Читать книгу The Savvy Shopper - Rose Prince - Страница 41
ОглавлениеTea and biscuits being a national pastime, it comes as no surprise that the crunchy one of the duo escapes much scrutiny. In any case, the very longevity of some brands suggests that our biscuit habits are hard to break. Who, for example, remembers a time when Bourbon Creams did not exist?
However, the biscuit world may be about to change. In January 2006 new labelling laws came into play in the US that will send shock-waves through Britain’s biscuit makers. The issue is the transfats in hydrogenated fat, a prime ingredient in mass-produced biscuits (and snack food) that is linked to a host of health troubles. From January packs must state the presence of transfats, a move that the American Food and Drug Administration believes will save lives. There are no plans yet for such labelling in the UK, but that may change.
Manufacturers maintain that hydrogenated fat helps biscuits store well, but the low price of the stuff is really the big attraction. However, in a nation where childhood obesity and type-2 diabetes are on the rampage, should we eat more, cheaper biscuits or relish the luxury of the occasional one packed with butter (which has fewer of the negative health implications of hydrogenated fats)? And is fat the tip of the iceberg in the biscuit debate? What else is added to biscuits in the name of innovation?
What ingredients should be in a biscuit?
A plain sweet biscuit, like shortbread, should be just butter, sugar and flour. Varying the ratio of these ingredients affects the texture: a high butter content makes the biscuit crumbly and rich – and more expensive; a greater ratio of starch (from flour) delivers a harder, drier biscuit. But it’s unusual to see butter on a pack’s ingredients list at all. In its place will be the dreaded hydrogenated fat and a wealth of other additives designed to colour, flavour and preserve.
What’s wrong with hydrogenated fat?
Plenty, and the authorities agree, though there are no plans yet in the UK to label the transfat content in foods containing hydrogenated fat. Transfats are created when fat is hydrogenated, which means that the fat is hardened and the melting temperature raised by a chemical process. Transfats raise cholesterol, reduce the nutritional value of breast milk and are linked with low birth weight. They also reduce the immune response, affect fertility, disrupt enzymes that metabolise chemical carcinogens and drugs, and increase the formation of free radicals that cause tissue damage. Transfats also raise blood insulin, a factor in the development of diabetes. In the UK, biscuits containing hydrogenated fat must mention it in the ingredients list. It will usually appear as ‘hydrogenated vegetable oil’. The oil itself is often mixed and can be derived from various plants, including rapeseed, sunflower, soya, maize, coconut and palm kernel oils. Some of these oils are saturated.
Surely butter is no healthier than hydrogenated fat?
On the contrary, evidence is emerging that butter is by far the more nutritious of the two. The fat in butter is saturated, so it is not recommended that we eat large quantities of it, but it does have many benefits. It contains ‘true’ vitamins that are fat soluble, therefore easily absorbed and more potent. The saturated fat in butter is antiviral and antimicrobial and is burned rapidly for energy – faster than unsaturated vegetable oils, which are more readily stored by the body. It aids digestion and the lauric acid in butter helps prevent tooth decay. Butter may even help you lose weight. The calories from butter are more rapidly burned than those found in corn or olive oil. Butter from grass-fed animals contains conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a potent anti-cancer agent that also aids weight loss and promotes lean muscle tissue. Butter contains only a fraction of the transfat found in hydrogenated fats.
What other fats or oils are used to make biscuits?
As concern about transfats increases, the industry has turned to other technology. Some labels will read ‘vegetable oil and vegetable fat’, which means the manufacturer has combined ordinary vegetable oils (refined palm, rapeseed or oil from another plant) or vegetable oils that have been hardened by another means. Fractionation is popular with bakers; this process separates (using a centrifuge) the saturated fat in vegetable oils from the unsaturated fat. The saturated fat, which has a higher melting point, will have the firmness that is desirable for baking. Remember, however, that you will be consuming a higher proportion of saturated fat. Lower-fat vegetable oils can be hardened using ‘interestification’, a more complex process in which the fatty acid molecules are altered and rearranged using enzymes. All this technology – you ask yourself, on the basis that we are not meant to stuff ourselves with biscuits anyway, why not just eat the odd butter biscuit?
What else is in a biscuit?
There’s sugar, often plenty of it, and if it is refined beet sugar (see Sugar, page 388) it consists of so-called empty calories – in other words, it has no nutritional value at all. Buy biscuits made with pure unrefined cane sugar or fruit sugars; there is little nutritional value in either but the process by which they are made is environmentally sounder. Check the salt content; this may be marked as sodium, which is nearly three times the strength of salt. The recommended salt intake for adults is 6g per day – that’s approximately 20 digestives. Beware innovations: wacky-flavoured biscuits will have their fair share of artificial additives and there will be industry trickery, including using plum-based jams and adding raspberry flavouring (Jammie Dodgers, for example, although the manufacturer, Burton’s, has removed the unpleasant red colouring and say that plum jam makes it stretchier).
