Vegetable fat - what is it? What products does it contain?
Vegetable fat is a phrase that causes different associations. It encourages someone to put the goods back on the store shelf, causing superstitious horror in front of harmful trans fats. And someone will prefer a more healthy vegetable oil to butter - again because of vegetable fats. So what do they bring - benefit or harm? Vegetable fat - what is it in terms of chemistry, biology and medicine?
Of course, vegetable fats are different from those found in plants. Most often they accumulate in the seeds. Plants usually store nutrients for the development of a new organism. However, there are exceptions. Palm oil is extracted from the pulp of palm fruits, olive oil from the pulp of olives.
What is the difference between the composition of vegetable fats from animals? In vegetable oils, unsaturated fatty acids predominate , which melt at a lower temperature.
Classifications
Vegetable fats can be divided into categories according to several criteria. Firstly, they can be liquid and are most often called oils. There are solid vegetable fats such as palm oil and cocoa butter. Calling them oils is not entirely correct, just like butter, but that is what happened in the language.
Drying oils are also emitted - peanut, linseed; semi-drying, for example sunflower; and non-drying, such as olive and cocoa butter.
Receiving and processing
We will not describe in detail the technology for producing oil and all their possible options. There are two main methods of oil extraction - the press method and extraction. In the first case, the mass pre-treated with moisture and heat is squeezed out under a press. This method can be considered the cleanest and most environmentally friendly. By the way, the most expensive and healthy olive oil, which can be recognized by the inscription on the packaging of Virgin or Extra Virgin, is obtained by cold pressing. Raw materials are heated no more than 27 ° C. Extra Virgin is characterized by even more strict adherence to technology. The acid content in it should be no more than 1%, and some companies limit it to 0.8%.
But when pressed in the raw material there is still a large amount of oil. It is not profitable. Therefore, at the next stage - extraction - the oil is extracted using special extraction gasoline. This is already alarming. However, experts assure that if the technology was followed accurately, the product does not cause harm. It’s best not to buy the cheapest oil.
Benefit
Vegetable fats in foods are of great benefit due to their chemical composition. Fat is very nutritious and replenishes energy reserves. Vegetable oils contain the amino acids Omega-3 and Omega-6. Everyone has heard Omega-3 - this fatty acid is not produced by the human body, so it must be supplied with food. Its deficiency negatively affects the cardiovascular system. Therefore, it is not in vain that foods rich in this acid are called long-lived foods. Omega-3 must be contained in the diet of pregnant women, so that the development of the nervous system and eye of the fetus occurs correctly.
Vegetable oils contain vitamins A, D, E.
They have phospholipids that regulate intracellular fat metabolism, are involved in creating the structure of brain and liver cells and eliminating excess cholesterol.
Sources of beneficial vegetable fats
Healthy vegetable fats - what are these foods? We can get them from numerous vegetable oils - sunflower, olive, linseed. Oil can be obtained from almost everything, for example from pumpkin seeds. A large amount of healthy fats is found in plant seeds, in nuts - because they are also seeds, in corn, olives.
The avocado pulp contains useful monounsaturated fatty acids - Omega-9. They benefit the cardiovascular system and even contribute to weight loss. Therefore, eating avocados, you can not count calories.
We can get Omega-3 fatty acid from so many vegetable oils: mustard, flaxseed, camelina, rapeseed. Also, to get more Omega-3, you need to lean on walnuts.
Harm
Of course, everything is good in moderation. Vegetable fats - what is it in terms of diet? They have a very high calorie content - an average of 850 kcal per 100 g! Therefore, they need to be consumed in small quantities. Vegetable salad seasoned with a spoon of olive oil is a healthy food, especially since fats help absorb fat-soluble vitamins. But fried in a large amount of oil french fries clearly does not benefit the body. And it's not just about calories. When thermal treatment is over 110 degrees, useful unsaturated fatty acids begin to decompose, and toxic aldehydes and ketones appear in their place. Their harm lies in the fact that they make the walls of blood vessels fragile, and this is a direct path to atherosclerosis, heart attacks, strokes - diseases that most often shorten our lives. So the oil must be handled with the mind - it can bring both irreplaceable benefits and harm.
Buyers are outraged more and more often: “What is it? They put vegetable fats everywhere, even where they don’t belong! ”It happens. Often, manufacturers of dairy and other products, for the sake of cheapness, replace milk fats with vegetable fats. Cottage cheese and cheese using such components should be labeled as cottage cheese and cheese product. Milk fat substitutes are usually made from palm and soybean oil. If these oils are of good quality, they are not harmful. So the replacement of milk fat with vegetable will only result in a loss of taste.
In chocolate, cocoa butter is also sometimes replaced with palm oil. Then it cannot be called chocolate - it is a confectionery tile. In this case, the beneficial properties of cocoa butter and, of course, taste are lost. Although, if you notice, cocoa butter is also a vegetable fat. But more expensive and moody in production.
Palm oil is generally often used in the food industry. It allows you to greatly reduce the cost of products. However, sometimes due to the economy, insufficiently refined palm oil is used, unsuitable for food, and intended only for technical purposes.
Trans fats
Dangerous are trans fats - liquid vegetable oils that have become solid due to hydrogenation - saturated with hydrogen bubbles. The molecular structure of fatty acids is distorted. And this leads to the fact that they are embedded in cell membranes and displace useful fatty acids from them, block the work of enzymes. Violation of metabolic processes at the cellular level affects all body systems and provokes ailments: from obesity and depression to coronary heart disease and cancer.
A typical example of trans fat is margarine. This is a cheap analogue of butter. It is stored much longer than both animal and vegetable fats. In general, a solid benefit to manufacturers. Only consumers from it one harm. Therefore, you need to avoid margarine and the products that it contains - baking, chips and more. And if you really want cookies or pies, it is better to bake them yourself using butter.
To eat or not to eat?
So is it worth eating them, what vegetable fats are better to include in your menu? As you can understand from the article, the main thing is to approach this issue consciously and, of course, to have a sense of proportion. We all know which foods are considered harmful. Even if it is difficult to exclude them from the diet at all, it is worth consuming mayonnaise and ready-made pastries containing trans fats less often. And to give preference to high-quality vegetable oils and nuts, but take into account that they are very high-calorie, because oil is almost pure fat, and in nuts it is up to 60-70%.