Mono di-glycerides of fatty acids Light and Shadows

Today we often read about the mono- and di-glycerides of fatty acids and they have become so popular in the last fifty years that we might ask… why?!?

Well, they are used in most of the processed foods that we can find at the grocery stores: they are employed by large companies manufacturing pasta, bread, cookies, sweets, chocolate, ice-cream, chewing gum and the list is really long whether we are speaking about gluten free products or products with gluten.

These little ones are kind of “equally opportunity offender”, they don’t see differences only opportunities to jump in!

In the gluten free business, brands like Barilla, Garofalo and Rummo put them even in their pasta! Not so good to us to know…

But what are they exactly?

When we eat fats of any kind, our body transforms them in triglycerides and then it processes them into mono and di-glycerides.

Until here we are talking about a basic, natural way of our body to work and to transform the food we eat.

The issue is when food companies use them.

They actually produce chemical versions of the mono and di-glycerides of fatty acids to add them to their products.

The reason why is that they act as emulsifier and they bind ingredients together and help improving the taste, and texture of many products.

Very often they are labelled as E471 or E472.

Companies often produce them from cheap, fatty oils like palm or from animals fats whose origins are never clear or specified…

Even if some of these oils or fats can be fine, the big problem starts when they are submitted to high temperatures and that’s often at this point of heat that they can turn toxic for our body!

It’s the same when we overcook any oil at home for example, when we see it “smoke”, it means it has turned toxic! We must be vigilant on the temperatures of our cooking.

As we always say at Baci di Dama, the poison is in the quantity: we can eat one of these products once in a while but we have to keep an eye on the labels, eat less processed foods as we can and add more and more fresh, natural, seasonal, wholesome ingredients to our diet.

To us, vary what we eat is key to keep our body healthy and perky!

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