OIL CHANGE 2005

JULIE GALLAGHER

Replacing trans fats in the in-store bakery is no piece of cake.

That's the consensus at a handful of supermarkets that have tinkered with substitutes for hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils, which are widely used in frosting, cakes and cookies.

"Even just reducing a product's trans fat [content] might change its integrity and the customer might not purchase it anymore," said Maria Brous, spokeswoman for Publix Super Markets, Lakeland, Fla. "A cookie or a turnover still has to taste the way it's meant to taste. That's the obstacle."

Retailers and suppliers are scrambling to reformulate recipes before the U.S. Food & Drug Administration's trans fat nutrition labeling rule takes effect Jan. 1. Trans fats already raise red flags with consumers. Though the FDA isn't regulating trans fat content, simply requiring companies to include it on an information line on nutrition labels will make shoppers more aware of a potentially unhealthy ingredient.

Meanwhile, the Washington-based American Bakers Association has asked the FDA for a six-month extension on the deadline, citing problems related to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The hurricanes limited "the availability of resin used to make plastic bags for breads," and created obstacles to distributing imported trans fat substitutes, the ABA said.

For their part, retailers are curbing the fat to appeal to health-conscious customers.

"We targeted everything that had hydrogenated shortenings in them and put together a plan to either replace them with butter, [canola, soybean or corn] oil or [some other] shortening with no trans fat," said Paul Supplee, director of bakery operations at the upscale Edina, Minn.-based Lunds and Byerly's chain. "Over the past year, we've changed about 60% of our bakery formulas. The goal is to make sure that our products don't change in flavor or texture and we have internal chefs who test that."

For Lunds and Byerly's, the goal is to remove trans fats from all bakery items by the end of the year. Certain desserts like the retailer's chocolate chip cookies and apple pie already were free of hydrogenated oils because they've always been made with butter, while other items had hydrogenated oil in their list of ingredients.

"Our cakes, butter cream icings and cookies are, or were, high in trans fat," Supplee conceded. "One of the good things about [hydrogenated shortening] is that it gives a long shelf life."

The process of hydrogenation converts a liquid vegetable oil into a semi-solid fat whose consistency is comparable to that of butter, said Gerald McNeill, director of research and development, Loders Croklaan, a Channahon, Ill.-based palm oil producer. "Oil [shortenings] tend to degrade rapidly through oxidation and give an 'off' flavor, while hydrogenated oils are much more stable," he said.

That presents a challenge for bakers. "A shortening's shelf life, more than its flavor, changes the way a recipe works," Supplee pointed out. "If you have a hard shortening you have to do something to it to make it work the same way as [hydrogenated oil]. It's not so much of a flavor concern as it is a concern with the way the recipe works and its shelf life."

In many revised recipes, Supplee traded trans fats for shorter shelf life, but it's a compromise the retailer is willing to make. Other supermarket chains are not willing to compromise a product's characteristics.

"Doughnuts present a real issue," said Maureen Murphy, consumer service manager, Price Chopper, Schenectady, N.Y. "There is no product on the market today [to replace hydrogenated oil for use in doughnuts]. What is available is palm oil and that is just switching one [unhealthy] oil for another."

Saturated fat is essential for palm oil's texture, according to McNeill. It can be made into different consistencies based on a recipe's requirements. Although substituting palm oil for hydrogenated oil will eliminate the trans fat content, it will increase the level of saturated fat in the recipe, McNeill said.

"The debate is, do you go with trans fat or saturated fat?" said Supplee. "Ten years ago saturated fats were the devil and you did whatever you could to get away from them and trans fats were preferable. In order to get moistness in cakes, you need either trans fat or something like palm oil, which has saturated fat."

Although the American Heart Association recommends avoiding trans fat, saturated fat and cholesterol, supermarkets are weighing the pros and cons of palm oil.

