I definitely would not want to leave sugar, especially corn syrup and other cheap forms, out of the health discussions. I believe sugar feeds or aggravates many diseases.
Agree 100%. Seems to me this is a miss direction article. After WWII, the annual consumption of sugar was about 60 lbs. per year per capita and it was mostly cane sugar. Fast forward to today and it is above 150 lbs. per capita and the majority of it is liquid corn syrup which is cheaper that cane sugar and is used almost exclusively in soft drinks that are not diet in the USA. During WWII they realized that feeding corn rather than grass (hay) to cattle they fatten faster. Same is true with the liquid corn syrup in soda, as well as the fact that 75% of ALL processed foods have some form of a corn component in it's formula. I'm sure Coca Cola doesn't want liquid corn syrup banned from their soft drinks that are not diet. Mexican Coca Cola is sugar based. If RFK Jr goes after the artificial sweeteners that create inflammatory conditions in the brain and they switch to sugar for regular pop, I suspect their stock would tank big time! So..point the finger in another direction and lay all the blame on seed oils. The other discussion should be that Omega-3 which is the healthy form has been switched to Omega-6 via liquid corn syrup source and seed oils. Major contributor to heart disease. Olive oil and Coconut oil should be the mainstays! My view and have made many presentations on how we have become a unhealthy nation because of how we process food products. In Europe, they limit chemicals being added to the food products at 700, in the USA it is a free for all and 10,000 chemicals are used. That's what happens when you have regulatory capture.
Look up www.momsacrossamerica.com The American cereal pushers use gmo produced grains and they contain traces of glyphosate and etc. Harmful to our children!
My eyes also don't agree with the suggestion that sugar consumption has been stable, even over just the past few decades. But I bet it's going to drop because the economy itself is putting people on a diet.
I'm ready to accept that excessive seed oils are a problem, particularly when heated. You can see their polymerization products stuck to baking sheets, that have to literally be sanded off if you want to see the stainless steel again. If people are worried about plastics, running seed oil polymers into their gut ought to concern them too. That and the byproducts of processing and detoxifying such things as rape seed oil to produce the canola oil .
When I was a young boy, a sugar laden Coke was only 7 oz. Then it went to 12 oz and now 20 oz. So the notion that sugar is not a major culprit of obesity is not convincing.
It looks like the seed oils causing insulin resistance is an important amplifier in problems with sugar. I am all for the inflation caused price increases in candy bars. I also only try, and mostly succeed, in only eating those things with my eyes and walking on. I also call doughnuts do-nots. I lived the American diet like most all of us growing up. I am glad to be getting this education about seed oils and pesticides like glyphosates now as I get old and changes in how I digest and process foods becomes more critical.
Every average supermarket in this area, bakes their own breads,cookies, cakes, etc. The first thing I always do is to read the label on the package. It is nearly impossible to find any of these "goodies" without aluminum in the mix, which is why I wind up putting it back on the shelf. Granted, I dont need the extra calories, which tend to coagulate in my belly region, but on occasion it is nice to splurge.
I recently found out about Reeses PB cups containing not so good stuff in it. TBHQ which is a gasoline additive
It's hard to find local honey here these days. Too many bees dying. I read that raw honey is the best, but I don't like it. I hate Stevia too. Monk's fruit is a little better. It's okay.
It may be worth the drive to find one as nearby as possible. Usually agricultural cooperatives have listings for honey producers. You can find it various forms and flower bases. I have a diabetic family member who uses monk fruit. Bees are absolutely essential to survival as they are the major pollinators. We don’t require sugar, you can get the same joy from organic fruit…in my opinion. Except my spouse and I enjoy quality dark chocolate and the occasional custard style ice cream.
Stevia is used as birth control in its local areas. Actually where I live Maple syrup is produced. It is better for us than sugar and use less (if you are smart) and adds a nice flavor. We all eat some sugars, and we need some. But starting your day with sugar pops and Cap'n Crunch and Cinnabons . . . not so much.
White in color (must be a supremacist according to Joe Blow Biden) but tases awesome. I take a tablespoon daily, and wash it down with a glass of water.
Unfortunately,
The bees follow me around all damn day, trying to get me to buzz back in their ears ! The nerve !!
No surprise. The U.S. doesn't have regulations on the food industry like other countries do. Many chemicals (e.g. pesticides) used here are banned in Europe. I think GMOs are banned there too, but not here.
I’ve been trying to remember the last time I drank a "soda,’ had this conversation yesterday in Costco where they sell LOTS of sodas — and Coca Cola from USofA AND Mexico, guess which one uses "sugar," - I remember buying a case or two of the Mexican Coca-Cola 20-30 years ago; and that was that. Sin’s mom loves her Diet Coke and I don’t think I’ve seen sodas in son’s house.
Me: I’m a litre of semi sweet honey tea in the morning.
If you compare a regular American coke and a Mexican coke made only with sugar, the taste difference is huge. Mexican cokes are so much better and taste like the cokes I remember from childhood. If you want an occasional coke as a treat, find one that is the Mexican version!
Yes, cane sugar is best. The word processed is so much an abused epithet. This is a marketing ploy and strategy to once again fool the hapless consumer. Processed means "refined, having impurities removed". Unprocessed food, IMO, should be black box labeled, such as: [Warning: Contains Unknown Impurities] or [Not Pure—Use at Your Own Risk].
Acrylamide forms from frying, roasting and baking at high temperatures. People like the taste of grilled meat that has been darkened, but it contains acrylamide, which is toxic.
Barbara, thus has been flying around on the interwebs lately, finally took a look myself. The studies that I found date back to early 2000s (there are many more, just what I found) that looked at the formation acrylamide during cooking. 1) doesn’t require HIGH heat, 180°C/~350°F is sufficient - so, normal baking/cooking temps; 2) mostly methionine and arginine that have the reactive group - interestingly, these are highest in plant sources (potatoes, flour,…); 3) the studies were carried out in aqueous solutions with free amino acids - I didn’t find studies using proteins so I don’t know how the formation of acrylamide is affected by the two amino acids present only as part of a protein (I also didn’t look that hard); 4) the studies I saw had the free amino acids in equi-molar amounts with glucose - necessary for the reaction (Maillard reaction). I frequently came across "wiggle" words: "particular" conditions, the formation of acrylamide "may" occur,…
So, while it’s possible and acrylamide probably can be detected, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.
This caught my interest first time ‘round because I use to use acrylamide back in the 80s when I was working on developing an in vitro glucose sensor for an synthetic pancreas - I was forming thin membranes of polyacrylamide containing an enzyme - had to come up with a protocol for polymerization that wouldn’t destroy the enzyme. Fun stuff, fun days. Anyway, one of the issues I was concerned about up front, since this membrane would eventually go IN the body, was the issue of free acrylamide post polymerization. Turned out to be a non-issue, any neurological deficits I have today I came about naturally. Miss those days - my biggest worry these days is feeding the katz sufficiently so they don’t eat my face at night. 👦🐈
I have no desire to kill the nation’s economy off… just make changes. However, the message Trump seemed to be giving on the famous plane ride with Kennedy photo was.. yeah, nothing is going to change…because you know... 'business models'.
You're totally right. It is empty calories that actually robs the body of nutrients in order to be handled. It leads to obesity, diabetes and other diseases. In 1961, when I first got into studying nutrition, I visualized a skull and crossbones, when I thought of sugar and white flour.
I have not used seed oils in 17 years. I eat hardly any fried food, only when it is served and I cannot get anything else. Neither sugar nor grains cause obesity I think, otherwise all Europeans, great bread eaters, would be obese. Of course, with food being served everywhere, it is easy to get over weight. Every end of year, I gain 6 or 7 pounds and then struggle to get them off by next November.
I wonder if it is not a combination of many different causes, rather than just one, and the constitution of every one person. I know people who eat 3 times as much and weigh nothing, and people who eat close to nothing and gain weight.
