Know Your Food: Saturated Fats Are Not Created Equal

For several years now I've believed in being aware of the ingredients in the foods I'm eating and making informed food choices. But I'm starting to realize more recently just how much there is to learn before I can be truly informed in every aspect. As I embark on this quest, I thought I might as well share my findings here. So here is part one, regarding saturated fats.

Enjoy.

Pretty much everyone should know about saturated fats, so I'm not going to insult anyone's intelligence here. But what you may not know, and what I just found out, is, there are many different chemical types of saturated fats, and they are not all created equal.

Thanks to my baby's apparent milk intolerance (or possible allergy), I have eliminated most milk from my diet and continue to seek alternatives to the dairy I am still consuming. Having already eliminated milk, ice cream, and yogurt (though I do sneak a little in here and there), I figure the next thing to go is butter.

I've been using real butter for over a year now. I like the idea of "keeping it natural," versus using margarine or some other margarine-like spread. But of course, butter is dairy. So I need a replacement.

This morning I started thinking about using bacon grease. It seemed a little odd (gross?) at first, but then I started rooting around online and found out that it's actually quite common to use bacon grease in place of butter or even shortening.

Now you're probably thinking, "bacon grease?! Seriously?! Do you have a death wish, woman?"

Actually, as it turns out, switching to bacon grease makes a good deal of sense for me and my family. It may not be the right choice for everyone (if your body is threatening to shut down due to high choloesterol or heart disease, by all means keep away from the bacon grease!), but in moderation in an otherwise healthy individual it can't be any worse than butter.

Granted, we have probably been consuming too much butter in this house anyway; but the way I see it, switching to bacon grease should actually be better, since it takes a lot more effort to render the grease and we won't have as much of it, and so will use less of it in order to make it stretch more.

But on to my discussion of saturated fats not being equal.

At one point during my search this morning, I encountered a website entitled SkipThePie.org, a very handy search engine designed to give you the "skinny" on pretty much any food; it will break the food down for you, not only revealing all nutritional facts you might find on a food label, but also breaking the food down into its individual chemical components-- fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and so on.

So here I was on this website, looking at a comparison of bacon grease versus a "heart-healthy" margarine spread known as BENECOL Light. And I eventually scrolled down to the section outlining the fats and fatty acids content. I was impressed at the number of different chemical compounds represented in this list. You can look it all up for yourself if you're curious.

But to make a long story short, BENECOL Light contained two saturated fats which were not present in the bacon grease, and which-- after more research on a site called Chemical Book-- I found out can actually be hazardous to human health: arachidic acid and behenic acid, both of which turn out to be potentially harmful irritants to the eyes, skin, and respiratory system.

Bacon grease contains none of these hazardous fats; but the BENECOL contains .021g or arachidic acid and .01932g of behenic acid per 1 Tbsp. serving. It doesn't seem like a lot, but then who sticks to just 1 Tbsp. a day?

Granted, the bacon grease has a whole lot more saturated fat in all than the BENECOL, so for some people the BENECOL will still be the healthier option (though if you're using the BENECOL 5-6 times more often than you're using the bacon grease, it's really a toss-up). But be informed that you may experience some slight irritation to the eyes, skin (including the throat I presume), and respiratory system as a trade-off for improving your cholesterol.

It's all about being informed.