Food Safety Consumption Tips What exactly is the oil of bread ghee

Source: China Consumer Daily

Reporter Li Jian

Bread is soft and delicious, with a sweet aftertaste, making it suitable for all ages. In particular, those breads that are fragrant and soft, and the taste and appearance are very "online" are more favored by consumers. However, the shortening in many bread ingredient lists makes sensitive foodies wonder: what is shortening, and will it affect health?

The bread is fluffy and the grease is indispensable

There are many varieties of bread. According to the physical properties and edible taste, the relevant national standards divide bread into five types: soft bread, hard bread, shortening bread, conditioned bread and other breads.

Most people like bread, which is often a soft, refreshing, and fragrant style. These doughs, which are made of wheat flour and water, salt, sugar and other accessories, can become fluffy and soft after baking, and yeast and oil are indispensable. Liang Jianfen, a baking expert and professor at the College of Food Science and Nutritional Engineering of China Agricultural University, explained in an interview with the China Consumer Daily that the role of oil and fat in bread is mainly in the following aspects: Oil and fat form a shorter gluten network line by blocking the extension of protein and starch structure, so that the bread blank is softer. In general, the higher the oil content, the better the softening effect. Greases, especially solid greases, are very malleable and can assist in the formation of rich layered tissues during the bread making and forming process. At the same time, the grease is also fused, which can form many small bubbles during the process of dough whipping, forming the honeycomb tissue of the bread during baking. The grease present in the bread blank also increases the wetness of the bread product, giving the bread a special flavor and color.

There are many kinds of greases that can be applied to bread, which can be animal fats such as cream and lard, or plant-based margarine and shortening, which can help pastry chefs "cook" bread with perfect export and appearance.

However, not all breads use grease, such as baguette, which is a typical hard bread with only wheat flour, yeast, salt and water in the ingredients, and basically no added oil.

Ghee doesn't have to be completely distant

Many pastry chefs like to use ghee, believing that the bread made with it is sweet and delicious.

The so-called shortening is a mixture of refined animal and vegetable oils, hydrogenated oils or the above oils and fats, which have good shortening and similar processing properties to lard.

The base material of shortening can be vegetable oil, animal oil, hydrogenated vegetable oil. Hydrogenated vegetable oil is an artificial oil catalyzed by adding hydrogen to ordinary vegetable oil at a certain temperature and pressure, which can be used for the processing of many products, including the well-known vegetable fat powder (creamer), margarine, cocoa butter and so on.

Many people are suspicious of ghee mainly because they are worried about the trans fatty acids in it. Studies have shown that trans fatty acids in oils and fats are not easily digested by the human body, and if consumed in excess, it may increase the viscosity and cohesion of human blood, leading to the formation of blood clots, which is particularly harmful for the elderly with fragile blood vessel walls. In addition, trans fatty acids may also affect development and fertility, reduce memory, and easily cause obesity and coronary heart disease.

Liang Jianfen pointed out that in the process of vegetable oil hydrogenation, if the conditions are better controlled, the content of trans fatty acids can be very low, and generally will not bring risks to people's health. Therefore, it is not necessary to completely respect the bread marked with ghee and hydrogenated vegetable oil on the ingredient list. It is not realistic to pursue a "zero intake" of trans fatty acids in daily life, and as a risk factor in the diet, people should minimize their intake. China stipulates that if the content of trans fatty acids per 100 grams of food does not exceed 0.3 grams, then the packaging can be marked with words such as "zero inverse fatty acids".

Scientific purchase can be healthy to avoid "oil"

In recent years, China's bread consumption has developed relatively fast, showing a trend of increasing year by year.

From a nutritional point of view, bread is a high-carbohydrate food, and shortenbread is also high in fat. No matter what kind of oil is used to bake bread, it needs to be digested by the stomach after eating. If you consume too much fat, it may not be digested and absorbed, and accumulate in the body, which is not conducive to human health.

How to choose a delicious and healthy category from a wide variety of breads with different flavors, consumers should refer to the following points:

Shop for bread that feels "hard" in the hand. Overall, hard bread has a low sugar and fat content. In contrast, the good taste and soft texture of bread are inseparable from the contribution of oil, especially the layered and crispy bread such as puff pastry and lasagna buns, and the higher the oil content, the higher the energy density. Therefore, choosing bread that feels "hard" in the hand can obtain bread with relatively low energy density.

Shop for bread that tastes "lighter". This kind of bread is relatively light and not thick in taste, and this kind of bread generally contains less sugar, less oil and less salt. Table salt is an indispensable ingredient in bread making, which can make the bread tendons delicious, and some breads have a relatively high salt content. When buying bread, you can study its nutritional composition list and try to choose bread with a low sodium content. At the same time, bread with too much sugar is not conducive to good health, so try to choose bread that is sugar-free or low-sugar, such as bread with less sugar content in the ingredient list.

Shop for bread that tastes "coarser". The "coarser" taste is produced by the large amount of dietary fiber in the bread. The dietary fiber content in whole wheat bread is high and takes a long time to be digested and absorbed by the human body, so the time for whole wheat bread to release energy is longer than that of ordinary bread, which is conducive to stabilizing blood sugar. It should be noted that true whole wheat bread should be natural brown and uneven in color.