Solid vegetable fat

Has anyone got detailed information about the health effects of solid vegetable fats? We've been using Cooken (I'm in the UK) to make pastry and similar. Commercial pastries seem to have hydrogenated oils which we would prefer to avoid.

But I note that the amount of saturated fat in Cooken is very high. It's 48%, while I believe that lard only has about 38-40%.

Finally, I was very surprised to read that beef fat and dairy products already have trans fats in them! At least, in a small amount.

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

I didn't know that, I'd always assumed that trans fats were never present in nature.

Has anyone got any opinions or facts about the healthiness of something like Cooken, versus other products with less saturated fat, but "hydrogenated oils"?

I'm not sure about Cooken, but I do know that other solid fats.. Namely Palm oil, coconut oil.. are very high in saturated fat, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. You don't want to use them for everything, but I think it's something like up to 20% of your fat intake can and some people recommend should be saturated.

Basically, I have heard that these oils can be very beneficial, and do very little harm as long as they are the only saturated fats in your diet (ie no double cheeseburgers).. Hope that helped!

Palm oil, however is a bit of environmental disaster.

We are trying to be totally palm oil free this year.

I use nuts as the fat in pastry and biscuits, rather than margarine or other solid fats.

Quote:

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Pob

I use nuts as the fat in pastry and biscuits, rather than margarine or other solid fats.

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How does that work?

Recipe here

I've also made it without using the sunflower oil.

It's not exactly like shortcrust pastry, but it is nice :) I suppose all the bittiness of the ingredients helps to stop it going too much like a hard cracker that happens when you use liquid fats to make pastry.

Thanks Pob :) How do you add the oil though to get it breadcrumb stage? I've not made pastry with oil before. I'm definitely going to try it though :D

It's about 2 tablespoons, but it is optional.

I just stirred it in with a wooden spoon, then got my hands in there and worked it through.

Thanks Pob, I'll give it a try.