RE: another butter question

[Guest guest]

* safallon@... (safallon@...) [010901 11:45]:

* Subject: Re: another butter question:

> Dear Alan,

>

> Heating does not produce trans fats--they are made in a huge machine called a

> hydgroenator, with the addition of a catalyst.

Hummm...., this is contrary to *everything* I've

researched. The trans- configuration is a lower

energy state than the cis- configuration so the

trans- state is ultimately inevitable. Any input

of energy that raises the energy level just enough

to go over the energy barrier, will drop a cis-

bond to a trans- bond. This normally happens through

vibrational/rotational energy (heat) or photon energy

(light). This is the reason unsaturated oils should

be kept refridgerated in a dark-glass or opaque

container.

Hydrogenation is a process that saturates unsaturated

bonds (independent whether the bond was trans- or

cis- configuration). Because of the high temperatures

(120 C to 210 C) used in the hydrogenation process,

cis- bonds are converted into trans- bonds, but the

hope is that the hydrogenation (bubbling hydrogen

through the hot oil in the presence of metal catalyts

- nickel, platinum, and/or copper) will saturate those

bonds. The problem is that all the bonds are not

saturated (particularly in deliberate partial-

hydrogenation), leaving the unsaturated bonds as

trans- bonds.

No question, hydrogenation is a bad thing, but not

the only bad thing -- simple heat is an enemy too.

> vitamin D is extremely important and the body cannot usually make enough.

> See the article on vitamin D on our website.

I've never argued that vitamin D isn't important. I've

only argued that vitamin D alone isn't sufficient as

there are many other fat-soluble nutrients that are

important to health. Consuming fats that are empty

of everything but vitamin D (and cholesterol would be

there), is in a sense empty calories.

> There also are many other good things in animal fats--minerals, special

> antimicrobial fatty acids, etc. I don't understand why you are against fats.

> AFter all, mother's milk is loaded with fat.

>

> If you are not going to eat carbohydrates and not going to eat fats, what are

> you going to eat? Anything over 20% protein is very toxic. Remember the

> native AMericans, and in fact all indegenous peoples never ate lean

> meat--they always ate it with the fat. Sally

Again, if you'd go back and re-read *any* of my messages

you'd see that I've never been against consuming fats

as long as they are full of nutrients. I'm against consuming

empty fats, just like empty proteins or empty carbohydrates.

Pigs fed nothing but stale white bread and skim milk are

not going to have much to offer nutrient wise.

[sally, you may want to get into the habit of quoting

the material you are responding too. It is too hard

to remember the material word for word, for one thing

(you've often said the *same* thing I have and implied

I took an opposing view), and it is very difficult for

readers (including the one you are responding to) to

make sense of your response without the context.]

--alan

[Guest guest]

It would seem to me that all that goes on with this catalyst is that is encourages oxidation. See, for example, this discussion from the lecture notes of a Food Sciences course at Ohio State:

http://class.fst.ohio-state.edu/FST605/Lectures/lect8.html

Perhaps the catalyst is needed to make the reaction predictable and controllable (which is, indeed, what catalysts do, if I remember any chemistry at all. In fact I remember all these pictures about using catalysts to raise the energy for the reaction to take place. This is, of course, equivalent to heating). This is industrial food chemistry after all. Predictability and control (and cheap) are the only deal in town here. And, oxidation is substantially encouraged by raising temperatures.

Is this not how you understand the process?