French women of 5' 4 " weighed 155 pounds. This is considerably overweight. Bread is dead! It contributes to obesity. Read Grain Damage by James Braly MD. 200 diseases are created by eating grains. Any food processed at 400 degrees has lost any value it had, but grains in particular were not designed for human consumption. I m 5' 3" and weigh 112 - 113 pounds...I still have some inches around the middle that i don't want, but it is going with daily exercise. Its not the weight. Its the inches that need to go. It takes time!
I am an American but also have worked in Europe. I loved to have my Churros in Madrid for breakfast. In America, I have to settle for donuts. In France it was patisserie. In Germany a good Berliner to start the day! All with coffee with sugar and cream. I am 78 and consume exorbitant amounts of sugar, always have. As a biochemist, I remember a Finnish study, I think from the 1970s, where mice were given pure sugar for 10% of their caloric intake. The mice lived about 15% longer than controls.
yep, you got it. I'm 74 and though not super thin, weigh no more than in my 30's. I find that every winter, as I am a LOT less active, I gain about 5 pounds and like you, lose it again over the year. But, I can eat like a horse and not necessarily gain much at any one time in summer months.
Several years ago, I came across some article on one of the health forums, I had just joined. The article was primarily regarding the production of seed oils, canola oil specifically, and how detrimental to the human digestive system, and overall health. It was a time when I then began to read every single package I brought home, picked up at the deli, and so forth.
It was a very disappointing time, to say the least.
At the very same time, I had discovered, through a chance of fate, and through trial and error, that I was poisoning myself, on a daily basis, with a product I had eaten, nearly every single day of my life up until that point, coming from a single (working 3 jobs) mom, with 4 boys situation, having, essentially, to fend for myself with regards to eating, dressing myself, and attention to schoolwork, all of which, Mom simply didn't have the time to help me with. Heck, at 13, I could so easily ruin a bunch of white clothes in Mom's washing machine, with a single pair of red underwear, I considered myself a tie-dyeing expert on the side, at age 14.
So, about a decade ago, I had several digestive issues, that although seeing several doctors, and eventually going to a DO, all of which did nothing for me, my wife accidentally pushed me to figure out what was wrong the entire time. Luckily for me, I have a wonderful wife who simply forgot to buy my favorite, lifetime food, and I went several weeks without up until that fateful day, I opened up the cupboard, and
"It was back ! Woo hoo!", mentally I exclaimed !
Skippy super chunk, PEANUT BUTTER.
So being the ravenous fool of a caveman Tonga that I claim to be, I ripped open that jar of Skippy, took a huge tablespoon, scooped out a heaping, hunk of loving goodness, and let my gluttony take the best of me. Feeling satisfied, I closed up the jar, praised my lovely ball and chain for restoring the cupboard back to it's intended glory, and went off to my day.
Then....
15 minutes out the door, I was about 3/4mile from home, I felt this overwhelming grumbling in my belly. Feeling that this wasn't "good", I spun my worktruck around, and went back home to "investigate" the issue. Not saying much, I entered my house, and beelined to the downstairs toilet, where I rested my uneasy queasy self, and waited. Waited, but NOT uneventful.
The pain started shortly after I sat down. It was up near my sternum, at first, and then progressed southwards, moving east, then west, then east then west, and so on, and so on. The pain increased with each horizontal pass across my mid section. Almost 20 minutes later, nearly in tears, the exodus of my issue found it's way to the watery grave, and my pains slowly, but eventually subsided.
I took a shower after that, being a giant sweat ball of nervousness generated pain and discomfort.
After feeling somewhat human again, exiting the shower, I swore off all peanut butter from then on out. That lasted 6 months.
So being the inquisitive little child, inside, almost 6 months to the day, dreaming on a regular basis of that yummy, gobbly gook of delicious peanuts and creamy heaven, I decided to "Give-er a shot Wilber", once again. Oh, it didn't go well.
The first experience of having those pains, paled by comparison. Same scenario, same amount of time, but the pain levels increased to the Carol Burnett point of life (read what Carol Burnett thought about giving birth pains, to understand), and my wife holding the phone in front of me, telling me she was calling an ambulance, all while the tears ran down my face, chin and shirt.
Luckily, it passed.
I have never touched commercial peanut butter again, since. Never will.
Hydrogenated oil and my internals do not go well together.
I still read every package, and I severely limit anything that has any type of seed oil in it, to this very day. THis, as I'm sure you're aware, is by no means, and easy task in itself.
I totally understand the issues you so eloquently described. I used to LOVE eating that peanut butter from a spoon but I too have to stay off the hydrogenated oil. I would not have been able to paint such a picture though, not in my skill set presently. Thank you for the smile this morning.
I wrote this with DD in mind. I tried being "restrained" in my approach, and candor, and gross little boy anecdotes, and descriptives. Although, she may not know it, I really do think she's a wonderful person, regardless of how I come across that she should keep her trap shut with regards to telling me what, and or how to do....but I digress...
I've broken bones, and the pain i experienced made my broken leg feel like a skeeter bite.
Look at it this way.
Your're a full time wrench, and you, on a daily basis get gasoline on your hands, and I'm sure, at some point, a reaction will occur (swelling, irritation, blisters, whatever), telling you that you have an allery, or intolerance to whatever is making your bodies reaction happen.
Several months youre on vacation, hence no gasoline exposure. Next time you dip the gas you get a really bad reaction, after your respite, and healed hands, the reaction is worse.
Problem is, you cannot see inside, as readily as looking at your hands.
My digestive issues are gone. i'm petrified to eat any commercial peanutbutter, but I can say that eating shelled peanuts, or even salted planters regular peanuts have no effect on me, regarding any pain, or discomfort, but too much peanuts can be a cleanout the next day, again, no pains
Thanks for sharing. It's so important to get this information out there. Dr. Joseph Mercola has written extensively on this. He says it's not the oils themselves that are toxic, but rather the chemicals used to process them. I use butter made from pasture fed cows only for cooking. Just learned about beef tallow being okay if organic. I use cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil (I hear it's safe) to make my own salad dressing. I mix it with vinegar, organic agave syrup and spices.
Avocado oil is great as long as it isn't mixed with any other oils. Some apparently are mixed. Read labels! I use it for doing wok cooking because it has a higher smoke point (500° or so) than any other oil, so it's great for use in high heat wok cooking. Otherwise, I mostly use olive oil, although apparently you also have to read labels there too because some of them are also mixed with lesser oils.
Pharma has lots of products to provide weight loss and simultaneously allow excessive consumption of french fries and chicken nuggets. You have a staunch compatriot in Dr. Joseph Mercola, also sounding the alarm on health detrimental seed oils. There in lies the perfect example of why RFK, Jr. may never get confirmed. He flys in the face of two of the most powerful lobbies in the world; pharma and big agriculture. I'm confident huge campaign donations are being promised to our Senators to block RFK, Jr's confirmation. This leads to another perfect example for term limits.
As someone who used to, many moons ago, work as a nutritionist, I think this essay on seed oils is valuable and contributes to the overall ongoing Conversation on diet and health.
However I would add a caveat about a reader potentially taking an understanding from the message presented here that refined sugar is somehow less of a problem in health because the author may implicate seed oils more as directly contributing to obesity. I would suggest it is more a case of And And in terms of harms. As we understand much more about the importance to our health of a healthy microbiome (gut flora), the fingerprint of refined sugar is certainly heavily involved in contributing to deleteriously affecting our beneficial bacteria.
In processed foods, it seems that cheap seed oils AND sugar travel together a lot of the time. This is why I almost never buy anything in a package, nothing processed at all.
Thank you so much for the list. It would be easy to add the list or link to a lot of products & articles. Most people have no idea which oils they are.
