WE ARE WHAT WE EAT

[LizG]

I use rice bran oil and not much of it at that. How does that rate in the scheme of things? I'm happy to change

[Marilyn]

I use Rice Bran Oil too...and a small bottle lasts us about a month.
Tip....don't buy the woolworth's "Select" brand Rice Bran Oil. It is thinner, and tends to burn off. Not the same quality as the Alpha One. I compared the oils last week...Select does not come close. Cheap substitute.
I never deep fry anything, only shallow fry about twice a week, and use Rice Bran Spray Oil for much of my cooking...

[plaques]

I'm a fish and chip man. Nice piece of fresh cod or haddock with oven chips and peas once a week. To most of my friends this represents a hot line to the grim reaper. But to quote Tom Lehrer, "When you attend a funeral you hope that sooneral or later they'l do the same for you"

[Tizer]

Rice bran oil...now that's interesting because we don't use it here in the UK and I've never looked hard enough to see if it's on sale in any of our supermarkets. Of course you've got it out there due to your trade with Asian countries. It's a byproduct of the rice milling industry and has to be quickly extracted from the rice bran before it goes rancid. In my post replying to Tripps I've referred to the oleic acid as being `omega neutral' and preferable to polyunsaturates; you'll also see oleic described as `monounsaturates', so I'll refer now to monos (good) and polys (bad). (Keep in mind that the amounts and proportions of these fatty acids vary to some extent from one brand of oil to another so it's not possible to give exact figures and I'll stick to one set of data to allow comparison.)

Standard sunflower oil has only about 20% mono whereas rapeseed and olive oils have 60-70%. Rice bran oil has about 40% mono so it's inferior to rapeseed and olive but better than sunflower on this basis. We can look at the question from a different angle, one that will especially please Stanley with his love of olive oil. Instead of seeing how much mono an oil has, let's look at how little poly it contains. The sunflower oil has 70%, rice bran oil 40%, rapeseed oil 30% and olive oil about 12%. (Of these oils, rapeseed has the lowest amount of saturates and rice bran oil the highest. Some would say the saturates are bad for us, but that's debatable.)

The conclusion then is that rice bran comes halfway between sunflower (bad) and rapeseed/olive (good). If you can find rapeseed oil I'd go for that rather than rice bran, but olive is still better. What colour is your rice bran oil? When extracted from the bran it's brown and if it's light in colour it must be refined which will take out some of the good antioxidants and vitamins. That's were an extra virgin oil such as Stanley’s' extra virgin olive scores very high, it hasn't been refined and retains all the goodies. An unrefined `extra virgin' rice bran oil would have more of these goodies than the basic oil but it would probably be a rather unpleasant colour and it would still score low on the monos/polys rating. Peanut (groundnut) oil has a similar but slightly better monos/polys score than rice bran.

If you're not forced to buy the very cheapest oil and you're not using it to deep fry repeatedly and you don't pour big amounts into your pan, then go for extra virgin olive oil. We keep that and standard rapeseed oil in the cupboard - the extra virgin olive oil has a very strong flavour which is not alway appropriate and that's when the rapeseed oil comes in handy. If you buy extra virgin oils always keep them cool and in the dark.

And don't forget, you don't have to avoid the so-called `unhealthy' foods all the time. They're only unhealthy if you eat far too much of them!

Sorry if this is rather a long post...but you did ask!

[LizG]

Thanks for the interesting post. The colour of the oil is quite light and according to the label contains only "Extra-cold filtered rice bran oil". I bought rice bran oil because it has no flavour and a high smoke point - 250C according to the label. The other reason is that it's easier to clean off the oven than olive oil. It doesn't stick in globs! I think the oil you call rapeseed we call canola.

I use Rice Bran Oil too...and a small bottle lasts us about a month.
Tip....don't buy the woolworth's "Select" brand Rice Bran Oil. It is thinner, and tends to burn off. Not the same quality as the Alpha One. I compared the oils last week...Select does not come close. Cheap substitute.
I never deep fry anything, only shallow fry about twice a week, and use Rice Bran Spray Oil for much of my cooking...

