Posted by ljmacphee on January 1, 2008 under Interesting things | 
Transfat is made by taking vegetable oil, heating it up and putting hydrogen gas bubbles into it. A metal catalyst ( aluminum, cobalt, nickel) is used to help the fusion. It was first discovered around 1900 and put to some of its better known uses as Crisco and margarine.
Early on transfats were sold as a convenience item. They give vegetable oil a much longer shelf life, one of the main reasons for its continued use today. Anything made with oil or fat lasts longer if the transfat version is used instead. After WWI animal fat was scarce so transfats were sold as a substitute for butter in cooking. Later as heart disease increased and was linked to cholesterol transfats were sold as a way to reduce saturated fat in the diet. Lately a trend towards more natural and gourmet food has reduced the use of transfats in most household kitchens and many restaurants.
So what’s the down side? Transfat raises your bad cholesterol and it lowers your good cholesterol. Other fats raise and lower both or leave them unaffected. It is thought to affect insulin levels, and also a hormone family called eicosaniod. This is not one hormone but a family of about 100. Like cholesterol there are good and bad eicosaniods. The amount of fat and type of fat in your daily diet determine how much of the good and bad eicosaniods get produced. These help adjust insulin, how well muscle burns oxygen and whether you burn fat or muscle during your workout.
Posted by ljmacphee on December 15, 2007 under Interesting things |
Corn syrup is made from corn starch and is mostly glucose. It is used to sweeten food and to help food stay moist. The food industry prefers the liquid sugar. It is much easier to blend into the food being created. Corn syrup is also thicker adding a nice texture to foods.
High fructose corn syrup is a 75 % sweeter variation of corn syrup developed in the 1970s. To create corn syrup you first turn corn starch into polysaccharides using alpha-amylase. Alpha-amylase is an industrially produced genetically modified bacterium.
Then glucoamylase is used to break down the polysaccharides into glucose. Glucoamylase an enzyme produced by the fungus Aspergillus.
After which glucose-isomerase is added to convert the glucose to fructose and glucose with small amounts of other sugars. Glucose-isomerase is another genetically modified enzyme.
Then liquid chromatography converts the mixture to 90% fructose.
Finally this mix is blended with corn syrup to give us high fructose corn syrup.
Despite all this processing, high fructose corn syrup is cheaper than sugar. The US has sixteen plants creating high fructose corn syrup.
Most concerning is that your body does not treat HFCS the same way it does sugar. Your body treats if more like a fat than a sugar in the way it effects hormones in your body. It doesn’t increase insulin or leptin or decrease ghrelin. In the liver HFCS it is more easily converted to trigylcerides than sugar.
Recently high fructose corn syrup has taken much of the blame for the recent obesity epidemic. Here in the US annual consumption of high fructose corn syrup has gone from 0 in 1966 to 79 pounds a year per person in 2005. Or about 137,618 extra calories a year. Sugar consumption has fallen from 114 pounds/person/year in the 1960s to 66 pounds/person 2005. Or 74,304 less calories a year. This gives a net gain of ~ 175 calories per day or 18 extra pounds of weight per person.
*1 cup sugar = 774 calories, 2 cups of sugar = 1 pound
*1 cup HFCS = 871 calories, 2 cups of HFCS = 1 pound
See also:
Sweet but not so innocent?