Everyday products with Trans Fats - list them here.

Badgergal

I want to make my own gravy as all the granules are full of trans fats but what is gravy salt, I've never seen it? Where can you get it from?

recovering_spendaholic

Badgergal wrote:

I want to make my own gravy as all the granules are full of trans fats but what is gravy salt, I've never seen it? Where can you get it from?

The only gravy salt on the market nowadays is Comptons Gravy Salt. It is very cheap (varies from shop to shop but no more than £1 for a box which will last a year). I get mine in Tescos, or Farmfoods, but I have seen it in lots of little corner shops too. It is a solid block and you just cut a bit off and mix it with the stock cube and boiling water when you are making your gravy. It makes it brown and seasons it - it is just very concentrated caramel I think. Once you have made "proper" gravy you won't want to have granules again!!. To make a pint of gravy you need one Kallo cube, about a half inch cube of gravy salt and a pint of boiling water, all mixed together. Then either pour off the fat from the roasting tin and mix the juices and crusty bits with about 30g flour until you get a thick paste (do this off the heat). This also cleans the roasting tin wonderfully too - you don't have to scrub it! Put the paste into a small saucepan and put pan on the heat then gradually add the hot stock and gravy salt, whisking as you go. If you don't have meat juices just put the stock and gravy salt mixture into a pan and thicken with about 2 -3 tbs cornflour mixed with a little cold water, whisked into the hot stock as it boils. For onion gravy I fry an onion and then sprinkle the onions in the frying pan with about 2 -3 tbs plain flour and add the same stock mixture to it.

soba

MIRRY wrote:

jammie doggers have hydrogenated fats in them,

I bought a pack of Jammie Dodgers a couple of days ago on our hols, and I'm sure they proclaim 'no hydrogenated fats'.
Been avoiding HVO's for ages now, so I always check the labels. I have been wrong before though.....
Edit:
Taken from Burtons biscuits website re: Jammie Dodgers:

No artificial colours, No artificial sweeteners, No hydrogenated fats, Non GM Ingredients, Suitable for Vegetarians, Suitable for Halal

sallypurple

I have been using butter for a while now, initially because it was 'natural' but I think it tastes so much better. If a recipe call for unsalted buttter I make my own - double cream in a large coffee jar and shake (or bribe dds to shake it for me!):D

patchwork_cat

This is an absolute minefield and I for one who thought she was bright and clued up is seriously confused. Years ago we were told not to eat saturated fats and that included full fat cream and butter - we should use polyunsaturated fat - and cook with vegetable oil.

Then if memory serves if was another sort of unsaturated fat and now we are full circle and unsaturated fat forms trans fats when heated to high temperature.

What with BSE, eggs, irradiated lamb, not to mention omega 3 and all the different combinations of 3,6 and 9 and which percentage combo is best, i am seriously confused. As I say I consider myself bright and have 3 science A levels, but I am reeling.

Please correct me if I am wrong with my memory of what we were told to eat.

Smashing

A lot of biscuit manufacturers have stopped using them (McVities etc.) but Fox's still have them in theirs - certainly in the butter crunch crinkles (which are currently BOGOF in the co-op).

Sarahsaver

I don't see what all the fuss is about, I have no problem with it at all. We all have a choice and I choose not to buy ready made, processed food. We never have shop bought biscuits for example. Are they necessary? Available on sale on ebay soon - my unused quota of trans fats!
One last question...
Should I bin the duck fat I rendered down?

Debt_Free_Chick

patchwork_cat wrote:

This is an absolute minefield and I for one who thought she was bright and clued up is seriously confused. Years ago we were told not to eat saturated fats and that included full fat cream and butter - we should use polyunsaturated fat - and cook with vegetable oil.

I think what they really mean is don't use anything to excess. I can remember when all we had was butter - and lard to fry in. And we fried a lot, as an eye-level grill was the equivalent of a colour TV when everyone else you knew only had black & white :rotfl: Just about the only dressing you put on anything was melted butter (even we didn't go a bundle on melted lard :eek: ).

So, we all pretty much lived on saturated animal fats. Now .... I guess we have very, very little ... so we've gone too far the other way. I don't eat tons of butter and I don't eat it every day, so I figure that I can afford to have it in my diet as I also use olive oil & groundnut oil.

Then if memory serves if was another sort of unsaturated fat and now we are full circle and unsaturated fat forms trans fats when heated to high temperature.

What with BSE, eggs, irradiated lamb, not to mention omega 3 and all the different combinations of 3,6 and 9 and which percentage combo is best, i am seriously confused. As I say I consider myself bright and have 3 science A levels, but I am reeling.

Please correct me if I am wrong with my memory of what we were told to eat.

Just go back to the way your granny used to shop, cook and eat .... but add plenty of the things you know to be good and pure and I don't think we'll go too far.

I never buy .... crisps, nuts, nibbles, snacks, cakes, biscuits, chocolate, desserts, ice-cream ......etc. All made at home, as and when I have the time and the inclination. When I make biscuits, for example, I know they contain flour, sugar & butter plus whatever "flavour" I'm making e.g. currants for Shrewsbury biscuits. My ice cream contains milk (or single cream), eggs, caster sugar and double cream, plus the flavour e.g. honey & cardomom yesterday.

Compare those with the contents listed on any brand of biscuits or ice-cream! And don't get sucked in by the hype, which is largely aimed at people who really have to be told what to put in their shopping basket.

Regards

Debt_Free_Chick

thriftlady wrote:

You'll have to make your own Debt Free;) There was a long thread about butter making around Christmas time.

Yes, you're right. I really must get around to trying this. And when I've mastered it, we have a farm not too far away that sells "green" milk - fresh and unpasteurised (that's one of the things that makes the Normandy butter so tasty).

I agree with you totally about spreads, in fact I find I agree with you on pretty much everything- I buy local first then British too:)

Pink.

Debt_Free_Chick wrote:

Yes, you're right. I really must get around to trying this. And when I've mastered it, we have a farm not too far away that sells "green" milk - fresh and unpasteurised (that's one of the things that makes the Normandy butter so tasty).

DFC, the thread on making your own butter is here: Making my own butter!

If you can find the time to get around to it........do! The end result is amazing! I got some reduced double cream, and the plan was to whip it and freeze it.

Needless to say when I got home I got distracted (by the OS board ) and it lay on the kitchen worktop for a couple of hours. By the time I got around to whipping the cream, it had come to room temperature, and just seemed to curdle when I whipped it.

Distraught at the waste of money I hurried back to the OS board (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it) only to find the 'making my own butter' thread at the top of the board. It said the cream needed to be at room temperature to make butter, so with nothing to lose I gave it a go.......whipped it for a bit longer, extracted the buttermilk and ended up with at least a pound (500g) of pure creamy butter. Seriously the best butter I have ever tasted. Give it a try, it's so easy that I could do it and well worth it for both the taste and the sense of satisfaction.

Pink