some trans fats.  Since those out-of-home activities are not going to stop, eliminating or greatly reducing trans fats at home is important to achieve the needed balance.

References
All quotes and sources are linked in the above text.  General nutrition information came from Whitney and Rolfes' Understanding Nutrition, 13th ed., from Nutrition for Sport and Exercise, 2nd ed. by Dunford and Doyle, and from Marion Nestlé's What to Eat.
 

Bread--Navigating the Choices

At breakfast this morning, my oldest girl said, "Mom, there's mold on my English muffin."  Hardly ideal, since she had already eaten the other half, but I packed her off to school with a "if you throw up, tell the nurse it is the moldy bread." 

That mother-of-the-year award
doesn't win itself! 

But in some ways, I am glad that the English muffin was moldy.  To me, it indicates that the bread was not so pumped with various chemicals or stripped of its nutrients that it became immune to the natural decay of fresh foods.  And, I should note, this is not the first time this has happened with these English muffins (...really, you think I would have looked before giving the muffin to my girl!). 

With so many choices in the bread and bakery aisles, what makes a good bread?  How do you know what to shop for?

Bread Basics

At its most basic, bread is simply composed of flour, water, yeast and salt, with sometimes the addition of sugar and oil.  But enter any store and the basics go out the window.  In her What to Eat, Marion Nestle quotes the master baker at BreadLine:

"The difference between good bread and bad bread is the most expensive ingredient--time.  What the big bakeries do is to replace time with stabilizers, dough softeners, preservatives, and other chemicals so the bread develops quickly and evenly and stays on a supermarket shelf looking and feeling fresh--even when it isn't." (page 484)

Big bakeries add water and air to dough to get more bread made for every pound of flour.  They add dough conditioners and additives like sodium stearoyl lactylate, monoglycerides, diglycerides, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, and diacetyl tartaric ester of monoglyceride (Pandora's Lunchbox, page 102).  In an attempt to "clean up" labels, some bakeries turn to enzymes like lipase, glucose oxidase, and xylanase to replace conditioners (Pandora's Lunchbox, page 122).  However, since these enzymes are inactivated in the baking process, they are not always listed.  Some of these enzymes are the product of genetic engineering, so a way to avoid some of them is to go organic (not 'all natural', which has no legal definition).

Bread for the Family

In an ideal world, everyone would make bread at home, controlling all of the ingredients.  However, even with a bread machine, this is hardly practical for most families (and even when I do make bread, I can never slice it thinly enough for sandwiches!).

Specialty bakeries do offer breads with short ingredient lists.  For example, Spring Mill Bread Company even grinds their own wheat for their breads.  Again, however, a special trip to the bread store may not be an option.  Sometimes, I just need a loaf to make sandwiches for everyone's lunchboxes.

What are your bread-in-a-bag options?  Time to check out the bread shelves at Giant and Whole Foods for good options.  But first a little more about the ingredients:

Flour--The best is whole wheat flour (whole grain flour).  This flour contains the bran and germ of the wheat, retaining most of the fiber and key nutrients (see previous post for overview).  Regular wheat flour has been refined and is missing most of the fiber and nutrients.  Enriched wheat flour means that some of the nutrients have been added back (niacin, riboflavin, thiamin, folic acid, and iron).

An element of time comes into play with flour.  Wheat flour starts out brown, but, over time, naturally turns white.  Bleaching and bromate treatment whitens the flour more quickly.  These chemicals disappear or become inactive with baking and storage, but may leave a chemical taste.  So white flour that is labeled as unbleached and unbromated is just aged longer.

Bread flour has a higher gluten content than the regular all-purpose flour.  Gluten are proteins that form networks in dough that traps gas released by yeast, creating the puffy-ness of bread.

Fiber--Some breads are high in fiber due to whole grain/whole wheat flour, but others have purified cellulose added to up the fiber content.

Organic or not?--Remember, organic is not necessarily healthier.  Yes, you avoid genetically modified ingredients, but sugar is still sugar, whether honey or HFCS. 

Shopping for Bread   

 

Somehow it seems appropriate that I am writing this post during the week of Halloween, but not because the moldy English muffin was scary.  It is the bread options that are truly frightening! 

In my grocery store search, I concentrated on wheat and whole wheat breads, checking out a few multigrain breads along the way. 

Rule 1--Read the ingredient label.  Ingredients are listed in order of most to least, so this gives you an idea of how much of any ingredient is in the bread.  A good measurement to keep in mind is that most loaves have about 1 teaspoon of salt per loaf, so any ingredient listed before salt is likely greater than one teaspoon.

Rule 2--Read the Nutrition Facts panel.  Keep in mind that gram amounts may be rounded up or down.  A bread with 1 gram of fiber listed may actually have less than a gram.  In my search, I focused on fiber, sugar, and protein, with an occasional eye to sodium.
 