I cringe when I think of how when I was growing up my mother, who was extremely health conscious but who didn't know in the 1960's what we know now, used margarine, Wesson oil, and that horrendous concoction known as Crisco. My entire family of six was all slim, however. My mother didn't fry foods at all, and although she baked pie crusts and biscuits with Crisco, these things were pretty rare. My parents never bought snacks such as chips, crackers, cookies etc., and they never bought cokes. My mother made everything from scratch, so no processed foods at all. As adults, not a one of us is overweight even today, and we never have been. I attribute a lot of this to learning to cook when young and having a basically good example set for eating. It carried through and we're all in our 60s and 70s now. I'll add that all four of us kids modified our diets to healthy choices (eliminating the seed oils etc.) in adulthood as we learned about how bad the old stuff was! We're all very healthy eaters now and have been for decades. It pays off!
This may be more complex than all seed oils should be avoided. An industrial seed oil, such as sunflower oil and an organic cold-pressed, unrefined sunflower oil are not the same. Also a major aspect of the problem has to be the health consequences of consuming fried restaurant food or supermarket chips in which the cheapest availabe oils (the ubiquitous label of sunflower, canola and or...) are used over and over. In cooking at home, high heat with oils should be avoided as even the healthiest oils can be damaged with heat.
I am a retired researcher in metabolic diseases, working in Pharma. I conducted a large study in San Antonio in humans to evaluate an alternative form of insulin. Many of the personnel we recruited were too obese to use in the study. These were often people who ate corn and fried their food in corn oil every day, a monolithic diet. I surmised that their disease, accompanied by clinically onbserved insulin resistance, was mainly a dietary problem. Corn oil has the highest linoleic content of all the oils, at 58%! Cottonseed and Grape seed oils follow at 54% each. Coconut oil has less than 2%. Olive Oil is less than 10%. Butter is typically ~50% saturated and less than 4% polyunsaturated, which grouping includes linoleic. (Wiki).
Incidentally, animal fat (lard or suet) has about 40% saturated and only about 11% polyunsaturated. I remember the baked goods "back when" had tasted so much better because lard was used, which helps retain moisture upon baking. I think the discontinuation of lard in cooking was due in part to the name. The phrase Tub-O-Lard also did not lend itself very well to market penetration. Marketeers preferred the latter name "shortening", or a brand name like "Crisco". But the people never forgot the former name, or their unfortunate classmate nicknamed "Lardo". True dat!
Thanks for the corroborative information, Dr. Malone.
Bubba, I came across a blurb recently that claims Buffalo Wild Wings still uses lard for frying its fries. I don’t eat out much but I may have to give this a shot.
If it tastes better than the competitors, probably true! I did not know that. Are you old enough to remember original Twinkies? They were so good. I had some recently, and they were all dried out with larger "pores", and without the natural "gumminess" I seem to remember. Thanks, Miller!
I forgot to include: the company that brought us Twinkies, HoHo and the like went into bankruptcy 10, 15 years ago (?), the thinking was they were going away due to changing tastes/diets but surprise surprise 😮 they were bought by an investor group and resurrected saving jobs, the products and waistlines. That they may taste different, be different doesn’t surprise me.
Do I remember "original" Twinkie’s? I’m not sure I remember how to pay cash for items at the grocer. 😂
But, yes, I had a couple back in the day - yellow, right?, clear cellophane wrapper ✅, white filling 🤷♀️— if we’re on the same page, not my fav, that white filling was tooooo much. Now, if we’re wanna talk HoHos: I’m thinking hockey puck shape, foil wrapper, chocolate coating? Gotta admit, nice at first but those treats never really rang my bell; after fries and JoJos/fried potato wedges, I discovered powdered sugar donut holes while in university in SW Va, Entenmann’s pastry’s working at a startup in Philly mid-80s. I should say that was my first exposure to REAL bagels, yes with lox, and we eventually found this little hole in the wall shoppe that I still miss. You never forget your first 😆 and even tho there’s been a handful of decent bagel shops over the past few decades where I now live only a couple came close and, sadly, they’ve all passed. RIP 🪦
Well Twinkies were all the kids' favorites in the 1950's! That dates me.
As for bagels, I worked and played in Manhattan. The original New York Bagels I was used to came from Zabar's on the Upper West Side. I found Zabar's in 1966 and have found some close bagel replicas—close but not quite. It's probably the oil. I'll bet even Zabar's does not use beef tallow anymore! The ones you see when you Google NYC bagels, all visibly have voids in them! Probably using canola seed oil or some other poisonous oil. Not good.
No 😆, the holes/pores probably arise during the boiling step. Perhaps a higher hydration percentage than originally used - a low hydration dough can be difficult to work, in its own way, just as high hydration brings its own difficulties.
As for the use of "poisonous" seed oils, also not an issue: I wouldn’t expect to find any fat of any source in a real bagel — flour water salt. Flavor develops from the flour or combination of flours used, the additions that may be used in the boiling water. I think the traditional boiling water had some lye in it, I’ve heard use of brown sugar, molasses, baking soda, malt/malt extract - the purpose being to change the character of the exterior (crunchy) while making the interior chewy through a quick dip in boiling water plus { stuff }. Prolly why I enjoy baking so much - it’s chemistry plus ____ .
Me luvs a good bagel.
Shoot, almost forgot: protein percentage, and this I’d have to double check: you may want a low protein flour for bagels - you’re NOT trying for high gluten so a low protein, or at least a protein that doesn’t readily form gluten, should be ideal — hence, a chewy interior. Thinking about this, it actually makes sense; original bagels were of Eastern European design, a place where rye was well suited, rye doesn’t form gluten well and when it does it does so in the presence of an acid which would make sourdough, or naturally leavened dough, ideal. 🤔 I think I have a homework assignment. 💡
Good info and dialogue. I believe the great Bagels of NYC had some oil to make the top shiny and "waterproof". I am not concerned at all about gluten. I think that is another manufactured marketing business idea. I seem to learn that humans have eaten gluten for...what? 80,000 years ≠ a few millennia? And saturated fat bad, salt bad, cholesterol bad, therefore eggs bad, whole milk bad, omega 3 great, oh, now maybe not so great—the beat goes on, and clever people are sailing around the Caribbean as we speak.
And then there is the individual's metabolism. In my 20s-30s was not unusual for me to come home from work and have a 1/4 lb sack of M&Mpeanuts and 2 beers. Weighed in at 148 lbs which I had weighed since I was16. Stopped smoking when I was 32 (2 packs/day) and 7-8 months later weighed 225 lbs. And no, was not eating more food.
So, Michael, what do you attribute the gained weight to? Obviously, the cig smoke must have up-regulated your metabolism. . . or something. But which component or what, exactly?
Another (warranted) chapter in the book of "everything we ever thought we knew needs to be reevaluated."
I have not taken the best step of finding a local dairy as a source of healthier foods. But for years now, I've prepared much of my food using Land O Lakes Butter with Olive Oil and Sea Salt. Cream, Olive Oil, Salt, and that's it. Turns out it hasn't been an indulgence at the expense of health, but rather to its credit. I have a growing awareness and consciousness of ingredient labels. Vigilance is not so comfortably dismissed as the "If it tastes good, spit it out" diet. There's a lot of room for improvement under my roof.
I’m gonna stick my neck out here - making seed oils the mega villain is like picking at nits. If we were cooking at home with minimally or unprocessed foods and yet still using seed oils, I don’t think we’d be talking obesity problems. But that’s not the case: most folk are shopping in the middle of the grocery store for pre made products (just take a look at the frozen "food" aisles, eating at MickeyD’s and the ilk, etc etc etc.
We did not "evolve " to live in a land of non-scarcity, where a day of food only costs an hour’s worth of "work," (yes, that might be someone else’s hour of work, I know); where we have 10x the choice in the market than when I was a child in the 50s/60s - yes, made up that "10x" figure - it might be higher. Frankly, I put food in the same cabinet as porn in things we don’t have any natural defenses against, yet. There’s probably always been "porn," just like there’s always been food but now a nearly infinite amount of porn costs less than a day’s worth of food - pay for it and I suspect at some point your eyes begin to bleed. It’s the same with food, we are so bloody good at "food" that at least in this 1st world nation our problem isn’t want — when was the last time you saw an emaciated poor person in USofA?
