Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Type of foods high in trans fats

Why does your favorite potatoes and fried chicken from restaurant feels more delicous and crispy than you cook by yourself at home? The answer probably is trans fats. It contribute to foods texture, better taste and give you high energy, but it is not good for heart health. It can also raise cholesterol levels, exacerbating inflammation, reduce levels of good cholesterol that prevent heart disease and cancer risk. So what is type of foods high in trans fats ?

Instant cake mix
It is certainly easier to make cookies with instant cake mix. But it's better if you make the cake from begining to the finished cake to ensure you have served the healthy kind of foods for your family.
French fries
Who does not like french fries. Its delicious taste that will make anyone want to eat it more. However, unfortunately the fries contain trans fats which come from the frying.
Fried foods
Just like french fries, you never really know what oil is used to fry it. And it should be avoided if you are not sure of the materials used. Then, frying with used oil or using the same oil for frying repeatedly may be also bad for your health.
Frozen cakes and pies
Baked products that you buy from stores, especially those that can be stored for a long time, may contain this kind of material. Frozen cakes and pies are often a source of type of foods high in trans fats you should avoid.
Donuts
Without that ingredient, donuts will be very oily. In order to create softer texture, snacks such as cake, donuts, and cookies using it.
Pop corn
Popcorn sold in movie theaters may contain these ingredients. To keep the taste, the use of margarine may be substituted with butter.
Coffee creamer
Creams contained in many snacks and beverages, such as coffee, are trans fats.
Biscuits (crackers)
Most crackers use this product, which can be replaced with soy or canola oil to make it safe.
Foods and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that they will restrict or prohibit trans fats significantly from foods in the U.S. This agency decided that it was not safe for human health, and should not be in the foods we eat. In 1999, the FDA first proposed that manufacturers should disclose the content of trans fats on nutrition labels, but it did not become a requirement until 2006. Many of the companies have gotten removed it from their products, and New York City even ban trans fats from restaurant foods in 2006. But, according to the FDA, there are type of foods high in trans fats, such as donuts, biscuits crackers, popcorn, frozen pizza, coffee creamer, frozen dough products as well as canned products. It is a real challenge for the industry and scientists.

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Monday, January 6, 2014

Vegetable oils products, free of trans fats

Trans fats linked so far to cardiovascular disease, although on the other hand, contribute to food texture preferred by consumers. It can be formed, for example when some types of margarine (which is produced by the partial hydrogenation) are heated. Therefore, it needs to be reconsidered to develop products that are more friendly to health, and off course still maintain the sensory value. Actually increasing concern for health is a chance for the industry, particularly palm oil to produce vegetable oils products that are free of trans fats because it does not contain the types of fats.

Research conducted by Byung Hee Kim et al (2009) from the University of Georgia said that the interesterification mixture from vegetable oil of canola, palm stearin (PS), and palm kernel with a certain ratio produced margarine with the same quality as a commercial margarine. As for shortening, a mixture of PS and coconut oil (CnO) produced fats that can be used as an elastic shortening. Jeyarani et al. (2009) in a report published by the Journal of Food Chemistry stated that a mixture with a certain ratio of PS and CnO has a wider melting range, making it suitable to be used as a shortening.
Other alternatives of vegetable oils products that are free of trans fats is to develop Cocoa Butter Substitute (CBS). It can be produced from vegetable oils and fats by chemical means or fractionation and enzymatic processing. CBS manufacture technology from palm kernel oil (PKO) has been developed into a large industrial scale including fractionation and hydrogenation and its combination. But this technology in small-scale industries are not yet available. PO Research Center in Indonesia has resulted technology of full hydrogenation process for crude PKO and without producing trans fats under conditions of moderate temperature and high pressure. Magnification scale into 100 kg/batch needs to be done and the process conditions are optimized to support the use of PKO in small and medium scale industries. The process of hydrogenation use hydrogen to saturate the unsaturated fatty acids with the aid of a catalyst. Commonly used catalyst is the nickel. The fats products which contain no trans fats is important because of its low density increase lipoprotein (LDL) and lower high-density lipoprotein (HDL) thus becomes an important risk factor in coronary heart disease.

