What makes for a good cooking oil? Science, please!

oil
(Troy) #41

Good Catch🙂

#42

btw anyone in Australia looking for non-hydrogenated lard and beef dripping etc, Woolworths, Coles and IGA sell the York Foods range.

(Banting & Yudkin & Atkins & Eadeses & Cordain & Taubes & Volek & Naiman & Bikman ) #43

Seems like tortured logic to me. If they call it hydrogenated fat, it’s been processed. They process it to make it shelf stable at room temp for stores. It’s trans configured unsaturated fats. The saturated fats do not hydrogenate. They are already saturated and aligned straight. Solid at room temp. Only PUFA can be configured to trans straightness by hydrogenation.

The process here is they render the beef fat, then hydrogenate it to solidify the unsat fat and make it solid at room temp. It’s processed and I’d not torture the logic to justify my use of it.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #44

While I agree in general, in this case, Richard might have a point. The problem with the seed oils, and with partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (i.e., vegetable shortening), is that the hydrogenated compounds are unknown in nature and have weird effects when incorporated into human cell walls.

I am assuming that Australian labeling laws are similar to those in the U.S., in that, if it says “hydrogenated,” it means processed, not naturally saturated. But lard contains very little polyunsaturated fat, being nearly 50-50 saturated and monounsaturated, and I don’t know whether what said PUFA might be turned into is worth worrying about or not. And I suppose it is possible for the monunsaturated fat to be hydrogenated into something known and safe. Or not. I just don’t know.

(Banting & Yudkin & Atkins & Eadeses & Cordain & Taubes & Volek & Naiman & Bikman ) #45

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/05/02/151868208/lard-is-back-in-the-larder-but-hold-the-health-claims

While there is a lot of anti-sat fat/cholesterol nonsense in this, the relevant part is at the bottom:

Add to this that lard sold in supermarkets is often hydrogenated, to make it shelf stable, and you’ve got a product with cholesterol, trans fats, and saturated fat, too. Oh my.

Yep. 40% sat fat, 45% MUFA, leaving 15% for PUFA.

And trans configured fats are considered universally bad enough that the US Government officially put something out… like 30 years after folks were complaining about them, but still.

But then there’s this:
http://www.armourlard.com/why-lard

Armour lard is fully hydrogenated and contains zero trans fats. Fully hydrogenated lard is different than partially hydrogenated oils, which are chemically altered and contain trans fatty acids.

So, interesting. That said, there are brands that aren’t hydrogenated at all…
http://fatworksfoods.com/faq.html

Are there any artificial trans fats in your products and do you add anything to your fats?
We are sorry you even had to ask, but the answer is no, artificial trans fats are NOT traditional fats in anyway. Partially hydrogenated trans fat are anathema to everything Fatworks stands for. In addition, none of the raw fat that we render is processed, smoked, hydrogenated or otherwise altered in anyway. We add Organic rosemary extract to our lard and poultry fats to help the peroxide low during the rendering process.

Pork Lard
Ingredients: Pastured Pork Fat

I don’t mean to harp on food quality, but it matters. But everyone’s mileage varies, interest varies, and purity varies. If I’m able, I would not buy SuperFry, and instead opt for a better lard.

#46

Yep, a popular brand here in Australia is labelled non-hygregenated

#47

WANT! Where do you get that? (I’m in Melbourne.)

(Running from stupidity) #48

You can buy awesome pig fat from the Queen Victoria Markets for this :princess::pig::grin::+1::heart_eyes:

#49

IGA sells it. And sometimes Woolworths and Coles.

(Running from stupidity) #50

In fact, I just went back and bought some more this morning :slight_smile:

TBF, this wasn’t QUITE as good as Thursday’s and needed a bit more trimming, but still pretty good, and it’s good for my knife skillz.

#51

OK. After reading some 50 scientific posts on all these oils, can someone recommend to me what I should poor into my deep fat Fry Daddy Fryer to fry some coconut flour battered shrimp?

#52

Not in mine. (le sigh :roll_eyes:) Will have to look further afield.

#53

Ha ha pure co-incidence I saw that very stock item at my local Wollies today. I reckon yours will have it too (butter section).

Oops just saw the rest of the posts. Yours doesn’t have it … bummer. But there is hope.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #54

Tallow or lard.

(Running from stupidity) #56

Spammer reported.

(Wendy) #57

What did you end up using?
My first thought was coconut oil since you are frying coconut shrimp. It will only add to the delicious flavor.

#58

Ended up just grilling them on the gas grill outside. Very good, of course, but I still want fry some soon. Shrimp make me retain too much fluid so I have to limit them.

(Carl Keller) #59

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Why would we want to eat something that needs to be deodorized? IMO, something that smells terrible is our olfactory system telling us to not eat it.