Now, for the record, took an inventory: in my pantry I have olive oil, light olive oil, a dozen types of EVOO, avocado oil, ghee I make myself from high fat organic Hutterite butter, and 🤔 and bacon fat. I make my own bread (sourdough) from grain I mill myself (manually); I cook most of my meals from ingredients I buy from the perimeter of the grocery store. I’ve got no dog in this fight re: seed oils - I just don’t think they’re the primary boogeyman.
Now, gotta go - my feline masters are demanding lunch 😉
Mostly it’s a matter of hydration: the higher your hydration the more open your crumb will be. There’s a bit more to it, but mostly it’s hydration.
You want something like a bagel you’re gonna be working with, say, a 60% hydration dough - and the steps and recipe particular to bagels.
Ciabatta, focaccia can have hydration percentages near 100% — considered an "expert" level bread as dough above 70% is difficult.
Sourdough boules, 80% hydration and starting in a very hot steam injected oven will develop those large airy expanses.
I focus on a tighter, more uniform crumb: 65-70% hydration, a 12-24 hour 100% hydration "sponge" rise to develop flavor and beneficial attributes before I add the final measure of flour. Then it’s 4, 5 stretch&folds to develop gluten, a final rise before baking. My loaves begin as 350g boules in All Clad stainless steel mini cocottes, 450° F with steam 15 minutes, then back to 350-375°F and no steam until bread reaches an internal 200°F.
thanks SR. . . well, from your response I can tell this is above my mechanical engineer pay grade; my wife is the bread maker. However, maybe you can bat back a couple of stupid questions?!
-- our oven has no steam capability, just a 2017 GE wall oven. Resistance coils on top, also has heated coils for the convection flow; I think that is it but she can select which coils or use ALL coils.
It seems spritzing water may be the only way she could "steam" her bread.
She has no idea of the hydration level she is using so it is hard to use your info effectively. ?Simple calculation?, just the water wt divided by all solid ingredients in the dough expressed as a percent?
sourdough process for oven: 20 min at 450F covered; remove covering and run 20 min more to completion.
The basic problem is on occasion the bread will have just one or two big ole holes towards the center of mass, the rest will be totally fine "crumb" consistency. I just don't like it when making a sandwich and the dang dressings squeeze through the big holes! Goofy, I know but that is my "thing"!
I think a lot of factors are also in play. Portion size is another issue, and looking at the humongous restaurant portion sizes, people seem to stuff more and more volume than in the past. My husband and I always split a dish whenever we happen to eat out somewhere, and we have found that is plenty of food, to say nothing of being much cheaper. Twenty or thirty years ago that might not have been the case!
Thank you for this excellent warning! Forwarded it to my boss lady (with 3 children) just now. Pretty darn convincing, even without further studies.
Personally don't use oils for anything. Just as well, as I've always been an 'easy keeper.' Have thyroid issues I'm not addressing, so this is a welcome forewarning.
I have been amused by this total turnaround on fats. While I like animal fats and butter, I've developed an automatic 'reject' reaction. To the extent I have an option, need to work on that.
Our family uses mostly olive oil. Specifically, five liter cans costing about $13 labeled in Italian "Extra Virgin Olive Oil". I'm willing to believe it is not the best.
However, we live in Ukraine, a world leading producer of sunflower seeds. Natives have always used sunflower oil, and I just don't see that many obese people. Count me skeptical.
Maybe it has to do with the processing of the seeds, and not the seeds themselves ? Maybe, in Ukraine, the accessibility to other crappy super processed foods, simply isn't available, such as in the horrific, American overall diet ?
I'm super sensitive to hydrogenated oils, regardless of type. I can eat whole peanuts till they're popping out my ears, but I can't touch a drop of commercially produced peanut butter. I'm so fearful of eating that stuff now, I'd starve to death before ever touching hydrogenated peanut butter, ever again.
The products they sell are called "refined" and "unrefined," the former being clearer in color and more common. I expect that they use chemicals and heat in the refining process.
You raise one of the many questions that have me wondering. Ukraine is a "No GMO" country, but I'm quite sure they use glyphosate to dry crops before harvest. Such information is not as easy to find here as in the US.
We can't be too concerned. We have other things to worry about. Like, what does Putin want? To anihilate us? To make us love him? To change our way of thinking? Interesting to ponder, as we soldier on.
How about the higher potential for harm when repeatedly heating the same oil in commercial deep fryers? If all you do at home is heat the oil up once to cook an immediate meal and conscientiously try to keep the heat down to a reasonable level(350°F?), maybe the oil does not degrade enough to cause significant harm.
Somebody should do an experiment including type's of seed oils and temps while documenting acrylamide and other nasties. . .
The average family has no idea this is even an issue. They trust that going to the grocery store or out to eat is not a life endangering thing. They do not read articles like this. That is why it is so important that the corporate food processors have standard regulations and prohibitions like they have had in Europe.
Years ago we traveled all over Europe for years and never once had digestive issues or confounding weight gains that occur so commonly here in America. We had no idea why that was at the time.
You're so right! Over the holidays I couldn't help but notice all the giant bottles of cheap cooking oils being displayed for use in holiday cooking. Ugh!
I wish there was a complete list of seed oils every time they are discussed. So many people do not understand what a seed oil is. They are in the ingredients list of thousands of products. Even many products that are labeled health & organic foods contain them.
Canola & palm oil in particular, were and are overhyped as healthy. They are not, and a lot of homes have them on their shelves...ready to heat up and fry everything.
I definitely would not want to leave sugar, especially corn syrup and other cheap forms, out of the health discussions. I believe sugar feeds or aggravates many diseases.
Agree 100%. Seems to me this is a miss direction article. After WWII, the annual consumption of sugar was about 60 lbs. per year per capita and it was mostly cane sugar. Fast forward to today and it is above 150 lbs. per capita and the majority of it is liquid corn syrup which is cheaper that cane sugar and is used almost exclusively in soft drinks that are not diet in the USA. During WWII they realized that feeding corn rather than grass (hay) to cattle they fatten faster. Same is true with the liquid corn syrup in soda, as well as the fact that 75% of ALL processed foods have some form of a corn component in it's formula. I'm sure Coca Cola doesn't want liquid corn syrup banned from their soft drinks that are not diet. Mexican Coca Cola is sugar based. If RFK Jr goes after the artificial sweeteners that create inflammatory conditions in the brain and they switch to sugar for regular pop, I suspect their stock would tank big time! So..point the finger in another direction and lay all the blame on seed oils. The other discussion should be that Omega-3 which is the healthy form has been switched to Omega-6 via liquid corn syrup source and seed oils. Major contributor to heart disease. Olive oil and Coconut oil should be the mainstays! My view and have made many presentations on how we have become a unhealthy nation because of how we process food products. In Europe, they limit chemicals being added to the food products at 700, in the USA it is a free for all and 10,000 chemicals are used. That's what happens when you have regulatory capture.
Yes, many concerns. When these are the crops grown in your country… you look for ways to capitalize on them. I am quite concerned about GMOs.
Look up www.momsacrossamerica.com The American cereal pushers use gmo produced grains and they contain traces of glyphosate and etc. Harmful to our children!
I read today that Red dye #3 has finally been banned. https://nypost.com/2025/01/15/health/us-bans-red-dye-no-3-from-foods-amid-evidence-it-causes-cancer/
#5 yellow needs to go.
All of them !!
My eyes also don't agree with the suggestion that sugar consumption has been stable, even over just the past few decades. But I bet it's going to drop because the economy itself is putting people on a diet.
I'm ready to accept that excessive seed oils are a problem, particularly when heated. You can see their polymerization products stuck to baking sheets, that have to literally be sanded off if you want to see the stainless steel again. If people are worried about plastics, running seed oil polymers into their gut ought to concern them too. That and the byproducts of processing and detoxifying such things as rape seed oil to produce the canola oil .