"A typical vegetable oil simply doesn't work well in many recipes," wrote Jane Andrews, a nutritionist at Wegmans Food Markets, in an article that appeared on the retailer's Web site. "Our customers would not accept the oily taste of a frosting made with liquid oil. New oil blends, some containing tropical fats like palm oil, are being tested and look promising when used in heart-healthy proportions. Other fats like lard in piecrust or butter in a cake would taste fine but could cost more, spoil more readily and be less healthy." Wegmans began reducing trans fats in baked goods in 1992, when it developed "Food You Feel Good About" breads in its central bake shop, Andrews said. "We knew then partially hydrogenated oils were a problem so we converted most of our bread formulas to liquid soybean oil," she said. "Though only a small amount of trans fat had been in each slice, the change was the right thing to do and it didn't make any difference in the taste."

In addition to taste, an ingredient's cost is an important consideration.

"[Vegetable] oil is generally about the same price as [hydrogenated oil] and sometimes it costs less," Supplee said. "Butter is more expensive but it has qualities that [oil and non-hydrogenated shortenings] don't have, like flavor. People are willing to pay more for butter."

Supplee anticipates that cost won't always be an issue. Trans fat-free shortenings "are expensive because their manufacturers don't make that much of them," he said. "I believe that in the future, when most people are using trans fat-free shortenings, they'll be cheaper."

Cutting trans fats from recipes has increased costs for Publix.

"Alternatives to hydrogenated shortening are more expensive," Brous said. "We look at every aspect in order not to pass along the increase in price to our customers. However, it is possible for our customers to experience a slight increase in the price of product." Publix is reviewing all its bakery items to see if trans fats can be reduced or eliminated. "We're looking at ingredients and recipes to determine whether they can be reformulated without disrupting the taste, flavor or integrity of product," Brous said. "Not all bakery items will be reduced or trans fat-free."

The retailer's creme cakes and most breads will be free of trans fats, Brous said. Publix will monitor shopper response and requests relating to the reformulated products. Though retailers are not required to provide nutritional information for all products offered in the bakeries, Publix's customers who have questions about ingredients in a specific item can refer to www.publix.com, Brous said.

As Lunds and Byerly's rolls out new products, the retailer is letting consumers know they're free of trans fats with labels on the front of the packages.

The Skinny on Fat

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn't require supermarkets to provide information on the fat content of ready-to-eat goods that have been processed and prepared primarily in the store. Nevertheless, some supermarkets are doing so voluntarily.

Among them is Lunds and Byerly's in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn. "We owe that to our customers," said Paul Supplee, director of bakery operations for Lund Food Holdings, parent company of Lunds and Byerly's. The retailer will not begin adding trans fat nutritional facts on labels until Jan. 1, 2006. In the meantime, customers are checking lists of ingredients.

"Information about trans fats has been in the media and our customers are pretty well educated," Supplee said. "They come back to the bakery and they do read labels. They're savvy enough to know that when they see the words 'partially hydrogenated' or 'hydrogenated' that it means trans fat."

To comply with the FDA's labeling rule, food manufacturers must start including trans fat content information on packages of goods that are sold on or after Jan. 1.

The regulation was written in response to a citizen petition from the consumer advocacy group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and is based on studies that find trans fat acids increase low-density lipoprotein, or "bad" cholesterol, according to the FDA.

It estimates that three years after the rule takes effect, trans fat labeling will prevent between 600 and 1,200 cases of coronary heart disease and 250 to 500 deaths each year. It takes about three years for lower LDL-cholesterol to result in lower CHD risk, according to the FDA.

Nutrition labels don't tell the whole story behind fat content. Checking the ingredients lists is a good rule of thumb for consumers who want the real skinny on trans fats. That's because food manufacturers can report trans fat content that is less than 0.5 grams per serving size as zero trans fat.

Trans fat levels can really add up, especially if someone is consuming multiple serving sizes of a food that they thought was completely free of the fats, according to Gerald McNeill, director of research and development, Loders Croklaan, a Channahon, Ill.-based palm oil producer.

"The labeling [requirements] have a cutoff of 0.5 grams of trans fat," so levels below that can be labeled as zero trans fat, McNeill said. "From the consumer standpoint this [system] is not ideal. A person might eat four serving sizes and think they've consumed zero trans fats."