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Thursday, January 2, 2014

Trans fats in snack

World snack industries are growing quite rapidly. Innovation and high market demand is the key why the product is still evolving. In fact, this excessive consumption is often regarded as the cause of several health problems. For example, obesity, trans fats in snacks, acrylamide, and so on.
The substantial processing of trans fats solidify liquid oils (usually vegetable oil) with hydrogen gas in a process known as hydrogenation (ie, by adding hydrogen to them). This processing is performed to improve the oxidative stability so that the product is not susceptible to oxidation processes. This process is used to make margarine. Most of them are artificially synthesized through a chemical process that adds hydrogen to vegetable oil. In short words, it means changing liquid oils into solid fats.
The benefits of this hydrogenation are the cheap product with a longer period of storage and extending its shelf life and adding flavor savory meal. Trans fats in snacks can make delicious stuff, and french fries in fast food restaurants favored by many people. With this fat biscuits may last more than 1 year . Another feature of these ingredients is to make the food tasty textured or easily melted in the mouth, crispy, and generate flavor and aroma of savory and delicious. Children generally love this kind of snack.
They are formed through a process of partial hydrogenation and its existence becomes a very important issue in recent years. This is because of the presence of trans fatty acids can lead to increased levels of LDL cholesterol in the blood and the risk of heart disease. So it is understood if the USFDA requires to include the presence of these fatty acids in the label. However, in recent years many food manufacturers have taken steps to limit or eliminate trans fats in snacks. Several fast food restaurants, since a decade ago claimed to have stopped cooking fries using it. Many company websites claim that all kinds of fried foods have trans fats free. Even New York City in 2007 adopted regulations that prohibit partially hydrogenated vegetable oil spread in the restaurant.
Since 2005, food manufacturers have claimed to lower their amount in snacks to more than 73 %. Trans fats intake among U.S. consumers declined from 4.6 grams per day in 2003 to about 1 gram per day in 2012, according to FDA. Other countries also trying to reduce them in snacks are Brazil, Costa Rica, Denmark, the Netherlands, South Korea and the United States and has been proven effective over the past two decades, according to the WHO.

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Monday, June 18, 2012

How to reduce fat

How to reduce fat is a common question for them whom tend to pay attention to their own appearance, especially women. It tends to lead to an unattractive appearance. But we can not eliminate then on just one particular part of our body, except with liposuction. Liposuction is done by a lot of people who want to lose fat, especially belly ones, quickly and instantaneously. This method is only recommended for certain patient. The doctors usually only recommend liposuction for patients with severe obesity and fat while exercising is hard to remove it completely. This usually occurs in certain hormonal conditions.
How to reduce fat in body using natural food is the next question. The use of fat buster in certain body parts with synthetic drugs- such as advertised one- and is not good and not useful. If you are more interested in using natural ingredients to help you get your ideal weight, you could put turmeric or chilli in your diet. Chilli helps you to slow down your appetite.
Fat in our can be burned with aerobic activities, such as jogging, walking, gymnastics, or swimming. You can perform these while listening to music, through the parks or place which is fun and special for you so you do not feel bored while doing it.
To keep the heart healthy, get enough exercise 3-5 times per week with a duration of 20-30 minutes. You should choose the type of exercise that you can do it with a regular rhythm such as jogging or walking regularly. Change from slow to fast movements suddenly as the movement which is often done in a game sports such as soccer or badminton should be avoided, especially for those who are not young anymore or have a heart disease record. Although you're eager to practice the tips on how to reduce fat but you must remember that excessive exercise makes us tired, disturbed sleep, easily hurt, and cause heart problems.
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Wednesday, June 6, 2012

How to store cooking oil properly

How to store cooking oil properly is as follows. It should be kept in a dark-colored packaging. It is intended to avoid rancidity, because of oxidation due to contact with air and is triggered by ultraviolet in the sunray. Recently, it is sold in the market in transparent or translucent-colored package. It aims to be easily visible. In addition, the consumer preference to its packaging is transparent. Yet this preference is not appropriate because it can be easily oxidized, so it becomes rancid. Store cooking oil properly in sealed containers and away from heat sources such as light, stove, and the sun! The bad habit to put it near a heat source will cause fortified vitamin A will be reduced even in very small amounts. Vitamin A contained will be damaged because vitamin A is one of micro substances which is sensitive to acid and oxidation when exposed to direct sunlight, and easily damaged by heat. So, the key to store cooking oil properly is keep it away from the factors inducing its deterioration, such as UV, heat, air, and even metals.

