The Savvy Shopper. Rose Prince

       BISCUITS

      Tea 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