Cooking up ways to lose trans fat
New ban has bakers adjusting their recipes
Tony Soprano probably never gave a second thought to the trans fat in his sfogliatelle, but Joe Fiorentino has to figure out how to get it out of his.
The second phase of Boston's new ban on serving foods with trans fat at public eateries kicks in March 12, and city bakers are still scrambling to adjust their generations' old recipes to meet modern nutritional concerns. "It's a work in progress," says Fiorentino, manager at Mike's Pastry in the North End for the last 10 years. Mike's creamy cannoli fillings are now free of artificial trans fat and the bakers are working to achieve the right flakiness for the sfogliatelle - a traditional Italian cheese pastry.
Boston follows New York and several other US cities in an effort to remove artificial trans fat from unlabeled foods. The first phase of Boston's law required more than 1,620 restaurants to stop using trans fat-based cooking oils by Sept. 13 of last year. The second phase bans the fat from baked goods and other foods prepared at a range of eateries including movie theaters and convenience stores. Locally, Brookline and Cambridge have a similar law.
Artificial trans fat is produced when liquid vegetable oil is converted to a solid to make shortening. Shortening was favored over lard and butter because it was easy to store, had a higher melting point, and improved the shelf life of everything from muffins to crackers. But in the bad fat pecking order, trans fat is considered the most dangerous, having been linked to heart disease and other serious health problems. Nationally, products with artificial trans fat must now note the ingredient on their labels, which has sent many food producers scrambling to remove the fat from their products altogether.
At the Johnny's Foodmaster chain, whoopie pies are the challenge for bakery director Michael Donovan. The airy texture of the white filling in this popular treat is "really compromised" with the substitutes that are acceptable under the ban. "You'd have to go back to my father's father to get recipes" without trans fat, he says. Still, Donovan is working methodically to identify all goods produced for the stores that might contain trans fat, including deli items such as meatballs. Asked how sure he is that he's found it all, he answers, "98 percent."
Some trans fat occurs naturally, but artificial trans fat shortenings, which have been used in food products since World War II, are the focus of attention because they are consumed in large quantities. "We spend a lot of time regulating and controlling many substances that should not be in food." says Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. "In this case, there is direct evidence linking [artificial trans fat] to disease in the human population," he says.
Bakers understand the health concerns but say it is expensive and time-consuming to adapt recipes that have been perfected over generations. In addition, many are not satisfied with the alternatives acceptable under the new law. Palm oil, a shortening high in saturated fat, is an alternative but is temperature sensitive and harder to work. Often, it must be combined with other shortenings to soften its presence in fillings and delicate icings.
More importantly, if palm oil is used, "consumers will notice the difference in flavor, texture, and appearance," says Joe Boschetto, head of technical sales for Dawn Food Products, a distributor of ingredients for baked goods and bakery products. "At the end of the day, a baker wants you to come and buy and enjoy what he sells."
Ted Flanagan, at the small, two-year-old Sugar Bakery in West Roxbury, has converted his recipes to use zero trans-fat ingredients over the last several months. Icings are challenging, he says, and he'll switch to butter in March to satisfy the law without compromising taste for his customers. "I don't have far to go," he says.
"We're still experimenting," says Leidy Gutierrez, whose family runs the 19-year-old Quisqueya bakery in Jamaica Plain. So far, the approved shortenings she's tried are too heavy and harden the texture of the elaborate special occasion cakes they make. "We cannot sell hard cakes," she says with a smile.
Judy Phillips, a nutrition consultant hired by Boston's Public Health Commission to help bring bakers and other food purveyors in compliance with the new law, acknowledges that the ban is difficult for smaller shops but stresses how "incredibly dangerous" trans fat is. "It's a pretty pervasive ingredient, and we need to do what we can to get it out of the foods we eat," she says. Despite the challenges, she says, wholesale suppliers, large supermarkets, and smaller shops are all responding and trying to comply with the new regulations.
Au Bon Pain, a national chain with roots in Boston, has successfully adapted more than 50 items to remove trans fat from its menu, including several varieties of croissants, cookies, muffins, soups, and even salad dressings. Ed Frechette, senior vice president of marketing, says the company was alerted to concerns about trans fat more than five years ago by nutritionists on the company's advisory panel. While Au Bon Pain has met the deadline for eliminating trans fat from its products, he acknowledges that the process takes time and money.
"I am concerned for the smaller bakeries and mom-and-pop restaurants," says Frechette. "But I do think customers would understand higher pricing" to have healthier foods.
Would Tony Soprano? 