Written by Su Chengyu
Last year, a news about ice cream made a lot of noise - Menglong's ice cream is different from the chinese and foreign ingredients, China uses vegetable fat, and foreign uses milk fat. Menglong said that this is for environmental protection and health.
Obviously, this is actually to reduce costs, and if you look at its invention history, you will be more convinced of this.
In the 19th century, the French Emperor Napoleon III was worried about a problem, and it was too difficult to directly reward the army and the lower classes with butter, and it was necessary to think of a way to reduce costs.
At that time, a French chemist stood up, hippolyte Mège-Mouriès, who came up with a solution that could be processed with a mixture of butter and skim milk.
This was the first time mankind invented margarine. This is still quite "conscience", at least two components are animal oil. Mulles also applied for a patent for this.
In 1871, Mulles sold his patent to the Dutch company Jurgens, which later became part of Unilever. Menglong is one of Unilever's products...
After this, the cost of margarine is further reduced, and the animal fat part is slowly reduced.
At that time, there was a shortage of butter supply, advances in the extraction technology of vegetable raw materials, and the formulation of margarine was changed to a mixture of animal oil and vegetable oil.
With the economic depression of the 1930s, and the subsequent outbreak of World War II, the animal oil portion of margarine became less and less. By 1945, the original recipe, the combination of butter and skim milk, had almost completely disappeared from the market.
After 1950, the shortage of butter supply coupled with the advancement of hydrogenation technology, all margarines on the US market were changed to vegetable oil + hydrogenated fats, that is, vegetable fats, of which trans fatty acids are the main ingredients.
Since hydrogenated fat is a sensitive term, most food manufacturers will replace hydrogenated fat with other names on the packaging in an attempt to hide their eyes, and the following are some nouns that may be hydrogenated fats:
Vegetable Margarine
Vegetable Fat
Vegetable Shortening
Hardened Fat
Vegetable Fats and Oils
Hydrogenated vegetable oil (Vanaspati)
Vegetable Ghee
Partially Hydrogenated Oil
In order to unify the concept, the following are collectively referred to as phytopolytics.
This artificial butter and natural butter appearance is not the same, simply put, it is not yellow enough, artificial is white, it looks like there is no appetite, so the manufacturer adds pigment to margarine, which looks natural.
However, it is not enough to rely on cheapness to attract people to buy, and manufacturers have also given plant fat another concept: health.
Health is low fat, and vegetable fat is usually lower than animal oil fat.
In the 1940s, coronary artery disease was the leading cause of death in the United States. At the time, scientists believed that high levels of cholesterol and saturated fat in food had a lot to do with cardiovascular disease (science is constantly improving, nothing is set in stone, and many things have limitations).
Naturally, reducing saturated fat in food has become a health guide. Margarine made from low-fat phytolipid is one of the recommended food ingredients.
Based on the level of research at the time, phytolipids were also recognized by international medical association guidelines and non-utilitarian institutions. The market quickly responded to the call, and restaurants used margarine containing trans fatty acids and no longer used animal oil (such as lard) with too much saturated fat.
The restaurant also added a reason for using margarine, saying that this oil does not need to be changed as often as other oils, it is not easy to break, and that it can be fried several times in a fryer.
The industry that uses vegetable fat the most is not the restaurant that stir-frys, but the industry that processes snacks and coffee. The reason why it is used more in the coffee industry is because the plant fat powder has the best tonicity of the beverage, melts quickly, and the emulsion is very stable.
Today, phylogenetic fats containing trans fatty acids have long been shown to be harmful. Related studies have shown that trans fatty acids increase the amount of low-density lipoprotein ("bad" cholesterol) and triglycerides in the blood, while reducing the content of high-density lipoprotein ("good" cholesterol), increasing inflammatory factors, and creating a perfect arteriosclerosis environment.
Moreover, phytolipids containing trans fatty acids increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and have been linked to several cancers.
However, due to the improvement of health concepts, many food scientists and food manufacturers at home and abroad have optimized the production of vegetable fat, producing vegetable fat with a very low content of trans fatty acids, and even the content is close to 0, and the taste has also been improved. But production costs have also increased...
But in any case, completely zero trans fatty acids and low-cost phyt lipids still have a long way to go to commercialization. If you want to be healthy, eat less processed foods.