Healthier Trans Fat-Free Cookies?

Interesting...I've never heard of CoaVel before. I'll have to do a little research on it.

Brian

Brian...let us know what you find out!

i'm a chef so this is fabulous news for me and my customers!

Why would anyone want another test tube fat. Pass the butter please.

It's called "just use f***ing butter".

Margerine is one molecule away from being plastic, so what does that make this stuff.

So is this a breakthrough...or just a pause before we get the news 10 years from now that it's even worse than trans-fats??
By the way, I've stopped using Crisco to grease my muffin tins and pans...does anybody have a solution other than butter (which doesn't seem to work as well)?

Hmm. I'm not automatically opposed to scientists tinkering a bit. But I do hope they'll really research this to make sure its safe before launching it on us. So many times products initially marketed as healthy turn out to have problems that a little more testing should have uncovered.

But I love cookies (and cupcakes and brownies...) and don't need a whole bunch of saturated fat or transfats. So if this is a reasonable alternative, I'd check it out.

Mar said:
So is this a breakthrough...or just a pause before we get the news 10 years from now that it's even worse than trans-fats??
By the way, I've stopped using Crisco to grease my muffin tins and pans...does anybody have a solution other than butter (which doesn't seem to work as well)?[...]

That's sort of my concern. My take away lesson to the trans-fat discoveries was : Eat foods as natural and whole as possible. Most the things we are really scared of-- seem to be processed foods.

Mar said:
By the way, I've stopped using Crisco to grease my muffin tins and pans...does anybody have a solution other than butter (which doesn't seem to work as well)?[...]

Cotton ball dipped in avocado oil or macadamia nut oil - both have high smoke points (can withstand high heat better than butter), low sat-low poly-high mono, and almost no flavor passed to finished food.

The solution to the fat issue? BUTTER.

It's basically natural, when you buy the right sort. No icky chemical additives to speak of. And it has that great taste they have tried and failed to create in a lab setting.

Eat your dang butter and combine it with some good ol' fashioned exercise.

Great comments and legitimate concerns by those who have posted comments !!!
We are already seeing butter make a come-back ... and I completely agree that butter is certainly not the villan we were lead to believe 25 years ago. As a baking fat for culinary use butter is hard to beat.

As for industrial scale production of processed foods butter/milkfat is one strategy among many that can achieve the desired sensory, nutritional and shelf life properties required in a finished food product. Ingredients in manufactured food must also function appropriately in high throughput manufacturing and be priced right.

Coavel is a zero trans, low saturated fat shortening. It was invented by a food scientist whos goal was to develope an entirely different strategy for solidfying liquid oil while retaining all the functional properties needed from shortenings.
The strategy does not change the chemical composition of the oil used in any way. The oil is micro-encapsulated in something called a monoglyceride. Monoglycerides are breakdown products of triglycerides and the average person has around 35 grams of monoglyceride present in their digestive system.
So, what does this mean? To solidify fat there is a new strategy that:
a) does not chemically change the oil (e.g. hydrogenation, interesterfication etc)
b) can utilize locally produced vegetable oils ... not need to import offshore fats such as palm fat
c) has the functional characteristics needed by the baking industry
d) has nutritional properties of the vegetable oil use in its manufacture
e) has 40% fewer calories than ordinary trans fat, or palm fat shortening

Steve

Steve Bernet said:
monoglyceride[...]

If anyone is interested in reading about monoglycerides, here is a good article:

Mono- and Di-Glycerides

Okay, I'm about to make the leap from margarine to butter. Butter backers: how do I store butter so that it'll actually spread?! Can it be kept at room temp. in a butter dish?

I'm reading "Twinkie, Deconstructed" right now and it's frankly scaring the pants off of me. I always thought of shortening as a benign ingredient. Pah!

Butter has to be in the fridge and that means its hard. You have to slice off the number of pats you need about 20 minutes before a meal and let them sit out. I have seen whipped butter in the store. That might be more spreadable. I haven't tried it.

Glad people are finally taking "NO TRANS FAT" mainstream, I've been trying to tell people about this for years.