When I was a young boy, a sugar laden Coke was only 7 oz. Then it went to 12 oz and now 20 oz. So the notion that sugar is not a major culprit of obesity is not convincing.
It looks like the seed oils causing insulin resistance is an important amplifier in problems with sugar. I am all for the inflation caused price increases in candy bars. I also only try, and mostly succeed, in only eating those things with my eyes and walking on. I also call doughnuts do-nots. I lived the American diet like most all of us growing up. I am glad to be getting this education about seed oils and pesticides like glyphosates now as I get old and changes in how I digest and process foods becomes more critical.
How about those super size bags of Mars Nestle Hershey products at the Walmart? :-D Someone is eating those things!
No kidding. Go into any convenience store attached to a gas station nothing but sugar and carbs, fried in seed oils.
More GRAS garbage
High fructose corn syrup isn't any good, either.
Better yet...
https://www.chefsresource.com/is-aluminum-in-baking-powder-harmful/
I always buy baking powder without aluminum! It's easy to find.
Every average supermarket in this area, bakes their own breads,cookies, cakes, etc. The first thing I always do is to read the label on the package. It is nearly impossible to find any of these "goodies" without aluminum in the mix, which is why I wind up putting it back on the shelf. Granted, I dont need the extra calories, which tend to coagulate in my belly region, but on occasion it is nice to splurge.
I recently found out about Reeses PB cups containing not so good stuff in it. TBHQ which is a gasoline additive
Never again, I guess.
We are asked to read the labels. Ever notice you need to bring a magnifying glass and a modern science dictionary along while shopping?
BINGO !
Look up Acrylamide formation from refined sugars. Pure cane sugar, not so much
Thank you for the info about pure cane sugar. I keep it on hand. I don't use it much so it lasts a very long time.
I think, where you are able… organic, locally sourced honey is best. Although, my father likes stevia… which I hate.
It's hard to find local honey here these days. Too many bees dying. I read that raw honey is the best, but I don't like it. I hate Stevia too. Monk's fruit is a little better. It's okay.
It may be worth the drive to find one as nearby as possible. Usually agricultural cooperatives have listings for honey producers. You can find it various forms and flower bases. I have a diabetic family member who uses monk fruit. Bees are absolutely essential to survival as they are the major pollinators. We don’t require sugar, you can get the same joy from organic fruit…in my opinion. Except my spouse and I enjoy quality dark chocolate and the occasional custard style ice cream.
Stevia is used as birth control in its local areas. Actually where I live Maple syrup is produced. It is better for us than sugar and use less (if you are smart) and adds a nice flavor. We all eat some sugars, and we need some. But starting your day with sugar pops and Cap'n Crunch and Cinnabons . . . not so much.
I have also found local honey producers.
My VT neighbors make the syrup. Like godly goodness on my pancakes
Yeah… I remember ‘peanut butter captain crunch’.
I buy local RAW honey.
White in color (must be a supremacist according to Joe Blow Biden) but tases awesome. I take a tablespoon daily, and wash it down with a glass of water.
Unfortunately,
The bees follow me around all damn day, trying to get me to buzz back in their ears ! The nerve !!
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27374529/
Thank you.
Thanks for the lead.
Anytime !
Why is the same soda sold in the US sold with cane sugar in Kenya, but not in the US? (I don’t drink any soda, except on extremely rare occasions.)
No surprise. The U.S. doesn't have regulations on the food industry like other countries do. Many chemicals (e.g. pesticides) used here are banned in Europe. I think GMOs are banned there too, but not here.
Greece bands GMO's. So does France but they use tons of chemicals on the crops! Been to Greece and their food tastes wonderful!
Yes, I found a big difference in the UK many years ago while visiting.
I’ve been trying to remember the last time I drank a "soda,’ had this conversation yesterday in Costco where they sell LOTS of sodas — and Coca Cola from USofA AND Mexico, guess which one uses "sugar," - I remember buying a case or two of the Mexican Coca-Cola 20-30 years ago; and that was that. Sin’s mom loves her Diet Coke and I don’t think I’ve seen sodas in son’s house.
Me: I’m a litre of semi sweet honey tea in the morning.
There are undoubtably many differing regional/international names for carbonated beverages.
If you compare a regular American coke and a Mexican coke made only with sugar, the taste difference is huge. Mexican cokes are so much better and taste like the cokes I remember from childhood. If you want an occasional coke as a treat, find one that is the Mexican version!
Lcs is cheaper!
Same reason you can buy a brand new Ford F350 diesel overseas, with ZERO emission controls
Because tentacles of the blob dont reach that far
Yes, cane sugar is best. The word processed is so much an abused epithet. This is a marketing ploy and strategy to once again fool the hapless consumer. Processed means "refined, having impurities removed". Unprocessed food, IMO, should be black box labeled, such as: [Warning: Contains Unknown Impurities] or [Not Pure—Use at Your Own Risk].
Dr Berg fan, eh?
Fan? No.
I'm really not a fan of much, other than a good cup of coffee, and a nice backrub, or big bowl of homemade chicken soup, on the rare occasion.
Acrylamide forms from frying, roasting and baking at high temperatures. People like the taste of grilled meat that has been darkened, but it contains acrylamide, which is toxic.
Barbara, thus has been flying around on the interwebs lately, finally took a look myself. The studies that I found date back to early 2000s (there are many more, just what I found) that looked at the formation acrylamide during cooking. 1) doesn’t require HIGH heat, 180°C/~350°F is sufficient - so, normal baking/cooking temps; 2) mostly methionine and arginine that have the reactive group - interestingly, these are highest in plant sources (potatoes, flour,…); 3) the studies were carried out in aqueous solutions with free amino acids - I didn’t find studies using proteins so I don’t know how the formation of acrylamide is affected by the two amino acids present only as part of a protein (I also didn’t look that hard); 4) the studies I saw had the free amino acids in equi-molar amounts with glucose - necessary for the reaction (Maillard reaction). I frequently came across "wiggle" words: "particular" conditions, the formation of acrylamide "may" occur,…
So, while it’s possible and acrylamide probably can be detected, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.
This caught my interest first time ‘round because I use to use acrylamide back in the 80s when I was working on developing an in vitro glucose sensor for an synthetic pancreas - I was forming thin membranes of polyacrylamide containing an enzyme - had to come up with a protocol for polymerization that wouldn’t destroy the enzyme. Fun stuff, fun days. Anyway, one of the issues I was concerned about up front, since this membrane would eventually go IN the body, was the issue of free acrylamide post polymerization. Turned out to be a non-issue, any neurological deficits I have today I came about naturally. Miss those days - my biggest worry these days is feeding the katz sufficiently so they don’t eat my face at night. 👦🐈
Guess who is sucking up to Trump so they can continue to use Liquid Corn Syrup in their drinks that fatten! https://nypost.com/2025/01/15/business/coca-cola-gives-donald-trump-a-commemorative-bottle-ahead-of-inauguration/
I have no desire to kill the nation’s economy off… just make changes. However, the message Trump seemed to be giving on the famous plane ride with Kennedy photo was.. yeah, nothing is going to change…because you know... 'business models'.
And that is what the popcorn is sidelined for.
You're totally right. It is empty calories that actually robs the body of nutrients in order to be handled. It leads to obesity, diabetes and other diseases. In 1961, when I first got into studying nutrition, I visualized a skull and crossbones, when I thought of sugar and white flour.
I have not used seed oils in 17 years. I eat hardly any fried food, only when it is served and I cannot get anything else. Neither sugar nor grains cause obesity I think, otherwise all Europeans, great bread eaters, would be obese. Of course, with food being served everywhere, it is easy to get over weight. Every end of year, I gain 6 or 7 pounds and then struggle to get them off by next November.
I wonder if it is not a combination of many different causes, rather than just one, and the constitution of every one person. I know people who eat 3 times as much and weigh nothing, and people who eat close to nothing and gain weight.
