NEWS: California joins New York in Trans Fat Ban

There was one notorious CNdP producer who spiked at least one vintage with Grenadine, then got a stunningly high score from Parker...

Haven't heard that one. Was that a post-fermentation addition?

Presumably. But I wasn't there when it happened, I just stumbled across the evidence.

Yeah, my roach-coach guy said that he'll switch over to lard because of cost of the alternative vegetable shortening.

Nope. Try again. Commercial lard contains trans fats and will fall under the ban.

From yesterday's page 1 story in the Santa Barbara News Depress:

A small amount of trans fat is found naturally, primarily in some animal-based foods, according to the Food and Drug Administration. But legislation such as Mr. Mendoza's AB 97 is aimed at the manufactured variety, produced when hydrogen is added to, say, vegetable oil.

That includes lard.

Remember when everyone was saying that government should stay out of the people's bedrooms? Well, who the hell invited them into the kitchen?

It's my understanding that pure lard doesn't contain trans-fats until a manufacturer bubbles some hydrogen through it. So maybe some types of lard will be okay.

Yes, they are indeed the exceptions. That's why they were news.

I disagree. They got caught; that was the news.

If you let manufacturers just do whatever they want, you end up with 599 ingredients in a cigarette: http://tinyurl.com/7y49b.

If you let sports personnel just do whatever they want, you end up with steroids in everyone.

If you let service organizations just do whatever they want, you end up with 18-hr days and child labor.

(Here's one you'll like:) If you let governments just do whatever they want, you end up with Prohibition and "rendition".

It's my understanding that pure lard doesn't contain trans-fats until a manufacturer bubbles some hydrogen through it. So maybe some types of lard will be okay.

Larry, you're correct. But the kind commercially available for foodservice has the hydrogen bubbled through it. I believe it has to do with mitigating what some perceive as an off odor in traditionally rendered lard.
So unless they reformulate it to comply with the new law, it's adios, manteca.

Well, that's nice. Ah-nuld shows that when it comes to Government paternalism, he's still European at heart.

Winston wrenched his body out of bed — naked, for a member of the Outer Party received only 3,000 clothing coupons annually, and a suit of pyjamas was 600 — and seized a dingy singlet and a pair of shorts that were lying across a chair. The Physical Jerks would begin in three minutes. The next moment he was doubled up by a violent coughing fit which nearly always attacked him soon after waking up. It emptied his lungs so completely that he could only begin breathing again by lying on his back and taking a series of deep gasps. His veins had swelled with the effort of the cough, and the varicose ulcer had started itching.

‘Thirty to forty group!’ yapped a piercing female voice. ‘Thirty to forty group! Take your places, please. Thirties to forties!’

Winston sprang to attention in front of the telescreen, upon which the image of a youngish woman, scrawny but muscular, dressed in tunic and gym-shoes, had already appeared.

‘Arms bending and stretching!’ she rapped out. ‘Take your time by me. One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four! Come on, comrades, put a bit of life into it! One, two, three four! One two, three, four!...’

‘Smith!’ screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. ‘6079 Smith W.! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! That's better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me.’

A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's body. His face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment! A single flicker of the eyes could give you away. He stood watching while the instructress raised her arms above her head and — one could not say gracefully, but with remarkable neatness and efficiency — bent over and tucked the first joint of her fingers under her toes.

‘There, comrades! That's how I want to see you doing it. Watch me again. I'm thirty-nine and I've had four children. Now look.’ She bent over again. ‘You see my knees aren't bent. You can all do it if you want to,’ she added as she straightened herself up. ‘Anyone under forty-five is perfectly capable of touching his toes. We don't all have the privilege of fighting in the front line, but at least we can all keep fit. Remember our boys on the Malabar front! And the sailors in the Floating Fortresses! Just think what they have to put up with. Now try again. That's better, comrade, that's much better,’ she added encouragingly as Winston, with a violent lunge, succeeded in touching his toes with knees unbent, for the first time in several years.

Ah, just shut up and take your soma.

Actually, both Orwell and Huxley were two of my college favorites. And have to admit they have shaped my thinking to this day.

