Recently, this has been the hot news in all the foreign press. Some of them are:
Unhealthy oil gets a lickin’
The Australian, Australia – Oct 31, 2006
ARTERY-CLOGGING trans fats are likely to disappear from fast food and baked goods after KFC Corporation announced yesterday it was joining other outlets in …ÂÂAn oil change for McDonald’s
The Age, Australia – Oct 31, 2006
McDonald’s says its change of cooking oil will remove more than 415tonnes of trans fats from the Australian food supply. Hamburger …ÂÂ
You can read them on Google syndicated news.
But you know what is much more scarier in our country? Some of the hawkers are using re-cycled oil in their cooking. How do you know? The next time, try check and see if they are using a newly opened bottle of oil or are they pouring from some dubious looking tin? I kid you not. I was told that restaurants sell their re-cycled oil to hawkers. Oil that had been heated beyond the safe temperature, oil that has lots of God knows what fats inside and we are happily eating our char koay teow without a clue.
Of course, it is impossible not to eat outside foods but try to make that as a treat rather than the norm. Cook your own meals. Don’t be fooled by those ads where the mom treated her children to a meal of KFC as a sign of love.
I wonder if our local KFC is going to do something about it here now that US and UK are changing from using trans fat to some safer (more expensive) alternative?
On the other hand, I wonder if this is another campaign by some parties to undermine our palm oil? (happened previously) I hope to find some news on this.
So, love yourself, love your family, cook your own healthy food as much as you can.
what if I cook at home and I recycle the oil ?
not good also ar?
paupau – The oil we use for deep frying shouldn’t be used more than 2-3 times and mostly, the temperature we get from our normal stoves don’t reach the kind used by those in restaurants. You see how black the oil used by those deep fried foods sold by hawker? Scary man. Usually, I buy the cheaper oil for deep frying, like cap buruh etc and use once or twice and discard. For cooking I used the more expensive olive, sunflower oil.
I always throw away the oil for frying after the second use. If using an electric deep fryer we can recycle the oil a few times (4 to5 ) because the oil temperature is controlled such that it is not toxic to reused. Using recyle oil heated to a high temperature can cause cancer. So take less fried food like U Char Koay, Hum Ching Peng and so on…
sounds scary man, means eating out in hawker squares v risky business.
Have you heard or seen any recipe that calls for ‘spry’? It is actually a type of vegetable shortening. This type of fat although derived from vegetable, is a cheaper alternative to palm/corn/soybean oil. Shortening is made through the chemical process of hydrogenation of oils thus solidifies liquid oil. This process creates trans fat. Fast food places use this type of oil to deep their fries. Home cooked/fried food using regular cooking oils such as the palm/corn/soybean oil are safe as these oils are not hydrogenated.
For more info on Trans Fat, go here:
1. http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4776
2. http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2003/503_fats.html
Oh yeah, recycle oil kills…not now but later..and I heard there are suppose to have some kind of regulation on it. Heard from my sis, that a hawker selling “frying ghost” was apprehended by the authority because of it. My sis the oil looks like car engine oil….
I found your website through a web blog on the Overseas Singaporeans portal. I was very interested to read your comments about the kind of oil that certain of the more unscrupulous hawkers use for cooking, and I totally agree that this is a serious health factor. “Burnt” oil is rancid and loaded with carcinogens and goodness-know what other harmful chemicals, and is an even greater threat than trans-fats (although this is not excusing the use of the latter!). If people reported hawkers to the Public Health authorities for use of such oil, maybe we can put a stop to this abuse, both on the part of the hawkers and the restaurants that sell them this disgusting by-product. It may be of interest for you to know that in London (and I am sure in many other UK cities) many restaurants dispose of their used cooking oil by dumping it down the drains – this has also resulted in a serious environmental hazard as the used fat has coagulated and is blocking many drains as well as providing food for rats and cockroaches!