I'm with you Marilyn. A bottle lasts us ages too; unfortunately I just bought the 'Select' brand; I generally buy Alfa 0ne but couldn't get it.

I got a newsletter this week from the local Physio; here's part of an article,

DO YOU KNOW WHICH ARE THE GOOD FATS?

Which fats should I eat lots (but not unlimited) amounts of?
Unsaturated fats, found in fish, olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds, are the good fats we’ve been hearing about a lot more in recent years. These plant based fats are now being shown to offer extraordinary health benefits, including fighting cancer, improving cardiovascular health and fighting weight gain and obesity.
The following fatty foods can, in appropriate amounts, keep you healthy and even help you lose weight.

Olive Oil
Olive oil is rich in cancer-fighting antioxidants and monounsaturated fats beneficial for heart health. A recent study In the United States found that a diet rich in olive oil resulted in higher levels of a hormone responsible for breaking down fats in the body. It also found the more you have of it, the lower your body mass index tends to be. Make olive oil your cooking fat of choice and use it in salad dressings and sauces.

I'm convinced me, I'll go back to the extra virgin olive oil and just scrub the oven harder.

[Stanley]

You are both obviously interested in which fats are best for you. Look for a copy of 'The Omega Diet' by Artemis Simapoulis. Very readable, accurate information and based on the Cretan diet. Lots of recipes as well. Based on the latest lipid research and well worth having a look at.

[Tizer]

Liz, the description `Extra-cold filtered rice bran oil' suggest to me that the oil is solvent-extracted, not pressed, otherwise they'd have called it cold-pressed. They will probably have filtered it through something that absorbs the brown pigment and removes any insoluble material. I agree with your physio except the opening sentence "Unsaturated fats, found in fish, olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds, are the good fats" needs modification because "seeds" includes both good high mono oil (rapeseed/canola) and bad high poly oil (sunflower). Better to be more specific and say "The unsaturated fats found in fish, olive oil, avocado, nuts and rapeseed/canola, are the good fats". (Note also that I've left out the comma after "unsaturated fats", again to make it more specific...but then I'm just an old pedant!). Avocado and nut oils are high mono but I didn't mention them earlier because they're not common oils, at least not here in the UK.

When I call sunflower oil `bad' I mean by comparison with, say, olive oil and I'm not suggesting it's some kind of poison. No food is a poison for the general population. (For some individuals a food may act as a poison, as when a person with serious peanut allergy could die from eating one peanut, but that's a different story). Foods only become a problem when we eat too much or we eat the wrong balance of food types.

`Canola' is the name that was given to rapeseed by the Canadian growers who thought people were offended and put off by the word `rape'. We still mostly call it rapeseed here in Europe but the word canola has been picked up in other countries. Correctly it should only be used to describe rapeseed meeting the specifications of the Canadian Canola Association but of course they're quite happy for the rest of the world to think they're eating their rapeseed and to ask for canola. We used to know a wonderful lady, now sadly no longer with us, who had a loud, posh voice and took great delight in shouting "Rape!" whenever she saw yellow fields of the plant!

[Whyperion]

Wandered down the Indian Isle at Burnley Tesco's Sat Night ( specialist Indian producers in larger packs , Naan breads 30% more expensive than a couple of isles down . Noticed one of the large cans in there was a mix of some oil and Mustard Oil ( I wonder what that's used best for )

[Marilyn]

...probably best used as a poultice for stubborn bum boils or something, Whypes...

[Stanley]

You have to be careful with Canola. Some has been 'improved' by modifying it for longer shelf life.