Here's a link to the article in today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/26/us/26fats.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1217092134-W28BHxH7bw2kZrSHEmVH2g

This really jumped out at me...from the manager of a burger joint.

“I think this is good for the health of the consumer,” Ms. Pantazis said. “On the other hand, people who eat French fries are not concerned with their health that much.”

I eat "french fries" and am concerned with my health. I've done some kind of fried potato dish in nearly every restaurant I've done. And every single one of them was double-fried at the proper temperatures in peanut oil.

Idiot.

[Jenise]

Hey! I had one of his black bean and cheese tamales when I was out in the SF Bay Area a couple weeks ago. It was pretty good. Especially as breakfast at 8 a.m.

I've long been a believer that the best meal at which to enjoy Mexican food is breakfast. Perhaps now you'll join me.

[Jenise]

I eat "french fries" and am concerned with my health. I've done some kind of fried potato dish in nearly every restaurant I've done. And every single one of them was double-fried at the proper temperatures in peanut oil.

Idiot.

Oh Joseph COME ON. Quit feeling so persecuted! She can be assumed to refer to the majority of diners in fast food restaurants in this country, and about them she's absolutely right and you know it.

I've long been a believer that the best meal at which to enjoy Mexican food is breakfast. Perhaps now you'll join me.

I was already singing in the choir, Jenise! I have never been a breakfast person, I need to be awake quite a while before I can eat, but when I finally get around to it, it's most likely to be something that is not a traditional "breakfast food." Leftovers of any kind, for example. Yum!

[Jenise]

I was already singing in the choir, Jenise! I have never been a breakfast person, I need to be awake quite a while before I can eat, but when I finally get around to it, it's most likely to be something that is not a traditional "breakfast food." Leftovers of any kind, for example. Yum!

You speak for both of us with every word! (Just finished a bowl of fresh steamed zucchini.)

It wasn't the FDA who caught the Austrians. / Do you really think that most winemakers, and any with a rep for quality, would deliberately taint their wines? ... that's different than adding antifreeze.

Hey you folks -- and frankly I'm surprised to see it from Stuart -- please don't, in passing references, perpetuate misinformation, arguably libelous, that has been long been corrected on the record. Bigger media such as the New York Times have been called on this exact case.

Stuart, please see the accurate information on the 1985 Austrian glycol scandal in your copies* of Jancis Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine or Stevenson's New Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia. Those articles give an accurate picture (more detail in more-authoritative online accounts I or Michael Pronáy could point you to). Upshot is that the scandal was about journalism mostly, not wine; because pop journalists early misidentified the adulterant (it was never ethylene glycol**), implanting a public myth in places like North America with past notorieties of EG poisonings.

Back to trans fats, I too object to people telling me officially what risks I may and may not take. But I believe people lumping trans-fatty acids in this category are off target. I could give you some background on the history of fats in cooking and the understanding of fat metabolism, still unfolding even now. But upshot is that the artificial hardening of veg. oils (in metallic reactors, unappetizing in description -- "bubbling hydrogen" is only part of the story) is an industrial gimmick for convenience and shelf life. Marketed earlier in margarines for cheapness vs. butter, the process became oversold to a Western public 40 years ago when "saturated fats" emerged as a first simplistic bad guy in fat chemistry. But since the 1980s I've been seeing reports and statistics raising authoritative concern about these industrial fats introducing health problems of their own. We, after all, evolved to consume vegetable and animal fats, not semi-synthetics.

I've yet to see anyone argue gastronomically -- that they prefer artificially hydrogenated fats for flavor -- and I don't expect to, because those fats are why industrial pie crusts taste like soap. The restrictions don't affect home use, they affect mainly fast-food restaurants (already shedding those fats anyway, from public stigma) where they're used for reasons of costs and convenience that don't align with the interests of any consumers to my knowledge. No one laments bans on copper salts to "re-green" canned vegetables or cobalt salts to improve beer foam -- practices with serious health consequences -- more apt models for this case, in my view.

* If necessary, I'll lend you one of each of mine.

