Interesterified Oils - WHAT is that?

I haven't seen this ingredient in food labels much, but I did recently see it listed in the ingredients of mini cinnamon rolls at Costco. My boys love to tease me/push the envelope and see if I'll go for it when they suggest we buy junk. :)

I'd seen the name but didn't really know what it was so I did some digging. Apparently it was created as a replacement for trans fats, which causes cancer. This newer oil is created by combining stearic acid, found in chocolate and considered a relatively safe saturated fat, with vegetable oils that contain unsaturated fats.

Sounds like it might be ok, right?

Well, in a study published in 2007, they found that interesterified fats and trans fats had a similar negative affect. Both increased total cholesterol, lowered good HDL cholesterol, raised bad LDL cholesterol, and increased fasting blood glucose by 20%!

That's scary. Frustrating. Not that we really thought cinnamon rolls are healthy, but I think a lot of people rationalize these kinds of treats like "well, I only eat these every once in a while." But if we're eating Hershey's kisses "every once in a while", and we eat chips "every once in a while", and we have alcohol, or fried foods here and there, it all adds up.

Like I said in my last post, it's difficult to eat healthy in the United States. Our food standards aren't what they should be or what we wish they were.

Another reason to bake and cook at home. It's so much easier to control what we put in our bodies. <3

To end on a happy note, because there ARE healthy treats out there, here are two yummy things you can buy that are sweetened with coconut sugar, made with almond flour, and YOU get to add a healthy oil like ghee, grass-fed butter or avocado oil to the mix:

-Trader Joe's Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie mix- found in the baking section - add milk, vanilla and a healthy oil - takes 5 minutes to prepare and get in the over!

-Simple Mills Brownie Mix- you can buy this at Sprouts and probably Whole Foods or Mother's Market- add eggs, oil, and milk and throw it in the oven!

Enjoy!!