Soren

-----Original Message-----From: safallon@... [mailto:safallon@...]Sent: Monday, September 03, 2001 9:40 PM Subject: Re: another butter questionDear Alan, You have got it wrong on the trans fats--they are not formed by heat--you need a catalyst to do it. Suggest you get Enig's book Know Your Fats. We need to do the best we can in obtaining quality food, but never make a fetish about it. Do the best you can and they just bless the food and be grateful. Then make sure you take some superfoods (cod liver oil. nutritional yeast, azomite, etc.) to make up for the nutrients that should have been there. On the pigs, even those in confinement get ultra-violet light--otherwise they die--so even the worst quality lard contains vitamin D. Of course, lard from pasture-fed pigs is much better, but if your only choice is supermarket lard, that is infinitely better than margarine or shortening. We need to remember that for most people. their choices are limited to the supermarket. We need to give them something that is doable. Sally

[Guest guest]

* safallon@... (safallon@...) [010903 20:42]:

* Subject: Re: another butter question:

> Dear Alan,

>

> You have got it wrong on the trans fats--they are not formed by heat--you

> need a catalyst to do it. Suggest you get Enig's book Know Your Fats.

I have Dr. Enig's book, and don't find where she

contradicts anything I've written here, though I

do find that she glosses over or completely skips

much of what is widely known on the subject. Could

you be more specific or point out where in her book

she says that heat and light can not convert a

cis- bond to a trans- bond as I may well have missed

it?

You say I have got it wrong. Could you please be

more specific about what I have wrong? Am I wrong

about the trans- configuration being a lower energy

state than the cis- configuration? If so, why does

heat and light not " fix " trans-fats? Why does an

unsaturated oil that is cooked at high temperature

long enough turn solid when it cools down? Why do

you feel consumption of more than small amounts of

unsaturated fats like flax seed oil is unhealthy if

you feel the the cis- bonds are stable? If it is

ok to fry in lard that is about 60% unsaturated

fats, why is it not cool, in your opinion, to cook

in Canola or other vegetable oils? Clearly, I have

missed something big and just don't understand these

basic observations.

I presume by your silence about my question about

the effects of high temperatures on vitamin D, that

you believe vitamin D in not made less effective.

If so, why do you believe pasteurization, a process

with much lower temperatures and very much shorter

time duration, cause the vitamin D to be diminished?

I really don't want or mean to come across as a " hard

case, " but I'm am becoming very confused by your answers.

> We need to do the best we can in obtaining quality food, but never make a

> fetish about it. Do the best you can and they just bless the food and be

> grateful.

Are we doing the best we can by buying the very poor

quality food in the supermarket without even questioning

the grocer? The use of the word " fetish " seems unworthy,

IMHO, as it was clearly intended to indicate that I and

others concerned with food quality are nut cases. Where

is the line drawn to determine a " fetish? " I may well

be a nut case, as you imply, but I don't see how trying

to get nutrient-rich food is that different from advocating

bone-broths, pastured cow meat and milk, etc. One

might argue that it is a fetish to start with poor-quality

food and insist that cooking it in a certain way will

magically make it healthful. Would that argument not

make sense?

> Then make sure you take some superfoods (cod liver oil. nutritional

> yeast, azomite, etc.) to make up for the nutrients that should have been

> there.

Cod liver oil seems like a very good bet, however, yeast

I would strongly question, and azomite is a soil suppliment.

Yeast can't magically create the elements it needs for

the production of its nutrients. If the yeast, for instance,

has no Cobalt to work with, how will it produce B12? Or

should we just not ask that simple question? Do you advocate

consuming azomite? If so, why did you question the colloidal

liquid supplements in another message? (The best colloidal

liquid supplements are made from soaking the same humic shale

that azomite is made from.)

I'm getting more confused by the sentence!

BTW, azomite appears to be an absolutely top notch soil

supplement for remineralizing garden soils. I haven't

been able to find any locally, so I have no first hand

experience with it. :-(

> On the pigs, even those in confinement get ultra-violet light--otherwise they

> die--so even the worst quality lard contains vitamin D. Of course, lard from

> pasture-fed pigs is much better, but if your only choice is supermarket lard,

> that is infinitely better than margarine or shortening. We need to remember

> that for most people. their choices are limited to the supermarket. We need

> to give them something that is doable. Sally

Like raw milk, (true) kefir, pasture-fed beef, etc.?