French women of 5' 4 " weighed 155 pounds. This is considerably overweight. Bread is dead! It contributes to obesity. Read Grain Damage by James Braly MD. 200 diseases are created by eating grains. Any food processed at 400 degrees has lost any value it had, but grains in particular were not designed for human consumption. I m 5' 3" and weigh 112 - 113 pounds...I still have some inches around the middle that i don't want, but it is going with daily exercise. Its not the weight. Its the inches that need to go. It takes time!
but home made bread is, to me, like candy right out of the wife's oven. Holy cow. Love it. and the aroma while cooking . . . wheeewwie!
Drooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooolin
I am an American but also have worked in Europe. I loved to have my Churros in Madrid for breakfast. In America, I have to settle for donuts. In France it was patisserie. In Germany a good Berliner to start the day! All with coffee with sugar and cream. I am 78 and consume exorbitant amounts of sugar, always have. As a biochemist, I remember a Finnish study, I think from the 1970s, where mice were given pure sugar for 10% of their caloric intake. The mice lived about 15% longer than controls.
yep, you got it. I'm 74 and though not super thin, weigh no more than in my 30's. I find that every winter, as I am a LOT less active, I gain about 5 pounds and like you, lose it again over the year. But, I can eat like a horse and not necessarily gain much at any one time in summer months.
Several years ago, I came across some article on one of the health forums, I had just joined. The article was primarily regarding the production of seed oils, canola oil specifically, and how detrimental to the human digestive system, and overall health. It was a time when I then began to read every single package I brought home, picked up at the deli, and so forth.
It was a very disappointing time, to say the least.
At the very same time, I had discovered, through a chance of fate, and through trial and error, that I was poisoning myself, on a daily basis, with a product I had eaten, nearly every single day of my life up until that point, coming from a single (working 3 jobs) mom, with 4 boys situation, having, essentially, to fend for myself with regards to eating, dressing myself, and attention to schoolwork, all of which, Mom simply didn't have the time to help me with. Heck, at 13, I could so easily ruin a bunch of white clothes in Mom's washing machine, with a single pair of red underwear, I considered myself a tie-dyeing expert on the side, at age 14.
So, about a decade ago, I had several digestive issues, that although seeing several doctors, and eventually going to a DO, all of which did nothing for me, my wife accidentally pushed me to figure out what was wrong the entire time. Luckily for me, I have a wonderful wife who simply forgot to buy my favorite, lifetime food, and I went several weeks without up until that fateful day, I opened up the cupboard, and
"It was back ! Woo hoo!", mentally I exclaimed !
Skippy super chunk, PEANUT BUTTER.
So being the ravenous fool of a caveman Tonga that I claim to be, I ripped open that jar of Skippy, took a huge tablespoon, scooped out a heaping, hunk of loving goodness, and let my gluttony take the best of me. Feeling satisfied, I closed up the jar, praised my lovely ball and chain for restoring the cupboard back to it's intended glory, and went off to my day.
Then....
15 minutes out the door, I was about 3/4mile from home, I felt this overwhelming grumbling in my belly. Feeling that this wasn't "good", I spun my worktruck around, and went back home to "investigate" the issue. Not saying much, I entered my house, and beelined to the downstairs toilet, where I rested my uneasy queasy self, and waited. Waited, but NOT uneventful.
The pain started shortly after I sat down. It was up near my sternum, at first, and then progressed southwards, moving east, then west, then east then west, and so on, and so on. The pain increased with each horizontal pass across my mid section. Almost 20 minutes later, nearly in tears, the exodus of my issue found it's way to the watery grave, and my pains slowly, but eventually subsided.
I took a shower after that, being a giant sweat ball of nervousness generated pain and discomfort.
After feeling somewhat human again, exiting the shower, I swore off all peanut butter from then on out. That lasted 6 months.
So being the inquisitive little child, inside, almost 6 months to the day, dreaming on a regular basis of that yummy, gobbly gook of delicious peanuts and creamy heaven, I decided to "Give-er a shot Wilber", once again. Oh, it didn't go well.
The first experience of having those pains, paled by comparison. Same scenario, same amount of time, but the pain levels increased to the Carol Burnett point of life (read what Carol Burnett thought about giving birth pains, to understand), and my wife holding the phone in front of me, telling me she was calling an ambulance, all while the tears ran down my face, chin and shirt.
Luckily, it passed.
I have never touched commercial peanut butter again, since. Never will.
Hydrogenated oil and my internals do not go well together.
I still read every package, and I severely limit anything that has any type of seed oil in it, to this very day. THis, as I'm sure you're aware, is by no means, and easy task in itself.
I totally understand the issues you so eloquently described. I used to LOVE eating that peanut butter from a spoon but I too have to stay off the hydrogenated oil. I would not have been able to paint such a picture though, not in my skill set presently. Thank you for the smile this morning.
I wrote this with DD in mind. I tried being "restrained" in my approach, and candor, and gross little boy anecdotes, and descriptives. Although, she may not know it, I really do think she's a wonderful person, regardless of how I come across that she should keep her trap shut with regards to telling me what, and or how to do....but I digress...
(bite me, DD)
8-)
Oh my God, I am laughing my ass off! Both for the story and for the reference. You did good! Bite you where?
Ahh, jimney crickets ! I'm too bashful to answer that question.
Tonga make Red hardee-har-dee-har!
"If you want to know the feeling [of labor pain], just take your bottom lip and pull it over your head." CB
Sooo. Can you eat "natural" peanut butter? I am wondering if my SIBO may be similarly related to such an issue?
I've broken bones, and the pain i experienced made my broken leg feel like a skeeter bite.
Look at it this way.
Your're a full time wrench, and you, on a daily basis get gasoline on your hands, and I'm sure, at some point, a reaction will occur (swelling, irritation, blisters, whatever), telling you that you have an allery, or intolerance to whatever is making your bodies reaction happen.
Several months youre on vacation, hence no gasoline exposure. Next time you dip the gas you get a really bad reaction, after your respite, and healed hands, the reaction is worse.
Problem is, you cannot see inside, as readily as looking at your hands.
My digestive issues are gone. i'm petrified to eat any commercial peanutbutter, but I can say that eating shelled peanuts, or even salted planters regular peanuts have no effect on me, regarding any pain, or discomfort, but too much peanuts can be a cleanout the next day, again, no pains
Peanuts, yes. Fresh ground peanuts yes. No issues at all
I’m too chicken shit to try commercial ever again
https://oldhomefoods.com/products/100-natural-crunchy-peanut-butter/
Thanks for sharing. It's so important to get this information out there. Dr. Joseph Mercola has written extensively on this. He says it's not the oils themselves that are toxic, but rather the chemicals used to process them. I use butter made from pasture fed cows only for cooking. Just learned about beef tallow being okay if organic. I use cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil (I hear it's safe) to make my own salad dressing. I mix it with vinegar, organic agave syrup and spices.
How about avocado oil, it's oK to use, right?
Avocado oil is great as long as it isn't mixed with any other oils. Some apparently are mixed. Read labels! I use it for doing wok cooking because it has a higher smoke point (500° or so) than any other oil, so it's great for use in high heat wok cooking. Otherwise, I mostly use olive oil, although apparently you also have to read labels there too because some of them are also mixed with lesser oils.
Pharma has lots of products to provide weight loss and simultaneously allow excessive consumption of french fries and chicken nuggets. You have a staunch compatriot in Dr. Joseph Mercola, also sounding the alarm on health detrimental seed oils. There in lies the perfect example of why RFK, Jr. may never get confirmed. He flys in the face of two of the most powerful lobbies in the world; pharma and big agriculture. I'm confident huge campaign donations are being promised to our Senators to block RFK, Jr's confirmation. This leads to another perfect example for term limits.
That's why we need 100,000 physicians to sign a proclamation demanding that RFK Jr. gets confirmed!
All the more. Read Pence (and group?) are championing RFK Jr's not getting the job! As if he hasn't caused more than enough damage already!
Also, Pence is a Lilly Portege! What else would expect!
Tricky Dick II Durbin is leading the charge!