Whole Foods Shopping
 
Let's start with the English muffins of mold fame: 

 
Whole Foods brand 100% Whole Wheat English Muffins
15 ingredients.  Not fabulous, but the first 4 ingredients are water, whole wheat flour, wheat gluten, cultured wheat flour.  One muffin has 3 grams of fiber, 7 grams of protein, and only one gram of sugar. 
Moving on to the whole wheat bread I usually buy:
 
Vermont Bread Company Soft Whole Wheat Bread
14 ingredients.  First four ingredients:  whole wheat flour, water, wheat gluten, canola oil.  2 grams of fiber, 4 grams protein, less than one gram sugar.

Not bad, but it seems I could do better.  I checked another Vermont Bread product, Organic Whole Wheat bread.  Still 14 ingredients with organic whole wheat flour as the first.  Fiber and sugar were the same as the non-organic option, just a little less protein (2 grams).  Mainly, this bread just gets me organic ingredients.

Sadly, those breads seemed to be the best choices.  With a brand name like Ultimate Grains, I was sure their 100% Whole Wheat or Ancient 12 Grain breads would be winners.  First three ingredients for each:  whole wheat flour, water, sugar.  Each slice has 4 grams of sugar!  The equivalent of one teaspoon!

The theme of added sugar continued.  Whole Foods Organic 100% Whole Wheat, 365 Organic Touch of Honey Whole Wheat, and Whole Foods Wheat Sandwich breads all had sugar as their third ingredient.  For all of these, I didn't even count the number of ingredients.  With this much sugar, back on the shelf these loaves went.

The only way to get a shorter ingredient list was to move to the fresh breads at the Whole Foods bakery counter.  Their organic rustic wheat bread has only 7 ingredients.  Wheat flour is first ingredient with whole wheat flour third, so the fiber content is probably not too high (there is no nutrition facts label for this fresh bread).  But I considered it a victory that there was no added sugar! 
 
Giant Shopping
 

Since not everyone can shop at Whole Foods regularly, I also went to Giant's bread aisle. Every single whole wheat bread I picked up had added sugar or HFCS as the third ingredient!  Schmidt's Old Tyme 100% Whole Wheat, Pepperidge Farmhouse 100% Whole Wheat, Nature's Promise (Giant's Organic brand) and more offered fiber wrapped in a coating of sugar, with many loaves offering 4 grams of sugar per slice.  There was one exception--Nature's Own 100% Whole Wheat.  It's 4th ingredient is brown sugar with less than one gram of sugar per slice. 
 
Right before I walked out, I did check a few white breads.  My thought was that, perhaps, it would be better to eat white bread without the sugar than whole wheat with.  However, disappointment followed me.  The white breads were also high in sugar content.
 
A Needle in a Haystack--The Best Bread for Your Family
 
The experience at Whole Foods and at Giant made me angry.  I thought of how many customers (moms!) who are buying various whole wheat breads, thinking they are making a healthy choice for their families.  And while the fiber and other whole wheat-provided nutrients are important, children and adults don't need all of the added sugar.  Honestly, when I started my grocery tour, I had no idea that added sugar would be such an important issue.
 
My best advice is to find a time when you have few extra minutes at the grocery store.  Take the time to read the ingredient lists and the Nutrition Facts on multiple breads.  Find one that works for your family.  This little bit of extra time at the store will pay off in the end.  You can keep buying the same bread, knowing it is a good fit for you and your family, flying down the bread aisle as you grab-and-go.
 
Baking Bread At Home
 
Knowing that I would be writing a post on bread, I thought I should actually make some.  For some reason, yeast breads intimidate me.  Something about the time, rising, and kneading.  So I decided to get out my husband's bread machine.  He occasionally makes bread with it, but uses boxed mixes.  Frankly, I have never been impressed with his results. 

Homemade Whole Wheat Bread

Since breaking out the machine, I have made white bread, French bread (also white), and whole wheat bread from scratch.  All yummy!  While the whole wheat bread was good, I think my family liked the white and French breads better.  Happily, the white breads just have a small amount of sugar (I need to fiddle with the whole wheat recipe--4 Tablespoons of sugar per loaf is a lot!).
 
And I think making white bread at home is fine, since we eat whole wheat breads the rest of the time.  After all, something about warm bread with dinner is divine.  And it makes me think of this quote of Marion Nestle's:
 
"Bread is the one place where my nutritional correctness weakens.  No question, 100 percent whole wheat bread is the better nutritional choice, always and often...But I cannot think of anything that tastes as good as a painstakingly made, freshly baked white bread..." (What to Eat, page 494)



References
All quotes and sources are linked in the above text.  General nutrition information came from Whitney and Rolfes' Understanding Nutrition, 13th ed. and from Nutrition for Sport and Exercise, 2nd ed. by Dunford and Doyle.