Standard Mischief

Way back when, the scientists in control of deciding all things that were healthy decided that saturated fat was the final word in unhealthy fats. They wanted everyone to reduce the amount that they consumed, and they wanted restaurants to switch to healthier oils to deep fry stuff in.

In 1993 a group called “Center for Science in the Public Interest” held a media event, claiming huge levels of unhealthiness in movie popcorn. The problem? To get that “movie popcorn smell”, they were popping the corn in coconut oil, which is loaded with saturated fat. The “Food Police” got almost everyone to switch over to partly hydrogenated veggie oil. Gone was that great smell, but hey, it’s all for the better, right?

Well no, the chemical hydrogenation of those oils produces the current evil bad fat, something called “trans-fat”. The food industry likes partially hydrogenated fats because they don’t go rancid as fast and they apparently taste better than straight veggie oil.

The Wikipedia trans-fat article claims that the fast food industry used to use beef tallow to make freedom fries with, and that CSPI badgered them until they switched over to the partially hydrogenated stuff, at which point they were left alone. Part of this might be because trans-fat was not seen as a big threat at the time, and maybe partially because they knew they would never get Burger Fling to cook fries in 100% olive oil. (Which also might be unhealthy now, something about too many omega-6s, not enough omega-3s.)

So science marches ahead, and we’re all the better for it. Life expectancy is increasing, and if I don’t make it to 200, it’s probably all that Crisco and margarine Mom fed me back then because it was low in cholesterol, thus “healthy”. (Good thing she fed me fish, four Fridays a year during Lent, to offset that stuff) Of course, a short time ago when I saw that bottle of 100% coconut oil at the health food store, I did a double take. I don’t know what’s up with that.

I kept that in mind when the obsessive-compulsive reading disorder kicked in tonight and compelled me to read what was before me, a box of Jiffy “corn muffin” mix. (I put the quotes around “corn muffin” because there’s apparently more wheat in the mix than corn. They put the quotes around “Jiffy” because, I don’t know, probably because they think 15 minutes in the oven really isn’t “jiffy” or something.)

Like everything else, they are required, as of 2006, to state how much of the evil meanie trans-fat is in their mix, and so, to appeal to the most people, they want to put down zero.

So how did they accomplish this feat? What did they use to replace the hydrogenated stuff with? Take a look at the ingredients.

Yup, good old lard. Animal Shortening. Mmm mmm good.