** For reasons not disclosed in even most informed histories -- M. Pronáy, whose home turf it is, explains it was to leave a residue to pass monitoring tests when producers thinned wines with water and alcohol -- they used diethylene glycol (DEG), similar in name to EG but so different in behavior it is half as toxic even as alcohol, and far less toxic than EG, by LD50 measures you can find in any library. But scandal-mongering stories sold better, misidentifying it as EG (a familiar automotive antifreeze). Also as some of you know well, glycols and other polyols are variations on alcohol, naturally occurring and even nutritious (ripe fruit and wine have plenty of polyols). It happens that glycols rapidly lose toxicity as they increase in molecular weight and the practical dangerous one is EG -- just as the practical dangerous alcohol is the lightest, methanol -- and for the same reason, subject for another footnote.

Max, thanks for the correction. In my travels in Austria, people referred generically to the "antifreeze" scandal. By and large it was seen as a GOOD thing; the market got hammered so badly, producers were forced by economics to upgrade, clean, and stop any sort of even vaguely shady practice. And indeed, the wine that I had there was surprisingly consistent in its quality.

Many people do not understand the intangible value of "reputation," and falsely assume that winemakers and food producers don't, either.

Max, thanks for the correction. In my travels in Austria, people referred generically to the "antifreeze" scandal.

Yes, thanks to the writers who introduced that language, which stuck.

There were other interesting upshots:

First, an unexpected regulatory benefit. The DEG adulterant (to help thinned wine pass residue tests) unwittingly served as a tracer, like "marked" money -- permitting detection of that wine if it was illegaly blended into other wines. Jancis Robinson's article I mentioned cited cases in Germany. Second, Michael Pronáy wrote that the quantities of DEG, from the few producers whu did this, never approached medically significant levels, and no evidence emerged of anyone being harmed. (But again, such points sell copy less effectively than an "antifreeze" scandal.) Amazingly, I've seen modern stories by professional journalists who researched this subject just enough to see, and repeat, the "antifreeze" account, but not enough to learn that it was later completely refuted and remains so in standard reference books on wine.

I've yet to see anyone argue gastronomically -- that they prefer artificially hydrogenated fats for flavor -- and I don't expect to, because those fats are why industrial pie crusts taste like soap. The restrictions don't affect home use, they affect mainly fast-food restaurants (already shedding those fats anyway, from public stigma) where they're used for reasons of costs and convenience that don't align with the interests of any consumers to my knowledge.

But producers of baked goods (artisinal, not the giant industrials) have been screaming bloody murder about the ban. They have had to struggle to achieve the textures in their products that their customers have come to expect.
The fries at the Shake Shack in NYC went from delicious to crap post ban, and this from an operator who has the full arsenal of culinary products at his disposal.
And I'm not sure how you can make the case that "reasons of cost and convenience" do not align with the interests of consumers, when you consider that the costs of the TFF products cost around double the commodity stuff. Operators will pass these increased costs through via higher prices on finished goods. The consumer certainly has an interest in that.

Where you and I agree is the effectiveness of "public stigma" in bringing about change in the industry. I remember when I got started in this business, every Mexican restaurant used lard in their fryers. Then, as the public's awareness rose WRT the dangers of saturated fats, most switched to vegetable oils, even advertising the fact to their customers. These day, those operators still using solid shortenings in their fryers are few and far between. (though I'll still take fries cooked in beef tallow over those cooked in any other medium in a taste test)

BTW, Max, what kind of shortening do you use in your pie crusts?

But producers of baked goods (artisinal, not the giant industrials) have been screaming bloody murder about the ban. They have had to struggle to achieve the textures in their products that their customers have come to expect.?

Thanks for the info, John, I didn't know that. But again step back to a long focus: Consumers surely grew to prefer the greener preserved vegetables (courtesy of toxic copper salts) and long-lasting beer head from bottles (cobalt salts), which would still be in use if that were the only consideration.