[Tizer]

Stanley, Mrs Tiz and I got deep into discussion yesterday about a subject that perhaps you might one day address in your history articles. We bounced around ideas about the English diet in the 1700s/1800s, the movement of rural people into towns, the transport of food, how the new mill workers cooked meals in their houses etc. It all revolved around the English transition from agriculture to industry, rural to urban and how this changed food preparation and diet. Some aspects are obvious and well-documented but we kept finding others which seemed worthy of further investigation, in particular the `interconnectedness' of the above noted changes. For example, coal was becoming more widely used in industry and the canals provided a better means to transport it, but when did it begin to be used in the houses of ordinary folk and did it change their way of cooking food?

Early industrial workers would have still been in the country (e.g. water-powered industry) and would probably have access to allotments and space for a pig. Even those in towns in the early days might have kept a pig and grown some veg. But at some point (the coming of the steam engine?) it all changed with the building of dense, back to back housing. Did people in these later houses cook their meals or was it easier and cheaper to buy street food (the early takeaways)? Did people in towns have access to allotments at that time? What was the limiting factor governing population density of those towns - space for houses, bringing in food, bringing in fuel? So many questions!

As is so often the case, boundaries and transition zones are the most disturbing and disrupting places and times but also the most interesting and exciting!

[Stanley]

I don't think I have ever done any writing concentrating solely on diet and cooking. Dorothy Hartley's book, 'Food in England' is the best source I have ever come across (Get one of the older hardback copies, the line drawings are reproduced better) because she details cooking methods as well as the diet. Until the advent of the gas cooker in the late 19th century all cooking was done either on open fires or purpose made iron stoves using wood, peat or after 1800 in Barlick, coal brought in by the canal. As for food sources, in both rural areas and the towns many people had access to a small plot of land and gardens or the cottage pig were very important. As density of housing increased there was less access to land and the long hours in factories cut back on the time for preparing and cooking food particularly in textile districts where women were employed in the mills. A collateral effect of this was that children no longer learned cooking by watching their mother to the same extent. From the mid 19th century you see the rise of retail shops preparing cooked food, the most common were pie shops but later fish and chip shops appeared as well, usually with the arrival of the railway which could bring in fresh fish. Many greengrocers in towns like Barlick had their own gardens producing for the shop and most food was locally produced. Later in the 19th century local supplies were inadequate and factors like better internal transport and maritime improvements meant a greater reliance on imported food the distribution of which was controlled by merchants and the market. This led to more value being extracted from the trade by excess profits and widespread adulteration. It's not generally recognised but this was the major factor in the initiation of the Co-operative Societies, to ensure food quality.
So, the broad answer is that Lack of access to land, coupled with improvements in transport gave the opportunity to commercialise the provision of food and the sad fact is that food quality and purity suffered. We can see the same syndrome today in the effect of the food processors and the supermarkets. In the pursuit of profit they have modified our food and not always to our advantage. There is of course the parallel story of the development of agriculture and the story of the drovers and the drove roads. All fascinating stuff!
I like the idea of you and Mrs Tiz sat in front of the stove having a conversation/seminar on food. I'd love to be there with you!

[Stanley]

PS. A question. I was once told that it was impossible to eat a pigeon a day for seven days as it took longer than a day to digest a bird so you ended up with a choked system. Do you think there could be any truth in that?

[David Whipp]

PS. A question. I was once told that it was impossible to eat a pigeon a day for seven days as it took longer than a day to digest a bird so you ended up with a choked system. Do you think there could be any truth in that?

Haven't a clue, but there are plenty on the square if anyone wants to experiment.

[hartley353]

During my life time I have eaten many wood pidgeons, on occasion when there have been big bags, possibly every day for a week. As a result of this consumption I have never had any digestive problems, there is very little meat on a pidgeon. The average restaurant steak is probably the equivalent of eight pidgeons.

[PostmanPete]

During my life time I have eaten many wood pidgeons, on occasion when there have been big bags, possibly every day for a week. As a result of this consumption I have never had any digestive problems, there is very little meat on a pidgeon. The average restaurant steak is probably the equivalent of eight pidgeons.