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Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Bad fat in fast food

Even Greyson Chance rumored to be visiting Jakarta, Indonesia, likes fast food (FF). But did you ever think that fast food contains bad fat ? Dr. Ratna Djuwita from the Faculty of Public Health University of Indonesia said that in modern times, people still eat bad fat from unhealthy option like FF. She obtained this opinion from the results of her study on nutrients of four Indonesia ethnic: Minang Kabau, Sundanese, Javanese and Bugis. She added that their intake is sufficient in quantity, but the quality is not good.
That opinion was indirectly supported by researcher from Harvard University, Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian. But he also said that some of the leading restaurants managed to reduce the bad fat in fast food production in the United States, in order to reduce the risk of being overweight or obese to the consumer. He added that some of the restaurants succeeded in reducing the trans fat (TF) content and saturated fat (SF) content in their product to the safe limit established by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or FDA to zero grams (TF) while the SF content up to 2 to 8 grams. However, there are still many restaurants not meet health requirements from the rules set by MOH of Uncle Sam. Although no direct chemical testing, Research Center for the Public Interest CSPI says the research is based on the nutrition label are listed in 85 major industrial products are submitted to the FDA.
There are several reasons why you should reduce the consumption of fast food.
1. It contains ingredients that give the delicious sensation (such as bad fat and sugar) so that you hooked and stimulate you to continue to eat as often as possible. This sometimes makes you eat them regularly every day. Avoid this by changing your eat habits with healthier stuff, like fruits and vegetables fresh.
2. If you like eating them and rarely exercise, then in a few weeks your body will experience weight gain which is not healthy. The bad fat in fast food are then stored and accumulate in your body.
3. Salt can make your menu much more enjoyable. Almost all FF contain high salt. Salt contains sodium. When the level of sodium in the blood is high and cannot be removed by the kidneys, blood volume increases because sodium tends to attract and retain water. This increase causes your heart to work harder to drain the blood throughout the body that causes high blood pressure.
Dr. Ratna suggest that from the consumption of total fat, SF should be no more than 10 percent, and 20 percent unsaturated consisting of 60-10 percent PUFA and 10 percent MUFA.

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Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Unsaturated fatty acid

Unsaturated fatty acid (UFA), such as monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA), can have positive health benefits when consumed in sufficient quantities. Actually there so many fat types and certain types have benefits for heart health?
Classification of fats and oils can be viewed from several aspects, one of which is its saturation aspect. They can be distinguished based on its double bonds. Saturated (SFA) if it doesn’t has any double bond and unsaturated if it has one, two or three double bonds.
Examples of unsaturated fat
There are so many kind of agricultural product which contain high UFA, such as sunflower, canola, olive, soybean, peanut, flax seed, and fish oil.
The examples mentioned above, more specifically also contain high essential fatty acids - linoleic acid (Omega 6), alpha linoleic acid (Omega 3) and arachidonic acid. The scientists found that they proved to have several important benefits such as helping the body burn the fat, lower bad cholesterol (LDL), helps in the lubrication of joints, prevent strokes, maintaining blood pressure, and optimize brain health.
Unsaturated fat benefits
Is good fat really exist? We always have long been told to limit the amount of fat in our diet in order to keep our cholesterol levels. The fact is, we need a certain amount of them in our diets. It helps us absorb essential vitamins like A, D, E, and K
A study by Grundy from the Faculty of Medicine, California, USA, proves that the body's cholesterol levels may go down if the diet contains more MUFA and PUFA than SFA. Dietary SFA for a month proved to raise cholesterol levels. While the dietary MUFA, dropped it sharply, including LDL and HDL. In dietary PUFA, LDL and total cholesterol decreased, while HDL relatively unchanged.
PUFA are known to increase the intelligence and the immune system of children under five. Long chain unsaturated fatty acid (especially the omega - 3 DHA) have been shown to play an important role in the prevention and treatment of blocked arteries (atherosclerosis), thrombosis, hypertriglyceridemia, and high blood pressure. It has the potential for prevention and treatment of asthma, arthritis, migraine, and some types of cancer which is prostate, breast and colon cancer.
Unsaturated fat types
Most of UFA are fatty acids containing one double bond in their hydrocarbon chain. Fatty acids with more than one double bond are unusual, mainly found in vegetable oil, and called by PUFA. Polyunsaturated triglycerides tend to form oil.
PUFA can lower total blood cholesterol, especially LDL. If you want to consume this, you can be choose fish, seafood, safflower oil (Carthamus tinctorius), and sun flower oil. MUFA can reduce the presence of bad fats in the blood, such as cholesterol. By consuming them, HDL rises and LDL cholesterol goes down. So, it is good to be eaten for health. It is contained in olive oil, canola oil peanut oils, meat, fish, poultry, and avocado.
Unsaturated fat health risk
Although it is considered as a good fat, excessive consumption of UFA remain dangerous. If the total fat intake is more than 30 percent of food consumed, fat deposits in the body will increase. It increases the risk factor of increased blood fat that can cause heart and blood vessel disease. UFA forms the cell wall of the body. Consumption of high UFA should be followed by adequate intake of antioxidants such as vitamin E.
SFA, UFA, and trans would enhance the body's calorie. The public still considers only SFA which is bad for health, which are widely found in meat and its derivative products and fried foods. Each 1 gram of fat contains 9 calories, whereas 1 gram of starchy produces only 4 calories.
In addition to long chain SFA, trans fats is also bad for health. These are produced through industrial processes, such as margarine and cooking oil. In food packaging, it is called as hydrogenated fat. They do not only increase LDL, but also lowers the amount of good cholesterol. Unlike the SFA that only increase LDL.
The role of unsaturated fatty acid need to be studied further to ensure the influence of food and agricultural products that contain these components on human health.

