Chocolate vs Crisps

Slinkie · 15 Feb 2013 at 13:48

Hi all,

What is the difference between the fat in chocolate vs the fat in crisps?

I am not talking about calories vs calories or which is worse for you than the other. I want to know what types of fats are in each one and how differently they affect you (eg the butterfats in chocolate vs the deep frieds veg oil fats in crisps). My knowledge of saturated fats vs unsaturated fats etc is abysmal but thought it might have something to do with this?

I have some digestive issues (celiac) but do find that fatty foods can also make me a little bit ill. However, I can eat chocolate and it doesn’t affect me but crisps seem to make me ill. I just wanted to know the difference as I always assumed chocolate was fatty.

smit101 · 15 Feb 2013 at 17:15

The fats in the foods you mention will be heavily processed (especially the crsips) and far removed from their original state, likely containing high levels of hydrogenated oils/fats which produce artificial/synthetic transfats, these fats can't be metabolised/utilised by the body in the way natural fats from wholefoods can (don't confuse transfats that occur naturally in nature with the synthetic/artificial kind produced from food processing).

If you want to avoid bad/unhealthy fats then don't eat processed/packaged foods.

A good quality chocolate bar will likely contain cacao butter as the fat which is ok, but you'd need to find out how the bars are made, eg how they are processed/ingredients used etc. (high cacao content is better, usually means less sugar and other ingredients added).

As for crisps, leave them in the shop!

sand_dune · 15 Feb 2013 at 17:44

smit101 said:
The fats in the foods you mention will be heavily processed (especially the crsips) and far removed from their original state

Does the same apply to when I use a deep fryer to make some chips of my own with vegetable oil (or cooking oil) from supermarkets?

smit101 · 15 Feb 2013 at 19:05

IMO you should use an oil which is stable under high heat, the standard polyunsaturated sunflower/veg oils from the supermarket are IMO a poor choice, as they are volatile at high temperatures and are easily damaged.

I don't deep fry food myself so I can't really speak from experience, if I had to deep fry I would use the same fats that I use to shallow fry, which are animal fats such as tallow or lard, but 90% of the time coconut oil. (it wouldn't be very kind on the pocket to deep fry in coconut oil though! :eek:

)

Some people on here I believe use various nut oils such as peanut oil, but like I say I don't deep fry so I'm not sure how these oils fare at high temps.

Jokester · 15 Feb 2013 at 19:09

When I was looking for the best oil to use in my wok the recommendation was groundnut oil due to it's high smoke point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_point

Edit: Need to try out some Ghee I think!

Glaucus · 15 Feb 2013 at 19:13

Beef dripping.
All natural. And extremely high smoke point.

I wouldn't touch veg oil these days except olive oil, due to all the. Clinical trials on it.
Ghee is also very suitable.

But your likely to get a milliner different opinions, depending which philosophy the poster has, with regards to cholestrol/saturated fat/oxidisation/refinement/hydrogynisation.