OIL TYPE
Background
- Eating high amounts of fat (especially saturated fat) is associated with heart disease and stroke.
- High trans fat levels (as is found in partially hydrogenated oils) are associated with heart disease.
- Tallow based products which are high in saturated fat still remain the most frequently used cooking medium across Food Service / Hospitality.
- It is generally accepted that oil must:
- Perform well during frying
- Have acceptable overall cost
- Have a good nutritional profile
- Be stable at high temperature
- Have a smoke point above 200°C
- Possess good oxidative stability
- Have low levels of trace impurities to prevent degradation during frying
- The Heart Foundation has guidelines for frying mediums for fastfood outlets.
- Independent operators adopted these Heart Foundation guidelines for frying medium as a recommendation rather than a standard.
Fastfood Outlets Surveys
The high saturated fat in hot chips sold in independent fastfood outlets reflects the high use of tallow-based frying mediums. Shifts in the New Zealand market for deep-frying mediums have occurred in the last nine years. There has been a move away from tallow-based products, 82% (reported in 1998 survey) to 61% (reported in 2007 survey), with an increase in both canola and palm-based products. Neither of these vegetable products is recommended by the NZ Heart Foundation.
Stakeholder Feedback/Forum Discussion
You are never going to tell a chef what oil/frying medium to use.
Ethnicity plays a part re Tallow i.e. Hindu beliefs etc.
Vegetarian beliefs are also a factor although often fish & chicken are cooked in the same frying medium that is used for chips
Food service and hospitality are on a different level to chip shops and therefore frying medium quality is more important than the price/value equation.
There is not enough regulation regarding imported product.
Suppliers do not include sufficient information on the labelling therefore chefs will not know whether the frying medium they are using meets the NZ Heart Foundation criteria.
Most chefs believe that they use frying mediums that meet or are close to the NZ Heart Foundation criteria.
There was a lot of discussion regarding if the Heart Foundation guidelines were too stringent, for chefs to comply with, given the current widespread use of tallow. In particular a saturated fat content of 24% (which encompasses some of the oils that the Heart Foundation see as a good interim step) was seen as something more achievable. However after much deliberation it was decided that, at this stage, the aspirational Heart Foundation criteria should be a recommendation and not a standard.
Draft Recommendation
Use a frying medium that meets the NZ Heart Foundation’s criteria:
- Saturated fat equal to, or less than, 20%
- Trans fat equal to, or less than, 1%
- Linolenic acid equal to, or less than, 3%
The types of oils that may meet these recommendations include: high-oleic sunflower oil and high oleic, low linolenic canola oil and some blends.
There are some other oils such as cottonseed and rice bran oil which because of their saturated fat levels are slightly over the Heart Foundation’s guidelines. These still remain good options and a really positive step towards providing alternatives to beef fat, palm and hydrogenated vegetable oils.
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