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Monday, October 17, 2011

How to choose healthy cooking oil

How to choose healthy cooking oil is generally an important consideration for the good housewives as they would fry food for their family. Frying is a food processing using a very high temperature with the aid of oil as the heat transfer medium. But because a small portion of them was absorbed by the fried food, then it should be good quality as this can affect the flavor (taste, flavor, and aroma) of fried foods.
Unethical advertising fool the consumers
The lack of knowledge of the housewives about cooking oil can result in disadvantages. Their consideration usually based on advertising or promotion by the manufacturer. Whereas in promoting their products, manufacturers often violate norms and business ethics. Coconut oil, used to be, is the only cooking oil that is used in Indonesia but is now being pressured by the market for palm oil. It contains saturated fatty acids (SFA) in high quantities so often 'accused' as the source of coronary heart disease.
Now, on the market many cooking oil made from raw materials such as coconut, palm, soybean, corn, and sunflower seed oil. Even some of that were a mixture of two kinds of the oil. In addition, there are also palm cooking oil which come from different manufacturing process than other vegetable oils. The first product is known as the product from single fractionation while the second from the double fractionation.
Through the heating and pressing, from palm fruit will be obtained crude palm oil (CPO) which is reddish orange because they contain beta-carotene (about 400-700 ppm). It is composed of two fractions: namely solid fraction (stearin) and liquid fraction (olein). To become a cooking oil, CPO is undergoing the first refining process, namely neutralization, washing, decolorization (bleaching), and odor removal (deodorization) to obtain refined bleached deodorized palm oil (RBDPO). The second refining is the fractionation process which is often also referred as the screening. It will separate the solid from the liquid by lowering the oil temperature (to 20 degrees Celsius) and then filtered the solid part.
The solid product contained in the liquid is known as the solid fat content (SFC). Palm oil obtained from a single fractionation process at a temperature of 10 degrees Celsius contains about 15-20% SFC, while those obtained from the double process only contains about 0-5% SFC. Double fractionated palm oil will always be liquid at low temperatures because the content of SFC was also low. While the single fractionated palm oil will freeze when soaked in ice water because the content was higher SFC. In other words, the content of unsaturated fatty acid (UFA) of double fractionated product is higher than the other one. This is then associated with the state of the oil (fat) in the body. It means if the oil (from the single process) is frozen in the ice water so it will also be frozen in the human body. Though the body temperature is about 37 celcius degrees and quiet different with the ice or refrigeration temperature. Of course this kind of advertising or promotion certainly fool consumers. Cooking oil was changed into solid phase when it is stored in the refrigerated room so that it would appear whitish. It does not mean that there were deterioration on their quality but because its SFA content is relatively high so it freezes faster than the product contains more UFA.
There are sometime cooking oil manufacturers who claim that their products do not contain cholesterol. This is completely misleading because all kinds of cooking oils derived from plant materials, does not contain cholesterol.
Oil saturation affects the health ?
People often consider the saturated fatty acid levels in the oil when they ask how to choose healthy cooking oil. Does that thought have strong support? Indeed, too much when we question its fatty acids composition. For example, certain cooking oils containing UFA are claimed to be better than oils containing SFA.
First, the amount of oil contained in fried foods is relatively small (except for the pan-fried food) and secondly, during the frying, UFA will be broken down due to high temperature during the frying (about 150-180 degrees Celsius). So that the amount of UFA are expected to be consumed, actually very little.
Coronary heart disease is not only due to the ingestion of SFA. Many other factors must be considered. It has been scientifically proven, the palm oil consumption, although it contain relatively high SFA, does not cause atherosclerosis (clogged arteries) and coronary heart disease. This is because its SFA containing medium carbon chain (unlike animal fat) in the body so it is more widely used as an energy source and does not raise cholesterol levels (LDL) in blood.
Excessive consumption of unsaturated fatty acids would endanger the health because it can form more radical compounds in the body. Something that can damage cells and tissues.
A study proves, the unsaturated fatty acids consumption will increase the chances of excessive destruction of blood vessels due to atherosclerosis by radical compounds. The experts always recommend the use of high UFA must be accompanied by a high consumption of vitamin E as well. Cardiologists Medical Association in U.S. recommends that consumption of oil / fat is limited to about 30% of total calories consumed (approximately 90-100 g of oil / fat per day). Oils / fats should consist of 10% SFA, 10% monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and 10% poly unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). This statement clearly indicates, the consumption of SFA are allowed in reasonable quantities. Especially if the source is only from of fried food.
Indeed there is scientific evidence that UFA can lower cholesterol levels and can prevent the atherosclerosis onset and coronary heart disease, but the oil must be consumed in a crude state. Not as cooking oil, such as salad oil (salad oil).
Other tips
How to choose healthy cooking oil can also be done simply. First, see the clarity and second, whether its smell is rancid or not. A good one is clear and no smell rancid.