Should biscuits contain salt?
Not if they contain good-quality ingredients. Almost all manufactured biscuits contain salt, sometimes too much.
Are there genetically modified ingredients in biscuits?
The Food Standards Agency admits that if soya or maize appears on the ingredients list, a non-organic biscuit could contain up to 0.9 per cent genetically modified material – if that material exceeds 0.9 per cent of the biscuit, its presence must be stated on the label.
Which mass-market biscuits should I buy?
Read labels, looking for mention of hydrogenated vegetable oil, and do not be reassured by the words ‘partly hydrogenated’ – it means much the same thing. Do not be taken in by words such as ‘farmhouse’ and ‘made to a traditional recipe’, especially when there are sulphate preservatives and hydrogenated fat in the ingredients list. Refreshingly, McVitie’s uses no hydrogenated fat in popular biscuits such as HobNobs and Chocolate Digestives, nor does it use artificial colour or flavour in either. Scottish shortbread is also a good choice, often being made with just butter, sugar and flour.
Where to buy biscuits
Blue Mango, 7 Lemon Market, Lemon Street, Truro,Cornwall TR21 2PNTel: 01872 277116
Delicious cheese biscuits made with unsalted Cornish butter, Doves Farm flour, Greens of Glastonbury Cheddar and a pinch of cayenne, rolled with sesame and celery seeds. Mail order, or visit the shop in Truro, where sweet biscuits are available.
Doves Farm Foods, Salisbury Road, Hungerford,Berkshire RG17 0RFTel: 01488 684880www.dovesfarm-organic.co.uk
Organic chocolate chip cookies and other biscuits, including raisin and honey, Cheddar cheese, lemon zest, and very good digestives.
Duchy Originals, The Old Ryde House, 393 Richmond Road,East Twickenham TW1 2EFTel: 020 8831 6800www.duchyoriginals.com
Rich butter biscuits, both sweet and savoury, made with traditionally grown oats and grains.
Frank’s Biscuits, Unit 12a, Holmer Trading Estate, Hereford,Herefordshire HRI IJSTel: 01432 376729www.franksluxurybiscuits.co.uk
Frank Cornthwaite bakes shortbread with pure Somerset butter and flour – so good he has succeeded in selling it to Scotland in true coals-to-Newcastle style. Mail order available.
The Gingerbread Shop, Church Cottage, Grasmere, Ambleside,Cumbria LA22 9SWTel: 015394 35428www.grasmeregingerbread.co.uk
Extraordinary chewy gingerbread with no equal. Mail order available.
Honeybuns, Naish Farm, Stony Lane, Holwell, Sherborne,Dorset DT9 5LJTel: 01963 23597www.honeybuns.co.uk
Made on a Dorset farm, these biscuits are highly popular with children. Baked by the appropriately named Goss Custard family, they are made with local eggs, butter and gluten-free grain. Mail order available.
Island Bakery Organics, Tobermory, Isle of Mull PA75 6PYTel: 01688 302223www.islandbakery.co.uk
Prize-winning biscuits hand baked by Joseph Reade on the Isle of Mull, using vegetable oils but never hydrogenated ones. Available online from www.realfooddirect.co.uk.
Konditor and Cook, 22 Cornwall Road, London SEI 8TWTel: 020 7261 0456www.konditorandcook.com
This small chain of four London shops uses superb ingredients (free-range eggs, pure butter) in its beautifully made biscuits. Try the lemon moons, made with ground almonds and topped with a thin layer of meringue.
Lavender Blue, I Sandway Cottage, Bourton, Gillingham,Dorset SP8 5BHTel: 01747 821333
Somerset butter is used in these grown-up biscuits: white chocolate and lavender, cranberry and walnut, orange and cardamom. Mail order available.
Macgregors Original Oatcakes, Highland Avenue,Dunoon, Argyll PA23 8PBTel: 01369 704858www.macgregorsoatcakes.co.uk
Very thin, high-baked biscuits – the best biscuits for cheese on the market. Mail order available.
Popina, Unit 3, Sleaford Industrial Estate, Sleaford Street,London SW8 5ABTel: 020 7622 3444www.popina.co.uk
Isadora Popovic’s biscuits are made with entirely natural ingredients, using imaginative recipes from all over Europe.
