The much maligned Ghee that is a "magnet" for fraudsters in India! -Consumer in a blind!

Ghee is the Indianized version of butter oil which is a highly valued by-product of dairy industry. Why this is liked very much in India, despite it being demonized for presence of saturated fats and cholesterol? People love it for its delicate flavor that comes from high heat processing of fresh butter in open pans. Compared to other fats, ghee fetches a premium price to the extent of 100 to 150% and almost all diaries, private as well as cooperative, produce them being sold under various brand names. Ghee is also used in a variety of sweetmeat preparations through out the country. The ingenuity of food fraudsters in adulterating this valued fat product has spawned an entire industry that uses solid fats like Vanaspati in such proportions that cannot be easily detected by the hapless consumer. According to a recent report from the food safety authority sources, more than 50% of market samples of ghee are adulterated as discovered during a market vigilance operation and subsequent laboratory tests of seized samples. If this is true imagine the easy money the fraudsters are making through this devious route! 

Assuming that the figures trotted out by the above report is really true, what are its health implications? Antagonists of ghee consumption basically raise three issues regarding the desirability of taking ghee in our foods. First ghee is supposed to contain cholesterol as it is derived from animal sources. This cannot be refuted though the cholesterol content in ghee, about 250 mg % cannot be considered very high since human body does need about 300 mg of this fat emulsifying aid for digestion of fatty foods in the gastrointestinal tract. Second the saturated fat content, about 62% in ghee makes it eminently eligible for raising a red flag as there is a common impression that all saturated fats are bad for the health. Agreed that saturated fat consumption is not encouraged by nutritionists because of its tendency to raise the Low Density Cholesterol ( LDL) levels in the blood which is bad for the heart but consumption of saturated fat to a limited extent is not dangerous as long as major calories come from plant oils of liquid nature. The third issue is presence of trans fats (TF) in ghee which is being condemned world wide for its ill effects on heart. Why this concern about TF which is present only in small quantities in ghee? 

Of course trans fats are not desirable as a general rule but one has to make a difference between naturally occurring TF and man made TF. Hydrogenated Fats ( HF) made in huge quantities on demand by the food industry to incorporate into various processed products contain very high levels of HF, some times as high as 40% and naturally even a 10 gm portion can contribute about 4 gm of TF to the consumer. Unfortunately almost all baked foods are steeped in HF and intake of TF must be much more than what is considered safe. Health agencies all over the world are hesitant to put a "safe limit" for TF as far as human beings are considered and universally a zero tolerance is advocated. However practical ground reality makes it inevitable for humans to imbibe some TF through various foods consumed. This has necessitated for WHO to put an upper limit of TF ingestion equivalent to 1% of calories derived from the foods we consume every day. In the US there is a guideline which says TF consumption should not be more than 2 gm a day per person. 

Incidentally TF is present from 1 to 4% in human milk and naturally the child also imbibes this. But at such levels TF is not considered unsafe for a growing child. Similarly all animal derived milks contain TF to the extent of 2-5% of its total fat content. As a consequence both butter and ghee will contain TF passed on from the fluid milk during processing. One vital difference between saturated fat and TF is that the former just increases the LDL content in blood without any adverse effect on the HDL level. In contrast TF can cause both an increase in LDL and decrease in HDL, a double whammy! Health conscious consumers must avoid consumption of hydrogenated fats like Vanaspati be it any brand if to be protected against heart disease. But ghee cannot be categorized as a dangerous fat measured by any standards. On the contrary there are many reports highlighting the positive properties of ghee for human beings. As true with any food, moderation is always advised while consuming any fatty foods and ghee is no exception to this golden rule.

Talking about the extent of adulteration of ghee in India, one is left with an impression that a proper study has never been made about different markets in the country based on which any conclusion can be drawn regarding this menacing issue. If FSSAI is to be believed more than 60% of milk marketed by private players in the unorganized sector are adulterated and how harmful such a situation can be to the health of our population can be guessed. Similarly if this logic is extended to ghee market, one cannot doubt that most of the samples must be impure, adulterated with hydrogenated fat. Though no precise data is available, the estimated production of ghee in the country is about a million tons and even adulteration at 10% level can be a rewarding effort for the adultrators!. One comforting thought is that this heinous crime is perpetrated mostly by players in the unorganized sector though catching them is much more difficult than those indulging in this practice from the organized sector. Viewed from another perspective, the adulterated ghee containing Vanaspati can increase the TF ingestion among people with undesirable consequences in the long run. Sooner FSSAI takes preventive action to curb the growth of ghee adulteration "industry", better it will be for the health of the citizens of this country. 

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

NEW SOYBEAN OIL-REGAINING THE LOST GROUND?

