Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The healthier shortening

I want to share with you a healthier alternative to the regular old shortening everyone uses. My hubby can't have butter (lactose intolerant) and so I use shortening for pie crusts and some cookies so he can continue to enjoy these treats.



Shortening is normally made with hydrogenated oils. Spectrum makes one without.


"Partial hydrogenation is an industrial process used to make a perfectly good oil, such as soybean oil, into a perfectly bad oil. The process is used to make an oil more solid; provide longer shelf-life in baked products; provide longer fry-life for cooking oils, and provide a certain kind of texture or "mouthfeel." The big problem is that partially hydrogenated oil is laden with lethal trans fat.

One of the reasons that partially hydrogenated oils are used is to increase the product's shelf life, but they decrease your shelf life.

Trans fats cause significant and serious lowering of HDL (good) cholesterol and a significant and serious increase in LDL (bad) cholesterol; make the arteries more rigid; cause major clogging of arteries; cause insulin resistance; cause or contribute to type 2 diabetes; and cause or contribute to other serious health problems."

To sum it up...READ LABELS ON YOUR FOOD!



It's being put into just about everything...Bread, crackers, cookies, cakes.

Fast food is loaded with it.


Take control of your health by educating yourself and reading what goes into your food.

(info and quotes from www.bantransfats.com)

8 comments:

The Lunch Lady said...

Sorry that I had to add the "security" word to my comment section. I received a "ton" of spam comments recently!

Liz said...

Thanks for the info. I never really knew what hydrongenated meant...shoulda googled it I guess.

:)

~Liz
www.AGiveawayADay.blogspot.com

Leslie said...

Thanks so much for your visit to my blog and your comment on my Oven roasted potatoes. They are delish! Stop back by anytime.
Great post...trans fat..YUCK!!!

From the Dotte said...

Found you on PW's site.
I have just started to use shortening to bake because I love the end result, but knew that it wasn't all that healthy. Thanks for the entry. I will definetly cut back if not elinminate. Except for pie crusts!

Heathahlee said...

I hardly ever use shortening anymore for some reason...maybe I just don't bake that much anymore. Now that the holiday season is fast approaching I will watch more carefully what goes into what I bake.

Okay, I had to add here that the security word on here starts with "fry"...think they knew what you posted about? : )

Thanks for stopping by my blog! I always love to "meet" new people!

The Southern Family said...

Thanks for the tip! Sad for your camera. Did you try Ebay or Overstock.com to find it cheaper? Overstock is where I got my replacement!

Niki Jolene said...

Wow, this is great news!

We have food allergies in our family so we use a lot of shortening.

:)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info... I'm scared of fats that are solid at room temp but I'm sold on this one.

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