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Today we would like to welcome Dr. John Story an expert in diet
and cardiovascular health. He's going to talk to us a little bit about the basics
of fats in our diet and how the new high oleic soybean oil matches up. Welcome!
To get us started, can you just tell us a little bit about the fats in our diet?
-Well, the fat in our diet is a important component of our diet and
especially for energy. It's one of the, it's the most rich source of energy in
our diet, and it's the good news and the bad news. If you need energy, fat's a good
way to get it, but when you have too much, why it's it's a good way to get too much.
Fats are, we should probably define the the words fat - fats and oils. Fats tend to
be, are supposed to be solid at room temperature, so lard and butter and
things like that should be called fats, and oils are liquid at room temperature,
like soybean oil or corn oil or whatever. Those fats are made up of
triglycerides that are a glycerol molecule with three
fatty acids on them. The fatty acids are just long chains of carbon with some
double bonds inserted in some of them so that's where we get saturated fatty
acids where there are no double bonds, and the unsaturated that usually we talk
about monounsaturated and polyunsaturated that have either one -
mono, or more than one - polyunsaturated fatty acid or double bonds inserted. And
that that gives fats their characteristics. The unsaturated fats
tend to be in oils where they're liquid at room temperature. The saturated fats
have a difference in melting points so they're solid at room temperature a lot
of times. The fats that we eat are usually mixtures of these fatty acids,
they aren't all one or the other so that's why a lot of times there's a
misconception while I'm eating corn oil so it's polyunsaturated well there's a
mixture of saturated and polyunsaturated. The same's true for soybean,
and lard and butter and all of them have a mixture. But they're predominantly one
or the other.
-So if people have a health concern which types of fats should they
choose in their diet?
-Well it primarily, I think that we probably are tending
toward thinking that, well as with everything in the diet it's that's best
to eat a variety of things but with fat it's probably tending toward the the
mono and polyunsaturated fatty acid especially a monounsaturated fatty acids.
The research seems to show we give an advantage and they can those fats are
oils that have more monounsaturated fatty acids are easily used in our diets
so that part isn't a problem.
- So, what about for those of us that may not have any health concerns?
-Well it's still, again if you don't have any of these
health problems why it really is important to eat a variety of foods and
balance them and energy balances would then be the concern is the amount
of fat but again it's probably tending toward polyunsaturated fat so you don't
increase your risk of increasing your risk for heart disease.
-Sure. Sure. So with this new high oleic soybean oil where do we find it and how does that all fit in?
-Well the the high oleic soybean oil typically has some oleic but not very
much and this high oleic has been modified so that it has higher levels of
oleic acid. Oleic is a monounsaturated fatty acid that we've been talking about
and so it gives it an advantage and to provide more monounsaturated fatty acids
in an oil that is commonly used in a lot of salad dressings and other things that
this could be substituted for and increase the oleic consumption.
-So when we think about the different kinds of foods that you know may contain a high
oleic soybean oil how does how does that fit into our to our diet or does it have
a place in our diet? -It can easily some from, I've heard that
one of the places that's been used quite a bit already is with fried foods with
deep fat frying that it's been used quite a lot. I'm not recommending we all
go out there and live on french fries but that's one use, but it can substitute
it, well salad dressings and things like that that have oil in and then a lot of
baked goods and things you at home why you use oil as a source of fat and it
can substitute I think pretty much for any of the other fats that you would
typically our oils that you would typically use.
-So we know that there are
some foods that cause allergic reaction and so some people are allergic to soy
beans. Is that is that a concern, or a risk that that we should think about
when we think about this new high oleic soybean oil.
-No and because the protein
is what causes, a protein is what causes allergic reactions most of the time and
there obviously, I shouldn't say obviously maybe, but then fats and oils
there's not protein of any consequence and the the modification that's been
done to increase the oleic acid also the way that that's done now eliminates that
possibility pretty much completely for these modified foods.
-Okay so can you
tell us how we might identify a high oleic soybean oil?
-Well you you can't
pick it out of a lineup you're gonna have to read the food label as they
start appearing. I'm guessing that they'll probably be advertised on the
front of the box as contains high oleic soybean oil or high it contains more
oleic acid but to be sure you can read the contents the ingredients label on
or ingredients list on the label to see whether it's listed there because it'll
list oil fats and oils and if it says soybean oil it'll usually it'll probably
have to say high oleic.
-Great, great. So consumers will be able to identify this
-Yeah
-Great Well thank you so much for providing us
the basic information about diet and how the
highlight soybean oil fits into that.
-Great. It's been a pleasure.
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