Soybean oil is one of the major edible oils that dominates the global market. As an industrial fat it undergoes hydrogenation to generate solid and semi-sold fats with different melting point features suiting various applications in food industry. There was a time when hydrogenated fat products ruled the food world used practically in every processed food available in the market. How ever the "arrival" of trans fats on the safety front changed the situation dramatically with almost all sectors shunning their use for fear of offending the consumers. Trans fats are implicated in heart related diseases, similar to saturated fats and food scientists have been searching for acceptable and safe alternatives having similar functional properties without the presence of this offending substance. Fractionation techniques, interesterification process and similar technological approaches more or less have made hydrogenation a redundant technology, shunned by the food industry.

Amongst the frying oils Soy oil loses out to others like peanut oil, canola, coconut oil, corn oil etc because of its vulnerability to fast oxidation and consequent rancidity and polymerization leading to unacceptable changes in the properties due to prolonged exposure to high temperatures as encountered during frying. Cost consideration has pitchforked Soy oil as a major input material for catalytic hydrogenation and till the trans fat dangers surfaced it had practically no rival. The dynamics of oil trade changed causing a steep decline in the fortunes of Soy oil and it is estimated that due to sluggish demand Soy oil lost as much as 27% in its price during 2009 alone. Added to these woes, most of the Soy oil produced in the US is derived from the GM sources, unacceptable to many countries. Against such a background, relentless efforts were being made by the American Soy oil industry to revive its fortunes by exploring new uses for the oil which has resulted in developing a new variety of bean that contains higher proportion of oleic acid, more stable and can be used in place of hydrogenated fats by the food processing industry as being claimed by its developers.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) "not only will high oleic Soybeans help provide a healthier alternative for consumers, they also will help increase demand for U.S. Soybean oil". So the main idea is to boost business for the American Soy beans, the nutritional consideration being secondary. Whether the high-oleic Soybean varieties could help the U.S. Soybean industry regain its lost edible oil market share is a question only time will tell. The US Soy bean Board which funded the development of new versions based on two high-oleic Soybean genes also is singing the same tune that the oil from high-oleic soybeans is healthier than partially hydrogenated vegetable oils because it requires no hydrogenation, a process that leads to trans fats. High-oleic oil also is also supposed to contain about 25 percent less saturated fat than Soybean oil processed from traditional soybeans. What is galling in these claims is the effort to down grade high-stability fats and oils, such as palm, that contain high levels of saturated fats.

In spite of such new approaches. Soybean oil can never be able to compete with edible oils like palm oil unless the western farmers are heavily subsidized by their governments. The fact still remains that it is not necessary to go through the GMO route to change the composition of an oil like that from Soybean to suit food industry when available technologies can convert conventional oils into fractions with any desired melting characteristics. If American consumers are so wedded to Soybean oil, they may have no choice but to accept the new GM version with all the claims being made by its promoters. But for others there are plenty of choices to go for and they do not need a GMO source.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

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"FLOGGING" THE "FAT"-A "POPULISTIC" CONCEPT OR "SOUND" SCIENCE?

According to some commentators of modern food eating concepts, fats contained in foods one eats are unnecessarily and illogically being blamed for all the ills man faces to day. Though this is contrary to the present knowledge of human nutrition as exemplified by modern nutrition science, a patient hearing to the view point of antagonists will provide a right perspective to the issue. The publishers of Readers Digest have the following advice to its Diabetes Advisory Service subscribers which is interesting.

"It's rare for the world of medical research to get something so wrong. But for nearly 30 years, one of the most pervasive "truisms" about healthy eating—that dietary fat is your enemy—has been incorrect. In the last five years, a wide breadth of research has proven conclusively that dietary fat is not the demon we've made it out to be. It's an amazing about-face—one with extraordinary implications for how we eat for good health. To understand the significance of this, take a look at your cookbook shelf. How many books have "Low-Fat" in their titles? The idea was that by removing fat from your diet, you'd automatically lose weight. But for many, the opposite has proven true: By replacing the fats in our diets with so many refined carbs, we've not only gained weight, but also launched a diabetes epidemic!" "Today, we're kicking off the first part of a week-long series on that three-letter word we've inappropriately come to abhor. There are so many misconceptions about fat, it's time to set the record straight. Over the course of the week, we'll tell you why you need it and which kinds to eat, as well as the types that are indeed dangerous for your health. Why did fat get such a bad rap for so long? For starters, when physicians began recommending the low-fat diet a generation ago, they simply assumed it would work. Population studies had shown that people who eat high-fat diets tend to have more heart attacks, so the low-fat concept seemed to make sense". "Still, the low-fat diet had never been formally tested on a large scale in humans. Years later, when researchers finally conducted clinical trials with people who adopted the "eat less fat" approach, it flopped. In a 2006 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association—the first long-term study of its kind—scientists followed almost 49,000 women for eight years and found that eating a low-fat diet did not protect against heart attacks, strokes, or any other form of cardiovascular disease. The same kind of flawed thinking was applied to the weight aspects of eating fat. While carbohydrates and proteins each deliver 4 calories for every gram you consume, fat is more than double that amount, at 9 calories per gram. So it makes sense that by eating fat rather than protein or carbs, you'll consume far more calories and will gain weight". But nothing is quite that simple. As it turns out, fat breaks down in your body very similar to the way protein does, which has implications both for weight gain and blood sugar control. For example, fat doesn't raise blood sugar, and it doesn't require any insulin in order to be metabolized (its Glycemic Load is zero). It also takes a while to digest, and therefore slows the rate at which food leaves your stomach. The upshot? Not only does fat fill you up longer, but it also blunts the blood-sugar-spike effect of a meal, even if that meal includes carbs. So why does fat still get such a bad rap? Because people confuse the different types. Some forms of dietary fat are extremely healthy for you—these good fats protect your heart, lower your cholesterol, and keep blood sugar swings in check. Other forms are as unhealthy as doctors have been saying all along. These types clog arteries, contribute to heart attacks and weight gain, and hinder blood sugar management".

