Trans-Fat Free Treats Possible Thanks to Canadian Food Chemist

University of Guelph food scientist Alex Marangoni has come up with a trans-fat free, saturated-fat free shortening. Say hello to CoaVel, the 2003 discovery and invention of the food chemistry professor.

"If you're the type of person who eats a cookie a day, this is going to be good news for you, because at least you're not downing a whole ton of saturated or trans fat that's going to get you in the end", says the food scientist.

Bakers may be able to use CoaVel to eliminate trans fat from commercial baked goods.

Marangoni had heard for years that the amount of artery-clogging trans-fats were increasing in the food supply. he wanted to find a solution. The chemist, who is a professor of food science at U of Guelph, started to experiment by mixing water, a unsaturated vegetable oil, and monoglycerides - which are a thickening agent into a fat substance similar to shortening. Scientists had never tried this before. Marangoni told reporters "To be honest, it's so simple, I don't know why no one else tried it. We started using it in baking and it was incredible, no trans (fat), no saturated fat, and it had baking capabilities.''

Then he took it to commercial bakers who liked the health benefits of the product, but wondered if it would compromise the taste of the foods they were baking.

Tasty Selections, a bakery based in Concord, Ont. sells its frozen baked goods to many of Canada's best hotels. They're launching a premium trans fat-free cookie line this month. There will be eight flavours from triple chocolate, decadent chocolate chunk, and white chocolate macadamia.

The companies president says they taste "very close'' to their full-fat counterparts. The cookies have less sugar, area source of fibre, and, thanks to CoaVal they have no trans fat

Canada banned transfats in 200 Denmark banned them in
A member of the Irish Parliament has recently called for a ban of transfats in Ireland. And several US cities have banned them, including Philadelphia and New York.

Aside from the health problems of trans fats - there are problems with the fats that are being sued to replace them - coconut and palm oils. These fell out of favour when it became known that large swathes of tropical forest were being cleared for

and that these forest fellings were contributing to the largest cause of the rising extinction rate - habitat destruction.

CoaVel has the potential to be the solution to the global trans fat problem, and could spare forests from being cut down for coconut and palm plantations. But the scientist says there was some initial trial and error. The researchers and bakeries have had to deal with exploding muffins started exploding, and cookies wouldn't spread. In response to these changes were made to the CoaVel, and the baking company tweaked their cookie recipe to keep the number of kitchen catastrophes down.

"In a way we're helping them make their product healthy, but at the same time tasty. And that's what this product is targeted towards, increasing the health of the population by changing just the products we eat every day.''says Marangoni.