Why is it so impossible to go to the supermarket managers

and tell them you'd like and be willing to pay for

better quality food?

--alan

[Guest guest]

If just heating could cause trans fatty acids to be formed, then all our vegetable oils would be solid -- because they are heated several times during the refining process.

The partial hydrogenation process reconfigures the molecule--this cannot be done with simple heating. Sally

[Guest guest]

Dear Alan,

The cis bonds are not necessarily stable--they can lose electrons and become free radicals with heat and exposure to oxygen. but that is not the same as becoming a trans fat. This is a big urban legend that heating causes trans to be formed.

Pasteurization is hardest on the components in the water fraction of the milk. It does diminsih the fat-soluble components but not as much.

When we cook in fat, we need to use fats that are mostly saturated fat because they are more stable. There will still be lots of vitamin D left in lard after heating it. But if you object to using lard, then use butter/olive oil combination, goose fat, duck fat, coconut oil, etc.

I did not mean to imply that anyone was a nut case, but what I meant to say is that we all need to be flexible. It is virtually impossible for most people to get the absolutely top quality kinds of foods that we are talking about. We don't want to discourage people by making things too hard for them. Meanwhile, if we, those most interested in nutritious food, cultivate sources of raw milk, pasture fed meats and eggs, etc, eventually these will become more available for all.

There is no true B12 in yeast, even if it appears on the label. Yeast is a good source of the other B vitamins, chromium and other minerals, however--very good for diabetics. You can take dessicated liver for B12. We can debate the various superfoods, but the point is that we take them because we know that we cannot get all our nutrients from modern foods--even nut cases like ourselves. A combination of superfoods for one person may not be the right combination for another person

Sally

PS. I get about 70-80 emails per day, most of which need answering, plus I wear many other hats that keep me busy 25 hours per day, 7 days per week.

The most likely explanation for my not answering a certain question is that I didn't have the time.

[Guest guest]

* safallon@... (safallon@...) [010904 20:36]:

* Subject: Re: another butter question:

> If just heating could cause trans fatty acids to be formed, then all our

> vegetable oils would be solid -- because they are heated several times during

> the refining process.

At first this seems like a compeling argument, but

compare the viscosity of a vegetable oil from the

supermarket with that of oils that have been cold

pressed and refrigerated (like flax seed oil). There

is no question that the ordinary vegetable oils are

considerably thicker.

I don't want to get into a full up discussion on

thermodynamics and half-life conversion times, so

I'll just suffice it to say that the obvious explanation

is that the vegetable oils were heated in the processing

long enough to create a significant fraction of the

unsaturated fatty acid bonds to trans- bonds. This raised

the viscosity, but wasn't heated long enough or hot

enough to convert a sufficient number of bonds to render

it solid.

Perhaps you feel that I'm maintaining that the mere

presence of heat will instantly convert all cis-

bonds to trans- bonds. Of course that is not true.

The idea is that as the temperature goes up, the

likelihood of a conversion goes up, and therefore

the half-life conversion time goes down. Therefore

to create a significant number of trans- bonds at

room temperature it would take a very long time

(but sadly we store oils at room temperature for very

long times in our pantries and cupboards). Raising

the temperature to 100 C (baking temperatures) is

not considered by most to be a problem over times

used for baking (small numbers of hours). It is

felt the danger comes at frying temperatures, particularly

when the oils are kept at temperature for long durations

like that commonly done by commercial operations

for french fries, donuts, fried fish, etc. were the

oil may not be changed more than once a week.

--alan

[Guest guest]

And most of these oils are partially hydrogenated and contain trans-fats

when the restaurant buys them.

Judith Alta Kidder

Mission Possible

Southwest Michigan

jaltak@...

-----Original Message-----

[snip]

It is

felt the danger comes at frying temperatures, particularly

when the oils are kept at temperature for long durations

like that commonly done by commercial operations

for french fries, donuts, fried fish, etc. were the

oil may not be changed more than once a week.

