Could Santa Fe restaurants be forced to forgo Crisco in favor of palm oil or-god forbid-lard? Just months after implementing a smoking ban, Santa Feans are now forced to consider the dangers of another bad habit: trans fats.
Calling trans fat an "unnecessary and dangerous ingredient in food," the New York City Board of Health last Tuesday announced an unprecedented move: They intend to ban all but trace amounts of trans fats in all city restaurants. If the proposal is passed in December, other cities around the country are likely to consider following suit. Here in Santa Fe, where meat is murder and aspartame is Satan, but tamales and sopaipillas reign supreme, getting rid of trans fats is a complicated-if still hypothetical-issue.
Trans fats are the big, bad kind of fats found in partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, of which Crisco is the best-known example. Invented in 1911, Crisco was the first solid shortening made entirely from vegetable oil (not lard), using the process of hydrogenation. Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil became popular because it keeps for a very long time at room temperature and can be heated and reheated (like in a deep-fat fryer). When saturated fat was identified as a major cause of high cholesterol, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil became a standard in restaurant Frialators and in packaged chips, crackers and cakes.
Research has now shown that while saturated fats like butter and lard raise both bad and good cholesterol, trans fats raise bad cholesterol and
lower good cholesterol
. Trans fats have been linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other chronic conditions, so while nutritionists advise us to cut down on saturated fat, we're supposed to entirely cut out trans fat. As of January 2006, that got a lot easier because the Food and Drug Administration started requiring that food manufacturers list the amount of trans fat on their nutrition labels.
With advance knowledge of that requirement, many manufacturers decided to cut out the trans fats rather than be forced to advertise them. But labeling rules don't apply to restaurants, which have no obligation to tell you whether they're cooking your french fries in canola oil, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil or beef tallow. "New Yorkers are consuming a hazardous, artificial substance without their knowledge or consent," New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas R Frieden says in a press release. "Like lead in paint, artificial trans fat in food is invisible and dangerous, and it can be replaced…without changing the taste or cost of food."
But getting rid of trans fats in restaurants would be a major change for restaurateurs in New York and everywhere else. Ignacio Patsalis, the owner and manager of Tomasita's, says, "We try to make things healthier here-we use Greek olive oil for our salad dressing-but for some things it's harder." If trans fats, like those in the shortening used to make Tomasita's puffy sopaipillas, were forbidden, "I don't know what we'd do," he says. "I guess we'd have to investigate and see what else is out there."
At Chocolate Maven Bakery and Café, items are made with palm oil, according to Operations Manager Larry Katz. "A lot of our accounts are natural foods stores, like Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Wild Oats, and our products have to be clean to get into their stores." Unlike most other vegetable oils, palm oil is high in saturated fat, but it is also solid at room temperature, making it a vegetarian, vegan alternative to butter, lard and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. As for outlawing trans fats? "I'm all for it!" Katz says. "I think a lot of people would be happy to see them removed from restaurants-and from schools."
If trans fats were banned elsewhere, "We would want to take a very close look at it, what it does, how it impacts local businesses in the community, and we may want to consider it ourselves," Larry Martinez, chairman of the Santa Fe County Health Policy and Planning Commission, says. "One of the things we're trying to achieve is improved health status of the residents of Santa Fe County, and the bottom line is that if people live healthier lifestyles, then that's the best way of using our resources." The implication there is that if people reduce their consumption of trans fats, thereby reducing the number of illnesses that require lots of medication, provider time and hospitalizations, it would save Santa Fe money. But some restaurateurs don't think that should be their responsibility.
Jeff Posa, of El Merendero (Posa's), says, "It's already hard enough to deal with all of the regulations that our industry has to deal with…It's your responsibility to take care of your own body." His company has been supplying tamales to Santa Fe restaurants (like Tomasita's) and to supermarkets and convenience stores for more than 30 years. Posa's vegetarian tamales are made with partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, but the pork and chicken tamales are made with lard, following his family's traditional recipe. "Lard will always make a better tamale," he says emphatically, "and a better pie crust…I remember my grandfather eating eggs fried in lard every morning, and he lived to be 90 years old. He worked hard, though, and he was thin; he wasn't fat...If they really want to boost our health, they should make us walk more. We'd save some gas, too!"
Percentage of Specific Types of Fat in Common Oils and Fats*
________________________Oils
_________________________
Saturated Monounsaturated Polyunsaturated Trans
Canola 7 58 29 0
Safflower 9 12 74 0
Sunflower 10 20 66 0
Corn 13 24 60 0
Olive 13 72 8 0
Soybean 16 44 37 0
Peanut 17 49 32 0
Palm 50 37 10 0
Coconut 87 6 2 0
_____________________
Cooking Fats
_____________________
Shortening 22 29 29 18
Lard 39 44 11 1
Butter 60 26 5 5
*Values expressed as percent of total fat, using data from analyses at Harvard School of Public Health Lipid Laboratory and USDA publications.
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