As someone who used to, many moons ago, work as a nutritionist, I think this essay on seed oils is valuable and contributes to the overall ongoing Conversation on diet and health.
However I would add a caveat about a reader potentially taking an understanding from the message presented here that refined sugar is somehow less of a problem in health because the author may implicate seed oils more as directly contributing to obesity. I would suggest it is more a case of And And in terms of harms. As we understand much more about the importance to our health of a healthy microbiome (gut flora), the fingerprint of refined sugar is certainly heavily involved in contributing to deleteriously affecting our beneficial bacteria.
Post of the day, by Nick Haynes
(Officially vote #1)
and, I will second that, (Vote#1)
In processed foods, it seems that cheap seed oils AND sugar travel together a lot of the time. This is why I almost never buy anything in a package, nothing processed at all.
What would apparently be a good thing:
-- run designed experiment comparing both variables(sugar, seed oil) as main variables; study interaction effects;
-- publish conclusions to suss out which variable predominates.
that is, answer the obvious question posed here.
If i eat refined sugar on a regular basis, I get fatter. If I exclude cookies, muffins and other goodies, I keep the weight off.
This is why I gave up all booze over a year ago, and started drinking black coffee.
Keep the fat off
A potentially good reference here:
https://heartandsoil.co/blog/the-complete-list-of-seed-oils-to-avoid/
- Canola oil
- Corn oil
- Cottonseed oil
- Flaxseed oil
- Grapeseed oil
- Hemp seed oil
- Rice bran oil
- Safflower oil
- Sesame oil
- Soybean oil
- Sunflower oil
I don't see avocado oil. It must be . . . OK(It has a huge seed in an avocado but they must make the oil from the outer green stuff, huh?!)
Thank you so much for the list. It would be easy to add the list or link to a lot of products & articles. Most people have no idea which oils they are.
I cringe when I think of how when I was growing up my mother, who was extremely health conscious but who didn't know in the 1960's what we know now, used margarine, Wesson oil, and that horrendous concoction known as Crisco. My entire family of six was all slim, however. My mother didn't fry foods at all, and although she baked pie crusts and biscuits with Crisco, these things were pretty rare. My parents never bought snacks such as chips, crackers, cookies etc., and they never bought cokes. My mother made everything from scratch, so no processed foods at all. As adults, not a one of us is overweight even today, and we never have been. I attribute a lot of this to learning to cook when young and having a basically good example set for eating. It carried through and we're all in our 60s and 70s now. I'll add that all four of us kids modified our diets to healthy choices (eliminating the seed oils etc.) in adulthood as we learned about how bad the old stuff was! We're all very healthy eaters now and have been for decades. It pays off!
This may be more complex than all seed oils should be avoided. An industrial seed oil, such as sunflower oil and an organic cold-pressed, unrefined sunflower oil are not the same. Also a major aspect of the problem has to be the health consequences of consuming fried restaurant food or supermarket chips in which the cheapest availabe oils (the ubiquitous label of sunflower, canola and or...) are used over and over. In cooking at home, high heat with oils should be avoided as even the healthiest oils can be damaged with heat.
I am a retired researcher in metabolic diseases, working in Pharma. I conducted a large study in San Antonio in humans to evaluate an alternative form of insulin. Many of the personnel we recruited were too obese to use in the study. These were often people who ate corn and fried their food in corn oil every day, a monolithic diet. I surmised that their disease, accompanied by clinically onbserved insulin resistance, was mainly a dietary problem. Corn oil has the highest linoleic content of all the oils, at 58%! Cottonseed and Grape seed oils follow at 54% each. Coconut oil has less than 2%. Olive Oil is less than 10%. Butter is typically ~50% saturated and less than 4% polyunsaturated, which grouping includes linoleic. (Wiki).
Incidentally, animal fat (lard or suet) has about 40% saturated and only about 11% polyunsaturated. I remember the baked goods "back when" had tasted so much better because lard was used, which helps retain moisture upon baking. I think the discontinuation of lard in cooking was due in part to the name. The phrase Tub-O-Lard also did not lend itself very well to market penetration. Marketeers preferred the latter name "shortening", or a brand name like "Crisco". But the people never forgot the former name, or their unfortunate classmate nicknamed "Lardo". True dat!
Thanks for the corroborative information, Dr. Malone.
Bubba, I came across a blurb recently that claims Buffalo Wild Wings still uses lard for frying its fries. I don’t eat out much but I may have to give this a shot.
If it tastes better than the competitors, probably true! I did not know that. Are you old enough to remember original Twinkies? They were so good. I had some recently, and they were all dried out with larger "pores", and without the natural "gumminess" I seem to remember. Thanks, Miller!
I forgot to include: the company that brought us Twinkies, HoHo and the like went into bankruptcy 10, 15 years ago (?), the thinking was they were going away due to changing tastes/diets but surprise surprise 😮 they were bought by an investor group and resurrected saving jobs, the products and waistlines. That they may taste different, be different doesn’t surprise me.
Do I remember "original" Twinkie’s? I’m not sure I remember how to pay cash for items at the grocer. 😂
But, yes, I had a couple back in the day - yellow, right?, clear cellophane wrapper ✅, white filling 🤷♀️— if we’re on the same page, not my fav, that white filling was tooooo much. Now, if we’re wanna talk HoHos: I’m thinking hockey puck shape, foil wrapper, chocolate coating? Gotta admit, nice at first but those treats never really rang my bell; after fries and JoJos/fried potato wedges, I discovered powdered sugar donut holes while in university in SW Va, Entenmann’s pastry’s working at a startup in Philly mid-80s. I should say that was my first exposure to REAL bagels, yes with lox, and we eventually found this little hole in the wall shoppe that I still miss. You never forget your first 😆 and even tho there’s been a handful of decent bagel shops over the past few decades where I now live only a couple came close and, sadly, they’ve all passed. RIP 🪦
Well Twinkies were all the kids' favorites in the 1950's! That dates me.
As for bagels, I worked and played in Manhattan. The original New York Bagels I was used to came from Zabar's on the Upper West Side. I found Zabar's in 1966 and have found some close bagel replicas—close but not quite. It's probably the oil. I'll bet even Zabar's does not use beef tallow anymore! The ones you see when you Google NYC bagels, all visibly have voids in them! Probably using canola seed oil or some other poisonous oil. Not good.
No 😆, the holes/pores probably arise during the boiling step. Perhaps a higher hydration percentage than originally used - a low hydration dough can be difficult to work, in its own way, just as high hydration brings its own difficulties.
As for the use of "poisonous" seed oils, also not an issue: I wouldn’t expect to find any fat of any source in a real bagel — flour water salt. Flavor develops from the flour or combination of flours used, the additions that may be used in the boiling water. I think the traditional boiling water had some lye in it, I’ve heard use of brown sugar, molasses, baking soda, malt/malt extract - the purpose being to change the character of the exterior (crunchy) while making the interior chewy through a quick dip in boiling water plus { stuff }. Prolly why I enjoy baking so much - it’s chemistry plus ____ .
Me luvs a good bagel.
Shoot, almost forgot: protein percentage, and this I’d have to double check: you may want a low protein flour for bagels - you’re NOT trying for high gluten so a low protein, or at least a protein that doesn’t readily form gluten, should be ideal — hence, a chewy interior. Thinking about this, it actually makes sense; original bagels were of Eastern European design, a place where rye was well suited, rye doesn’t form gluten well and when it does it does so in the presence of an acid which would make sourdough, or naturally leavened dough, ideal. 🤔 I think I have a homework assignment. 💡
Good info and dialogue. I believe the great Bagels of NYC had some oil to make the top shiny and "waterproof". I am not concerned at all about gluten. I think that is another manufactured marketing business idea. I seem to learn that humans have eaten gluten for...what? 80,000 years ≠ a few millennia? And saturated fat bad, salt bad, cholesterol bad, therefore eggs bad, whole milk bad, omega 3 great, oh, now maybe not so great—the beat goes on, and clever people are sailing around the Caribbean as we speak.