I'm recalling 20 years of reports from a friend, consultant to industrial food manufacturers. (Stories of ingredient errors detected after kilometers of pound cakes* went through the line, leaving them condemned for rework into "coffee-cake topping," whose recipe is, by design, flexible.) White tombstone-like slabs of hydrogenated vegetable shortening figure in those stories. When I asked at a US retail baker (Marie Callender) whose pie crusts disappointed private taste tests, staff showed me same stuff in their back room. Then there's the remarkable evolution in understanding of fat biochemistry, which I've read about. I get from there that (1) the semisynthetic shortenings are now considered, on balance, more harmful to humans than the animal fats and tropical oils they displaced (public perception is catching up to this), (2) a few specific fats are important essential or desirable nutrients, and (3) some natural fats casually stigmatized in the 1960s merit a closer look, especially in moderation. Lard even has (IIRC) one of the key nutrient fats that the body can't produce on its own.

Fats in the best pie crusts I've had were animal fats, sometimes mixed with vegetable oils. I know it's a universal kind of regret, but I've scarcely tasted pastries matching the occasional home-cooked ones of my childhood -- made traditionally, with butter, lard, etc.

I don't make pies much, John, but have experimented with the fats. Poultry fat tasted maybe the best, but it breaks down at high temps. More often I'd use butter. The spirit Julia Child preached 30 years ago, countering the Food Police, was to use traditional cooking fats, in moderation, rather than writhe in anxiety or guilt from oversimplified current notions, as if a drop of butterfat would kill you dead.

* Known by other names, incl. quatre-quarts -- the simple cake based on roughly equal weights of flour, eggs, butter, and sugar.

So after following this thread, my conclusion is that a law against the use of trans fats was both unnecessary and counterproductive. From all accounts, there has been a voluntary decrease in their use by those who really don't need them. And now those who do are stuck in a very difficult situation.

I wouldn't argue that there's never a place for such regulation, but it appears that this was a poor case for its use.

The spirit Julia Child preached 30 years ago, countering the Food Police, was to use traditional cooking fats, in moderation, rather than writhe in anxiety or guilt from oversimplified current notions, as if a drop of butterfat would kill you dead.

This is my POV, Max. America's relationship with food has undergone a major change for the worst over the past 30-50 years, with fearmongering being one of the key culprits. As Michael Pollan makes clear in his In Defense of Food, a traditional diet is still one of the healthiest. Biomedical researchers have done the public no favors by not making clear the limits of their conclusions and the continuing uncertainties in their fields. As a result, we get these periodic hysteric responses to various studies as well as the well-documented fad diet trends. More my part, I've always used butter, lard and olive oil in my cooking, but in moderation for the most part, which is after all still an important guiding principle.

Mark Lipton

Stuart wrote:

Yeah, my roach-coach guy said that he'll switch over to lard because of cost of the alternative vegetable shortening.

But, but...didn't we foreswear lard in favor of transfats not so many years ago because it was healthier??? Oh well, a handmade flour tortilla made with lard is one those true simple pleasures.

Bahh...to hell with em' all. I'm gonna eat what I want. Well...not really, I'm not since Dina and I are working out all the time now. I've pretty much quit drinking and am eating all healthy foods now. On the plus side, I'm down 30 lbs and have put on quite a bit of muscle. On the other side though...I'm starting to loathe grilled, baked & broiled turkey,chicken and fish in all its forms...except, perhaps battered & fried...which, of course I'm not eating and find myself thinking about every time I look at yet another piece of grilled chicken/turkey/fish. And brown rice...oh, lets not forget brown rice. Add that to the new Loathe list. Thank God for peanut butter.

I've thought about becoming a vegetarian...but its just too much work.

Richard

But, but...didn't we foreswear lard in favor of transfats not so many years ago because it was healthier???

Um, no. Trans-fats are stable and don't spoil at room temperature. Industry like them, not people.

Kinda like the square pink tomatoes and green oranges you see in supermarkets.

Jeff wrote:

Um, no. Trans-fats are stable and don't spoil at room temperature. Industry like them, not people.

Kinda like the square pink tomatoes and green oranges you see in supermarkets.

Well...maybe I'm getting transfats mixed up with margarine then. The ol' hydrogenated bugaboo, I guess. Another food scare.

Richard

...maybe I'm getting transfats mixed up with margarine then. The ol' hydrogenated bugaboo

Same animal. Details and history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fats