If one is to go by this recommendation, taking mono unsaturated and poly unsaturated fats and avoiding saturated and trans fats, as part of one's diet would not do any harm at all. Probably there is some truth in such a statement, though even unsaturated fats, if consumed in excess can do harm to the human body. Also not to be forgotten is the fact that many cooking oils do contain significant proportions of saturated fats along with unsaturated ones and consumers have no choice but to use them in their day to day food preparations. If 100% unsaturated fats are to be consumed such fats will have to be made by suitable fractionating techniques but whether they will be acceptable from sensory perception is a matter of conjecture.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

TRANSFAT DANGERS-INDIAN "KUMBAKARNA" IS WAKING UP?

Many consumers must be wondering about the special attention being paid on declaration of trans fats (TFA) content in packed foods in some of the imported food products. The common perception is that saturated fat is not desirable and therefore foods that do not contain high levels of this category of fat are relatively safe. The health risks posed by TFA are well documented in western literature though Indian food safety agencies did not bother about it till recently. Hydrogenated fats which are the major sources of TFA still continue to be made in India with all its adverse impact on the consumer.

Trans fats are those containing the trans isomer of unsaturated fats, generated during the partial dehydrogenation (PHO) in order to modify the melting point to suit users like the bakery industry which could make superior baked goods when these plastic fats are incorporated in the recipes. The margarine industry also got into the PHO wagon when it found that butter substitutes made with PHO has vastly superior spreadability characteristics compared to that made with lard, as has been the practice before. Who does not like a butter like substance that can be taken out of the refrigerator and used straight away without waiting it to attain room temperature and this attribute was exploited by the industry to spawn out products that became instant hit with the consumer within a short time.

Why should TFA be condemned and avoided, if it is found in natural food items like milk, consumed widely world over? True not only animal milk, even human milk contains low levels of TFA, 1-7% of the total fat but these are comparatively harmless, especially the conjugated linoleyl acid (CLA) containing fats and mothers milk is a dilute product with low fat levels. When it comes to PHO, the situation is totally different because the TFA content in these man made products can be as high as 45% and most baked foods contain 35-50% fat in them. Though it was known almost 35 years ago that presence of TFA can cause high risk in terms of heart diseases, no worth while attempts were made to regulate their use by any country. The earliest to demonstrate the earnestness to tackle this menace was Denmark which banned use of PHO in foods by laying a very low limit of 2% in any oil or fat marketed in that country and 1 gm per day in human foods. World Health Organization has stipulated an upper limit of 1% of daily calories consumed that can be derived from trans fats in foods

As TFA is unnatural, the human system cannot break down it in the body leading to accumulation in the arteries causing the LDL levels to rise and HDL levels to go down. The LDL to HDL ratio consequently goes up, the rate in increase being more than double compared to saturated fats, spelling disaster in the form of Cardio Vascular Disease (CVD) to those consuming foods with high trans fats regularly. Besides There are scattered reports blaming consumption of TFA for many dreaded diseases like Alzheimer's, Cancer, Diabetes, Obesity, Liver dysfunction, Infertility in women etc most of which need further confirmation and consensus.

Indian authorities woke up to the dangers posed by TFA only recently, that too because of the dust and heat generated by the media and some health conscious consumer groups. Though the whole world is moving swiftly towards a regime free of TFA, there is no restraint on the domestic food industry which continues to manufacture hundreds of food items with high content of TFAs and the catering sector is slowly poisoning the consumers in this country by catering to them with high TFA containing foods. In the absence of any government regulations and absence of social accountability, one gets the unmistakable impression that hotels, restaurants, multi national fast food chains and the low profile street vendors are still using oils containing unacceptable levels of TFA with scant regard for human health.

According to knowledgeable sources it is time that the country wakes to the reality of TFA dangers and take concrete action on a long term basis. Such an action plan must include regulatory measures, by legislative action, to be adopted to put a threshold limit of TFAs levels, force the fat industry to make 'zero trans' fats, enforce mandatory labeling of packed food items and edible oils giving information about TFA content. Such a scheme must bring the catering sector into the ambit of compulsory declaration of TFA in their preparations and evolve compulsory logo for inclusion in the label to distinguish products that contain zero TFA, less fat, less sugar, less sodium, more proteins, more fibers and zero cholesterol.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com