Christine: Try a butter bell...sometimes called a French butter dish!

Christine said:
Okay, I'm about to make the leap from margarine to butter. Butter backers: how do I store butter so that it'll actually spread?! Can it be kept at room temp. in a butter dish?[...]

I keep mine, as most Europeans do, in a butter bell at room temperature.

A basic butter dish will also do IF it has a cover or dome to cover the butter when you're not using it (reduces exposure to air, which can cause it to go rancid more quickly).

It'll keep out of the refrigerator about 3-to-5 days without spoiling or getting rancid....but (yeah, here's the but), it's got to be quality butter - some brands have too much water (I have no idea if it's added or not?) and get runny. The imported butters do best kept at room temp, followed by (in my experience) the grass-fed organic brands, then simple organic....personally, I wouldn't keep conventional butter out - nah, scratch that, I won't even eat it anymore!

There are plenty of fat-free recipes that taste great! I have at least two dozen on my site... desserts, cookies... most with sugar-free versions as well!

Mmh, toll house cookies made with Crisco - butter versions just aren't the same (even if they are much better for you). The things you learn in childhood...

On good oils, from my experience, in Norway they use gobs of great tasting butter and go through it fast enough so it doesn't go rancid. In Italy, especially in areas with no good pastureland (like Tuscany, Umbria, and Liguria) they don't use butter. I remember my first time to Genova and watching a friend of mine prepare the family meal. She used olive oil for everything, and wow, was it good! I now do the same - like, when making a fruit cobbler with an oatmeal topping, i mix the oatmeal with olive oil. It imparts a taste, but it's a nice taste.

FWIW, a fun article to read about the use of butter in Europe is Diversity of dietary patterns observed in the European Prospective: Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) project in Public Health Nutrition: 5(6B), 1311–1328 DOI: 10.1079/PHN2002407 from 2002. I had no idea how wild The Netherlands, Denmark, and the city of Potsdam are for margarine.

I wonder what toll house cookies made with olive oil would taste like?

Mar said:
I've stopped using Crisco to grease my muffin tins and pans...does anybody have a solution other than butter (which doesn't seem to work as well)?[...]

For muffins, use the tin muffin cups. For cakes, use parchment paper cut to cover the bottom of the pan and a light spray of oil on the sides of the pan.

Quito - butter in Europe is so much BETTER than butter in the US. I'm not sure why, but it just tastes different (and so does the cheese).

Yeah but how many calories are in this cookie??

Interesting, although we need to be sure first before trying it. It may cause some ill effects in the long run.
I agree with Mar. It could even be worse.

Hmm, interesting substitute for butter. If the cookie tastes just as good, I definitely will give it a try. But at the end of the day if it tastes yucky, then I rather take butter any day and I will work it off with exercise!

Yes, I love my food, I enjoy them!

My take is that to lose weight, we have to be disciplined to exercise regularly. Eat food in moderation always.

:) To healthy weight loss!

PS. I am proud to say I have maintained my weight for several years now!

Hi Regina,

Regina said:

f anyone is interested in reading about monoglycerides, here is a good article:

I guess the question is, what is the exact monoglyceride used in this product? Is the fatty acid partially hydrogenated? Steve, do you know?

Not that I'd eat a lot of this, but an older and dear friend of mine loves to make cookies for friends and family, and she sticks by her Crisco.

There are certainly lots of healthy foods for us to enjoy without the restrictions. Why push ourselves to buy those new product with several alterations in ingredients if it will only change the way it tastes?

Hi Quito,

The fatty acid portion of the monoglyceride is stearic acid. For those that may be interested, stearic acid is a saturated fat containing no double bonds.
Stearic acid, palmitic acid, myristic acid, lauric acid are all fully saturated fatty acids. For 50 years the literature has suggested that stearic acid is neutral to cardiovascular health. Palmitic acid in particular is regarded as a problem.
Here are 3 fats and their respective saturated fatty acid compositions:

FAT Myristic Palmitic Stearic
Butterfat 12% 31% 11%
Tallow 3% 26% 14%
Lard 1% 28% 14%