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Thursday, October 13, 2011

Vitamin A fortification to frying oil

Today, vitamin A deficiency in developing countries should be given more attention. The current intake is still low, only 20% of the RDA. It because of the most food of the developing countries is based on cereal, their low purchasing power, and lack of indifference to the problem of malnutrition. Vitamin A supplementation program still needs to be repaired.
One effort to overcome these problems is the vitamin A fortification in frying oil. The fortification has been proven safe and effective, as well as low cost and high benefit. From the results of several studies from Bogor Agriculture Institute of Indonesia, vitamin A is proved stable against heating. Its retention on the first pan bread lasuna (temperature 160-170) is still around 89%, and will be reduced on the second and third frying. The same result is found in several other products, such as fish, potatoes, and so on.

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Thursday, June 16, 2011

Acrylamide: brain cancer and how to inhibit its formation?

As already known, several studies have shown that acrylamide is formed in the Mailard reaction, is carsinogenic. However, several epidemiological studies indicate exposure to acrylamide in food products is still too low to worry about. But, however the industry has been doing a lot of prevention, such as by resetting the temperature of the process used. Acrylamide is a carcinogenic compound formed by reaction between sugars and amino acid asparagine at the time of heating. Formation through the Maillard reaction is also responsible for the formation of brown color and flavor to various food products. Acrylamide issue has indeed been a lot of attention.


Acrylamide is not associated with brain cancer?
A study conducted by Maastricht University in the Netherlands concluded that the content of acrylamide in food products has no relationship with an increased risk of brain cancer. Research involving 58,279 men and 62,537 women was conducted considering the acrylamide found in many diet of Dutch society, in a certain level. The study was conducted by distributing questionnaires to estimate the amount of acrylamide consumed. Acrylamide sources were estimated coming from potato crisps, French fries, Dutch spiced cake, coffee, bread, and cookies. The result, after research during several years, obtained 216 respondents were diagnosed with brain cancer. But according to the researchers, it has no relationship with increased intake of acrylamide. The study still needs confirmation from other studies.

Inhibition of acrylamide formation
There are several methods that have been used to avoid the formation of such compounds, including the process modification through temperature regulation. Recently, a new way to inhibit the formation of acrylamide has been found, namely the use of calcium lactate based ingridient. Several companies are developing products that were claimed to reduce acrylamide in snacks to 80% without affecting taste and crispiness. Calcium is present in the ingredients are claimed to interfere with the reaction between reducing sugars and asparagine which is the key to the formation of acrylamide. This product can be widely applied, because it does not require modification of process or temperature. Not even affected by variations in pH or moisture content.

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