Nutritionist and food technologist talk about the foods that most often contain palm oil.
The variety of products on store shelves today gives the buyer unlimited freedom of choice for his table: buy what you like and what you can afford. But this diversity sometimes confuses us. I would like to buy a more useful product, but that it is also cheap. It is in this desire of buyers that the root of the problem lies. Manufacturers simply respond to our request. Do you want cheap? We will make the product cheaper. How? Let’s add inexpensive ingredients there, one of which will be palm oil. By the way, this oil, among other things, greatly lengthens the shelf life of the product, retains its ideal taste. We love that food doesn’t go to waste on our shelves and cupboards?
What is palm oil in all foods?
– I think not in all, but in many. Most often, “palm” is used in a large number of commercial baked goods in the store. Buns that don’t dry, gingerbread and cookies that don’t go missing. Moreover, such products are relatively inexpensive. Have you ever wondered why homemade cakes always turn stale after 3-4 days, and on the shelves of shops there are juices and muffins for weeks and are always fresh? Palm oil works wonders: it is the only inexpensive oil that retains the freshness and taste of the product.
I have a suspicion that over the years, more and more products contain “palm”. But here the interests of the buyer coincide – give us a cheaper and tastier one. And the manufacturer – more cheap goods that have an unlimited shelf life.
Doctors do not abate controversy about the benefits and dangers of palm oil. Representatives of functional medicine believe that the “palm” harms the human body, clogging its vessels with harmful substances. But as soon as materials about harm appear, articles about benefits immediately appear. I mean that behind the palm oil producers there are large financial corporations capable of “whitewashing” this oil.
Foods where you can find palm oil:
Ice cream
Chocolate
Chocolates
Dairy products (milk, sour cream, etc.)
Curd
Curd snacks
Cookies
Cakes
Butter
Margarine
Fast food
Chips
Baby porridge
So are there any palm oil-free products on our store shelves?
– Yes, you just need to choose high-quality products, carefully studying the information that is indicated on the labels, – says the food processing technologist.
You can recognize palm oil in a product by …
The presence in the product of such components as vegetable fat, palmitic acid, vegetable fat substitute, etc. (all of this, in fact, is palm oil).
Suspiciously long shelf life of the product.
Low price of goods. All over the world today, natural ingredients, by definition, cannot be cheap. If the product has a low price, then, most likely, natural ingredients have been replaced there.
The content of the “palm” in the product for the manufacturer is the availability and low cost for the buyer.
Fortunately, there are affordable and quality products. Remember, you need to choose those products on which compliance with GOST is indicated.
In most cases, manufacturers who declare the compliance of their products with GOST do not run the risk of including ingredients that are not provided for by standards in the composition of the same sour cream, oils.
Conscientious manufacturers of goods with a good reputation will not risk their good name.
But there are also exceptions. The label is not always true.
I often come across this stores. For example, butter is the most common product that is subject to counterfeiting. Despite all the laws in force, some manufacturers still manage to write in the composition that does not correspond to the truth.
Alas, today there are no rapid methods available at the price for the determination of palm oil in a particular product. We, the end consumer, can, only by trying, find out which composition. And then the next time you buy a guaranteed “clean” product.
Another thing is technical specifications or technical conditions. The standards for such conditions are prescribed by the manufacturers themselves. This means that they can include in their products everything that is allowed today on the territory of the Russian Federation. And, unfortunately, a lot is allowed, including palm oil.
As a mom and a confectionery manufacturer, I always rely on my experience and the above rules when buying products. And I do not save on the health of loved ones.