Until about 1985, McDonalds used beef tallow for their French fires....which were SO delicious back then.
And then there is the individual's metabolism. In my 20s-30s was not unusual for me to come home from work and have a 1/4 lb sack of M&Mpeanuts and 2 beers. Weighed in at 148 lbs which I had weighed since I was16. Stopped smoking when I was 32 (2 packs/day) and 7-8 months later weighed 225 lbs. And no, was not eating more food.
So, Michael, what do you attribute the gained weight to? Obviously, the cig smoke must have up-regulated your metabolism. . . or something. But which component or what, exactly?
Another (warranted) chapter in the book of "everything we ever thought we knew needs to be reevaluated."
I have not taken the best step of finding a local dairy as a source of healthier foods. But for years now, I've prepared much of my food using Land O Lakes Butter with Olive Oil and Sea Salt. Cream, Olive Oil, Salt, and that's it. Turns out it hasn't been an indulgence at the expense of health, but rather to its credit. I have a growing awareness and consciousness of ingredient labels. Vigilance is not so comfortably dismissed as the "If it tastes good, spit it out" diet. There's a lot of room for improvement under my roof.
I’m gonna stick my neck out here - making seed oils the mega villain is like picking at nits. If we were cooking at home with minimally or unprocessed foods and yet still using seed oils, I don’t think we’d be talking obesity problems. But that’s not the case: most folk are shopping in the middle of the grocery store for pre made products (just take a look at the frozen "food" aisles, eating at MickeyD’s and the ilk, etc etc etc.
We did not "evolve " to live in a land of non-scarcity, where a day of food only costs an hour’s worth of "work," (yes, that might be someone else’s hour of work, I know); where we have 10x the choice in the market than when I was a child in the 50s/60s - yes, made up that "10x" figure - it might be higher. Frankly, I put food in the same cabinet as porn in things we don’t have any natural defenses against, yet. There’s probably always been "porn," just like there’s always been food but now a nearly infinite amount of porn costs less than a day’s worth of food - pay for it and I suspect at some point your eyes begin to bleed. It’s the same with food, we are so bloody good at "food" that at least in this 1st world nation our problem isn’t want — when was the last time you saw an emaciated poor person in USofA?
Now, for the record, took an inventory: in my pantry I have olive oil, light olive oil, a dozen types of EVOO, avocado oil, ghee I make myself from high fat organic Hutterite butter, and 🤔 and bacon fat. I make my own bread (sourdough) from grain I mill myself (manually); I cook most of my meals from ingredients I buy from the perimeter of the grocery store. I’ve got no dog in this fight re: seed oils - I just don’t think they’re the primary boogeyman.
Now, gotta go - my feline masters are demanding lunch 😉
Have you ever figured out how to bake sourdough without so many damn holes in it?
Yeah, of course 😊
Mostly it’s a matter of hydration: the higher your hydration the more open your crumb will be. There’s a bit more to it, but mostly it’s hydration.
You want something like a bagel you’re gonna be working with, say, a 60% hydration dough - and the steps and recipe particular to bagels.
Ciabatta, focaccia can have hydration percentages near 100% — considered an "expert" level bread as dough above 70% is difficult.
Sourdough boules, 80% hydration and starting in a very hot steam injected oven will develop those large airy expanses.
I focus on a tighter, more uniform crumb: 65-70% hydration, a 12-24 hour 100% hydration "sponge" rise to develop flavor and beneficial attributes before I add the final measure of flour. Then it’s 4, 5 stretch&folds to develop gluten, a final rise before baking. My loaves begin as 350g boules in All Clad stainless steel mini cocottes, 450° F with steam 15 minutes, then back to 350-375°F and no steam until bread reaches an internal 200°F.
Remove, cool, slice if you wish, enjoy.
Give thanks for such a blessing.
thanks SR. . . well, from your response I can tell this is above my mechanical engineer pay grade; my wife is the bread maker. However, maybe you can bat back a couple of stupid questions?!
-- our oven has no steam capability, just a 2017 GE wall oven. Resistance coils on top, also has heated coils for the convection flow; I think that is it but she can select which coils or use ALL coils.
It seems spritzing water may be the only way she could "steam" her bread.
She has no idea of the hydration level she is using so it is hard to use your info effectively. ?Simple calculation?, just the water wt divided by all solid ingredients in the dough expressed as a percent?
sourdough process for oven: 20 min at 450F covered; remove covering and run 20 min more to completion.
The basic problem is on occasion the bread will have just one or two big ole holes towards the center of mass, the rest will be totally fine "crumb" consistency. I just don't like it when making a sandwich and the dang dressings squeeze through the big holes! Goofy, I know but that is my "thing"!
Suggestions for improvements?
I think a lot of factors are also in play. Portion size is another issue, and looking at the humongous restaurant portion sizes, people seem to stuff more and more volume than in the past. My husband and I always split a dish whenever we happen to eat out somewhere, and we have found that is plenty of food, to say nothing of being much cheaper. Twenty or thirty years ago that might not have been the case!
Thank you for this excellent warning! Forwarded it to my boss lady (with 3 children) just now. Pretty darn convincing, even without further studies.
Personally don't use oils for anything. Just as well, as I've always been an 'easy keeper.' Have thyroid issues I'm not addressing, so this is a welcome forewarning.
I have been amused by this total turnaround on fats. While I like animal fats and butter, I've developed an automatic 'reject' reaction. To the extent I have an option, need to work on that.
This info is much appreciated!
Our family uses mostly olive oil. Specifically, five liter cans costing about $13 labeled in Italian "Extra Virgin Olive Oil". I'm willing to believe it is not the best.
However, we live in Ukraine, a world leading producer of sunflower seeds. Natives have always used sunflower oil, and I just don't see that many obese people. Count me skeptical.
Maybe it has to do with the processing of the seeds, and not the seeds themselves ? Maybe, in Ukraine, the accessibility to other crappy super processed foods, simply isn't available, such as in the horrific, American overall diet ?
I'm super sensitive to hydrogenated oils, regardless of type. I can eat whole peanuts till they're popping out my ears, but I can't touch a drop of commercially produced peanut butter. I'm so fearful of eating that stuff now, I'd starve to death before ever touching hydrogenated peanut butter, ever again.
Only you would know, being you live there.
The products they sell are called "refined" and "unrefined," the former being clearer in color and more common. I expect that they use chemicals and heat in the refining process.
You raise one of the many questions that have me wondering. Ukraine is a "No GMO" country, but I'm quite sure they use glyphosate to dry crops before harvest. Such information is not as easy to find here as in the US.
We can't be too concerned. We have other things to worry about. Like, what does Putin want? To anihilate us? To make us love him? To change our way of thinking? Interesting to ponder, as we soldier on.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/119952854
Man, interesting post, from the Ukraine no less!
How about the higher potential for harm when repeatedly heating the same oil in commercial deep fryers? If all you do at home is heat the oil up once to cook an immediate meal and conscientiously try to keep the heat down to a reasonable level(350°F?), maybe the oil does not degrade enough to cause significant harm.
Somebody should do an experiment including type's of seed oils and temps while documenting acrylamide and other nasties. . .
The average family has no idea this is even an issue. They trust that going to the grocery store or out to eat is not a life endangering thing. They do not read articles like this. That is why it is so important that the corporate food processors have standard regulations and prohibitions like they have had in Europe.
Years ago we traveled all over Europe for years and never once had digestive issues or confounding weight gains that occur so commonly here in America. We had no idea why that was at the time.
You're so right! Over the holidays I couldn't help but notice all the giant bottles of cheap cooking oils being displayed for use in holiday cooking. Ugh!
I wish there was a complete list of seed oils every time they are discussed. So many people do not understand what a seed oil is. They are in the ingredients list of thousands of products. Even many products that are labeled health & organic foods contain them.
Canola & palm oil in particular, were and are overhyped as healthy. They are not, and a lot of homes have them on their shelves...ready to heat up and fry everything.