I would imagine that it would take a lot longer than seven days to digest a wooden pigeon......

wood pigeon.jpg

[hartley353]

During my life time I have eaten many wood pidgeons, on occasion when there have been big bags, possibly every day for a week. As a result of this consumption I have never had any digestive problems, there is very little meat on a pidgeon. The average restaurant steak is probably the equivalent of eight pidgeons.

I would imagine that it would take a lot longer than seven days to digest a wooden pigeon......

wood pigeon.jpg

Love the sense of humour, Nice one Pete. Just popped one of my goose decoys in the oven on a low light for tea, probably have it with a few poker chips.

[Tizer]

Try a little wood sorrel for salad too!

Prof Bilton has now got his book, `Know What to Eat' for sale on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/KNOW-WHAT-TO- ... 25855fe926

[Stanley]

Good! It deserves wider readership. Well worth getting, full of really vital information if you value your health!

[Tizer]

You'll have to believe me but this news report below (dated 13 Nov 2013) appears to be genuine. I wonder if this is the beginning of homeopathic food and drink? Note the phrase `a premium, zero-calorie bottled water'. We still live in a world of snake oil salesmen, except these days they have $30 million to spend on convincing a gullible public that they need snake oil.

Coca-Cola to invest $30 million in Milwaukee plant
"Coca-Cola will announce today a $30 million investment and expansion of its bottling plant in Milwaukee at 11800 W. Brown Deer Road. The company is going to re-equip the plant to bottle its smartwater product, a premium, zero-calorie bottled water. Through vapor distillation and the addition of electrolytes such as calcium, magnesium and potassium, smartwater has a distinct taste. The Milwaukee plant will be the fifth Coca-Cola plant to be redesigned to produce smartwater in North America."
http://biztimes.com/article/20131113/BR ... /131119915

[Bruff]

Hilarious Tizer - thanks.

Tap water contains bucket loads of electrolytes, unless it's distilled and they're removed. So I guess what they are saying is, we're going to take this tap water, vapour distil it to remove the electrolytes, then add them back again and charge you a package for the pleasure. Truly we live in the age of idiocy......

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

Problem is Richard that the consumers will swallow it. (Er, sorry about that!)

[Whyperion]

C-C did something the same before , proposals that implied the water was coming from the thames ( or am I muddling that up with a de-salination proposal ), in fact it was 'Thames Water' water , I cannot remember what the trade name they gave the water , similar to Danio ( which I think is a C-C brand ) , but with the UKs folklore memory of Only Fool's Peckham Spring Water , they did not get commercially very far.

In the UK 'Smartwater' is what you put on stuff so (hopefully ) it can get traced if it gets nicked.

[Tizer]

Right Whippy, that was Dsani in 2004. The BBC web site said:
Soft drink is purified tap water
`Soft drink giant Coca-Cola has admitted it is selling purified tap water in a bottle. It says the source for its new Dasani bottled water is the mains supply at its factory in Kent. The company says Dasani is "as pure as bottled water gets" due to a "highly sophisticated purification process". But the UK water industry is worried that the marketing of the product implies tap water is impure, which experts say is not the case.
Coca-Cola is investing £7m in launching Dasani, which has become the second most popular bottled water in the US following its launch there in 1999. We would never say tap water isn't drinkable. It's just that Dasani is as pure as water can get - there are different levels of purity. Marketing for the product says it goes through four stages of production before it is bottled, starting with being passed through three separate filters. Coca-Cola says "reverse osmosis", "a technique perfected by Nasa to purify fluids on spacecraft", is then used to filter the water further before minerals are added to "enhance the pure taste". Finally, "ozone" is injected to keep the water sterile, the company says.'

As a chemist Bruff will probably be as amused as I am by the sentence above "Dasani is as pure as water can get - there are different levels of purity". I was taught that the `purity' of a substance was an absolute - it's either pure or not pure, no in-betweens!

[hartley353]

One would have thought that putting a pure product into a plastic bottle is counter productive, surely chemicals in the plastic will leach into the water.