--alan

[Guest guest]

* safallon@... (safallon@...) [010904 20:55]:

* Subject: Re: another butter question:

> [ ... Points about transfat production, free radical formation,

effects of heat on vitamin D and other nutrients ... ]

I think it's time to stop rehashing points that we

disagree on. As we each made our piece, I'll leave

you with the last word on those.

> There is no true B12 in yeast, even if it appears on the label. Yeast is a

> good source of the other B vitamins, chromium and other minerals,

> however--very good for diabetics. You can take dessicated liver for B12. We

> [ ... ]

But, I must ask this question! :-)

Where does the Chromium and Cobalt (whether for liver

or yeast) come from if the soils no longer (or never

did) have them? The cows and the yeast have to eat

something and they can't produce these elements themselves.

It has been well understood for at least 70 years that

these minerals are largely or totally gone from our

farm soils. It's just been much harder for us to

accept this well-known fact.

I agree that we can only eat what we have available --

for today at least. I have the same constraint. But

if we 1) become aware and admit that the food is of

generally poor quality, 2) find a way to objectively

measure food quality (by buying a refractometer, having

a friend with one, or finding another way to measure

quality) so that we can become good consumers, and 3)

use our power as good consumers to steer the markets

and growers towards increasing the nutritional value

in our food, then in the future the food we will have

available to us and our children may be better than we

have now. I think it is terribly important to do this

because the food quality is dropping rather precipitously

and continuing to ignore the problem will only result

in even poorer quality food.

> PS. I get about 70-80 emails per day, most of which need answering, plus I

> wear many other hats that keep me busy 25 hours per day, 7 days per week.

> The most likely explanation for my not answering a certain question is that I

> didn't have the time.

I understand -- many of us are in the same boat. If

only we had more time! Thanks for taking the time.

--alan

[Guest guest]

Alan,

It seems as if Sally is trying to make a distinction between trans- bonds

and free radicals:

" The cis bonds are not necessarily stable--they can lose electrons and

become

free radicals with heat and exposure to oxygen.  but that is not the same

as

becoming a trans fat.  This is a big urban legend that heating causes trans

to be formed. "

....that both are bad but that they are not the same thing.

What is the difference between the effects of trans- fats and the effects

of " free radical " fats on our health?

Thanks for the discussion!

Alan Lundin

<aflundi@swcp

.com> cc:

Subject: Re:

another butter question

09/05/2001

08:40 AM

Please

respond to

native-nutrit

ion

Alan said:

....the vegetable oils were heated in the processing

long enough to create a significant fraction of the

unsaturated fatty acid bonds to trans- bonds.  This raised

the viscosity, but wasn't heated long enough or hot

enough to convert a sufficient number of bonds to render

it solid.

Perhaps you feel that I'm maintaining that the mere

presence of heat will instantly convert all cis-

bonds to trans- bonds.  Of course that is not true.

The idea is that as the temperature goes up, the

likelihood of a conversion goes up, and therefore

the half-life conversion time goes down.  Therefore

to create a significant number of trans- bonds at

room temperature it would take a very long time

(but sadly we store oils at room temperature for very

long times in our pantries and cupboards).  Raising

the temperature to 100 C (baking temperatures) is

not considered by most to be a problem over times

used for baking (small numbers of hours).  It is

felt the danger comes at frying temperatures, particularly

when the oils are kept at temperature for long durations

like that commonly done by commercial operations

for french fries, donuts, fried fish, etc. were the

oil may not be changed more than once a week.

--alan

[Guest guest]

Dear Alan,

The danger of using vegetable oils for frying is the formation of free radicals and break down products, but not trans fats.

Commercial vegetable oils get a "brush hydrogenation" to deoderize them so they do contain some trans, but it is not from simply heating them.

Because you are so insistant on this, I went back to on it--she says she cannot understand how this misinformation got started. Trans fats are not formed by just heating.

