Food That Kills - Fried Food Can Kill
Daily we consume fried foods in one form or another, e.g, cutlets,tikkis, pakoras, samosas, pories, paranthas, french fries, chips,, gulab jamuns, omelettes etc. Frying refers to cooking of food in plenty of hot oil so that the item is largely immersed in the oil or floats over it. Fried foods cause a lot of harmful effects in human body as you can see below.
1. High fat content : Fried foods have high fat content and are energy dense. A regular consumption of fried foods may lead to fat intake fat in excess of body demands. Example, a medium size poorie provides 2.2 gms fat and 70 Kcal and 3.3 gms of fat . if leads to undesirable weight gain that is very dangerous to human health.
2. Formation of trans-fatty acids : At high temperature, natural form of fats may undergo change into trans-form. Trans-fatty acids increase blood cholesterol levels even more than other animal fats do. They also reduce HDL (good) cholesterol and increase the tendency of blood clotting, thus increasing the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD).
3. Chemical changes in oil and formation of harmful chemicals : Frying leads to undesirable alteration in chemical composition of oil. Chemical changes are more when the oil are exposed to intense heat during deep frying. Heating edible oils beyond certain temperature result to formation of several volatile as well as non volatile decomposed products VDP are inhaled by the cook during food preparation. After food preparation , VDP find their way to the gut of the consumer, VDP irritates and damage the inner lining of the gut which may cause bowel upset manifesting as abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. On frying, foods releases their moisture in oil. Heat induced decomposition of oil is accelerated by this moisture. Moisture agitates hot oil, hastening its chemical breakdown. Prolonged heating results in formation of several other harmful chemicals in oil, one of which is acrolein, which besides irritating the gut lining may also be a cancer causuing compound. Prolonged or repeated heating of polyunsaturated fats also produces toxic substances such as polymerized products, free radicals, etc. Harmful effects of these are explained in a separate note on free radicals at the end of the chapter. Note that the polymerized fats are more easily oxidized compared to saturated fats. Saturated fats are resistant to oxidation even at frying temperatures. This is why foods cooked in saturated fats (e.g ghee) have long shelf life.
4. Nutrition loss : Frying exposes oil to a much higher temperature. At these level of temperature, many nutrients, especially vitamins are destroyed and dietary proteins are adversely affected. Beyond 150⁰C , there is progressive decrease in vitamin A and vitamin E content of the oil.
Fair recommendation to frying of foods : Take the following precautions if you are using fried foods to reduce the damaged caused by them in human body.
1. Oil with high smoking point should be chosen for frying. Smoking point of an oil is the temperature at which it starts emitting a blue haze indicating formation of decomposing products. The minimum temperature necessary for frying is around 200⁰C. Therefore fats with smoking point more than 220⁰C are suitable for frying. Most vegetable cooking oils have adequately high smoking point. Butter and coconut oil are not suitable for frying due to low smoking point.
2. Food should be fried at optimum point temperature nearly 200⁰C. When frying temperature is too low, food tends to absorb too much oil. Frying at a very high temperature often leads to browning of the surface, while the core may still be raw.
3. Use a non sticky pan, like tawa and karahi for frying. Fat content of fried foods can be somewhat controlled by using them.
4. Do not reheat the oil. Oils are often heated for long duration at high temperature and used repeatedly during frying operation. This is not desirable. Heating the oil lowers the smoking point. Frying foods with low smoking point oils also leaves the product raw from inside even though the surface has turned brown. It is better to use the minimum possible quantity of oil for frying to avoid wastage and should be heated only when raw material is ready for cooking. For best result, oil should be discarded after one time use. However, if economy does not permit, used oil should be stored in a refrigerator till it is reused. It should be filtered before storage so as to remove burnt food particles which otherwise will cause deterioration in oil quality. Oil should not be stored for long before it is used again.
5. Try as much as you can to drain excess oil out from fried food. It is a good idea to put fried food on an oil absorbent paper (e.g tissue paper) and press it between the folds to remove excess oil before eating.
You can now see the effect of fried food on human existence and the possible precautions to take for a better result. Comments are welcomed for future improvements. What do you think?
