Now, deep frying all by itself is a deadly habit. The act of applying a lot of heat to saturated fat and then ingesting it has no positive outcome in the attempt by our bodies to carry out any of our metabolic processes.
While saturated fat is fairly stable and it can take a lot of heat before it breaks down, it’s not all that good for you as the deep-fried food itself releases “free radicals” in your system which cause damage to the body and increase weight gain. No matter what you use lard, or coconut oil, or butter… do not deep fry.
For commercial deep frying, butter is prohibitively expensive and that is the reason food manufacturers choose alternatives regardless of how harmful they are to the public.
The absolute worst commercial frying is done by the fast-food chains, which almost uniformly do their deep frying in cheap, deadly partially hydrogenated oil and fry and refry with the same oil sometimes a whole week, until the oil “burns” into a dark brown. Any fats that escapes being transmogrified in the hydrogenation process are now subjected to the deep-frying process.
Food Manufacturers ignore the health effects of their foods for the sake of profit. Their behavior is both unethical and immoral. It is our job to make them be illegal, as well.
What You Can Do as a consumer… Read Ingredient labels.
Read food labels and avoid anything that contains the words:
“Hydrogenated”. That means partially hydrogenated oils, hydrogenated oils, or anything of that kind (and mono-diglycerides, as well). These are unhealthy synthetic oils.
“Bleached” products
Avoid dyes, chemicals, fillers, additives and anything that prolongs the shelf life of a product as an ingredient.
Note: In 2006, an FDA regulation took effect that requires manufacturers to list the amount of trans fats on their product labels. The FDA wanted to put the words, “Warning: Trans-fats may be dangerous to your health” on the labels, the same warning that first appeared on cigarettes, but the industry fought the label usage. The labelling law reads as follows: the product can contain a significant percentage of trans-fat and still claim “0%”. The law is not on the side of the consumer, we as consumers stand alone, but have the power to change things by simply refusing to buy harmful food.
© Copyright – Hector Sectzer
