Shortcrust pastry made with vegetable fats query

[Fab Foodie]

So are hydrogenated fats not so bad and it is just trans-fats we need to worry about?

It's partial hydrogenation which can generate levels of trans-fats concering to humans, but 100% hydrogenation should not.

 

[theclaud]

It's the solid fat crystals you need to stabilise the pastry structure, they're also important in bread and cake manufacture too.
As Arch states, you can of course use naturally hard oils such as coconut or Palm, but they are expensive. (The sensible thing to do would be to take cheap and plentiful oils and fully hydrogenate them (no trans fats) to get hard fats and then blend them with softer oils, but since the media mis-informed the population that won't happen).

The other way that I am aware of is a process called 'Interesterification:

Fats/oils consist of a molecule of Glycerol to which 3 fatty acids can be attached by a reaction called esterification. Fatty acids come in different lengths from 4 Carbon atoms long (giving butter it's distinctive whiff) to 22 carbon atoms long and may be either saturated (giving hardness) or unsaturated (giving fluidity). During interesterification, you 'simply swap the fatty acid chains around to create distinct species where for example each Glycerol molecule has 3 saturated long chain fatty acids attached rendering them harder and others have shorter chain or unsaturated fatty acids rendering them fluid at room temp. Seperation of the 2 fractions is a case of cooling them to a certain temp and spinning-off the hard crystaline molecules.
Or something like that!
,Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interesterified_fat

I'm not going to lose sleep if people are put off consuming fully-hydrogenated fats by association with partially-hydrogenated ones. In fact I'll be positively cheered. The former might not be demonstrably harmful in the same way, but it's all part of the same grand shift towards industrial-scale adulteration and fakery. The info about interesterification is interesterificating, even if it does sound like something George W. Bush has got slightly wrong. I will report back if I get a response from Trex - they specify that it contains no hydrogenated fats (which I took to include partially hydrogenated ones) and it clearly isn't coconut oil or palm oil, so I suspect some such grotesquery is involved...

 

[dan_bo]

Very interestering.....

 

[Fab Foodie]

I'm not going to lose sleep if people are put off consuming fully-hydrogenated fats by association with partially-hydrogenated ones. In fact I'll be positively cheered. The former might not be demonstrably harmful in the same way, but it's all part of the same grand shift towards industrial-scale adulteration and fakery. The info about interesterification is interesterificating, even if it does sound like something George W. Bush has got slightly wrong. I will report back if I get a response from Trex - they specify that it contains no hydrogenated fats (which I took to include partially hydrogenated ones) and it clearly isn't coconut oil or palm oil, so I suspect some such grotesquery is involved...

I know we disagree on this one, but I'd take some full hydrogenation of oils that can be grown in a variety of places over Malaysian Palm oil and impact on valuable habitats for those who need/want hard vegetable fats.

 

[srw]

One word of warning to the OP - I don't know much about halal, but some religious food codes have rules about food combining. A colleague was rather put out in a kosher restaurant to be offered a capuccino made with soya milk because they didn't use milk.

It's unlikely, given that the 7th century Arabs didn't have fat saturation machines, but it's worth checking first.

 

[vernon]

One word of warning to the OP - I don't know much about halal, but some religious food codes have rules about food combining. A colleague was rather put out in a kosher restaurant to be offered a capuccino made with soya milk because they didn't use milk.

It's unlikely, given that the 7th century Arabs didn't have fat saturation machines, but it's worth checking first.

The path to halal pie making has been cleared of culinary pitfalls. She is as keen to eat the pie as I am to make it. I've checked with her all the way. If things were not so frantic I'd make it for the last day of term. She's patient enough to wait until the start of the autumn term.

 

[theclaud]

I know we disagree on this one, but I'd take some full hydrogenation of oils that can be grown in a variety of places over Malaysian Palm oil and impact on valuable habitats for those who need/want hard vegetable fats.

Point acknowledged, but I don't think it's necessary to have either on the scale we're talking about. Still, that's probably enough about my political concerns about vegetable fats, on a thread which is essentially about the joys of Corned Beef Pie. If a colleague were to present me with a home-made corned beef pie I would be Very Pleased Indeed.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Point acknowledged, but I don't think it's necessary to have either on the scale we're talking about. Still, that's probably enough about my political concerns about vegetable fats, on a thread which is essentially about the joys of Corned Beef Pie. If a colleague were to present me with a home-made corned beef pie I would be Very Pleased Indeed.

Me too, though my Doctor is currently trying to pursuade me to avoid all saturated fats as they're trying really hard to kill me despite the red wine (which by also hardening my arteries is unfortunately having the same effect). A life of misery or an early grave? Eat pie, die happy!

 

[ASC1951]

Personally, I'd be more worried about where the corned beef came from!

Never mind the contents, how many people cut through tendons trying to open the tin with those little keys? My dad was forever drawing blood, despite corned beef hash being the only meal he could cook.

People need to keep some perspective about the health aspects of trans fats/saturated fats/alcohol/additives etc. Hominids have evolved to eat pretty much anything they come across, so long as it's not rotting. Lots of stuff in modern food is bad for us in quantity or over long periods, but a semi-hydrogenated E666 tartrazine pie every once in a while isn't going to do us any harm at all.

Halal/kosher/unethically sourced - well, that's a different matter. That's from conviction, not reason, and even a mouthful of the wrong stuff is going to send the eater straight to perdition and the whole world to disaster quicker than you could say "yumm".

 

[theclaud]

Personally, I'd be more worried about where the corned beef came from!

True enough. But seeing as there's no danger of anyone at work bringing me a corned beef pie, I am not going to beat myself up about it this time.

 

[srw]

True enough. But seeing as there's no danger of anyone at work bringing me a corned beef pie, I am not going to beat myself up about it this time.

Perhaps a nice lentil and tofu pie in wholemeal gram flour pastry with a brown rice and fig salad on the side?

 

[theclaud]

Perhaps a nice lentil and tofu pie in wholemeal gram flour pastry with a brown rice and fig salad on the side?

You jest, srw, but our company belongs to a Suma food group. They don't sell corned beef pie, but they do sell some nice things...

Anyway, lentils are a perfectly good thing to have in a pie, whereas tofu is largely a waste of space. And I don't suppose you can have wholemeal gram flour, 'cos it's made from a pulse. Your Linf impersonation needs work - it should at least mention yoghurt-knitting and sandals.

 

[Hacienda71]

Personally, I'd be more worried about where the corned beef came from!

You could have an ethically sourced beef mark , where none of the beef used was from cattle reared on cleared rainforrest grazing areas. I know from experience that in Brazil a lot of their cattle is reared in the South and central areas well away from the Amazon.