Sally

[Guest guest]

Yeast is grown on sugar beet or sugar cane molasses, which in principle contain many nutrients, esp chromium. There may not be as many nutrients in these substrates as there were formerly, but the product (yeast) does test to have certain levels of vtiamins and minerals. yeast is still a good superfood.

We are all concerned about imporving the quality of our food. I just don't think we should be so pessimistic. Many farmers are doing things right and we have more of these kinds of food available than we did just 10 years ago.

Sally

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

Spoke to about the cod liver oil. If you are using up the bottle fairly quickly, no need to refrigerate as it is likely to congeal, then needs to be heated and that is not so good repeated many times.

However, if you are using it up slowly, best to refrigerate it.

Sally

[Guest guest]

Sally, I agree with you on not being pessimistic about our food.

We need to do the best we can with what’s available to us, and not worry

so much about how things should be.

Just eliminating unnecessary processing and chemicals will go a long way

to improve health. Proper preparation of foods, such as soaking grains, will go

even farther.

Thanks for all the information you contribute to this list.

Enjoy! ;-)

Judith Alta

Kidder

Mission Possible

Southwest Michigan

jaltak@...

-----Original

Message-----

Yeast

is grown on sugar beet or sugar cane molasses, which in principle

contain many nutrients, esp chromium. There may not be as many nutrients in

these substrates as there were formerly, but the product (yeast) does test to

have certain levels of vtiamins and minerals. yeast is still a good

superfood.

We are all concerned about imporving the quality of our food. I just

don't

think we should be so pessimistic. Many farmers are doing things right

and

we have more of these kinds of food available than we did just 10 years ago.

Sally

2

[Guest guest]

Judith Alta Kidder wrote:

>Sally, I agree with you on not being pessimistic about our food.

>We need to do the best we can with what’s available to us, and

>not worry so much about how things should be.

Does that include stopping our worry about finding better butter, milk,

oils, cod-livers, meats, etc.?

I, for one, am not willing to say, " Well, that's the best industrial

agriculture is going to give us so we might as well shut up and take

it. "

Whatever happened to " I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it

anymore! " ...the movie " Network "

Let's get the producers of lousy food on the run and keep them running.

We deserve better and we're going to have to demand better, not just

accept things as they are. This list apparently focuses on better

animal products and oils. Other lists focus on better fruits and

vegetables. It doesn't make a lot of sense for one to decide the other

is unimportant. Both are equally important. Anything destined for

human mouths is important.

Regards,

Rex Harrill

[Guest guest]

Rex, I agree with you in principle. And if you can do that go for it! In

the meantime I have to eat what I can get, and afford. When better food is

available I buy it. For example the price of butter in Michigan (in our

corner, anyway) has risen nearly to the price of organic. So we buy organic.

Organic meat is not available to us at a price we can afford and still pay

the bills. Until it is we will continue to buy meat from the local grocery.

Should the grocery store price and organic price come closer together we

will buy organic.

Does that include stopping our worry about finding better butter, milk,

oils, cod-livers, meats, etc.?

No, it does not.

I, for one, am not willing to say, " Well, that's the best industrial

agriculture is going to give us so we might as well shut up and take

it. "

That is not what I mean, and I'm sure you realize that.

Whatever happened to " I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it

anymore! " ...the movie " Network "

So, if we are not going to " take it " do we stop eating?

Let's get the producers of lousy food on the run and keep them running.

We deserve better and we're going to have to demand better, not just

accept things as they are. This list apparently focuses on better

animal products and oils. Other lists focus on better fruits and

vegetables. It doesn't make a lot of sense for one to decide the other

is unimportant. Both are equally important. Anything destined for

human mouths is important.

As I see it the only way to do that is to put out big money advertising to

counter their promotions. And who has that kind of money? Please tell us how

to get our message across. It's not going to be easy as long as most people

blindly follow what they are told and do not think for themselves.

Judith Alta Kidder

Mission Possible

Southwest Michigan

jaltak@...

Regards,

Rex Harrill