Cooking oil & saturated fats

Healthier alternatives for hawker centre fare

DR YIK Keng Yeong's letter last Saturday ('Cooking oil: What matters is what's done with it') highlights recent discussion by the Harvard School of Public Health over insufficient evidence that saturated fat increases the risk of coronary heart disease or stroke.

Indeed, cutting back on saturated fat will likely have no benefit if people replace it with refined carbohydrates, such as white bread, white rice, mashed potatoes and sugary drinks.

However, there is compelling evidence that cutting back on saturated fat is good for health if people replace it with good fats, such as those found in soya bean, sunflower and sesame seed oils, nuts and oily fish.

The Harvard School of Public Health states: 'Eating good fats in place of saturated fat lowers the 'bad' LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol, and improves the ratio of total cholesterol to 'good' HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol, lowering the risk of heart disease.'

Eating good fats in place of saturated fat can also help prevent insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes.

Results from the 2010 National Nutrition Survey show that Singapore residents have high saturated fat intakes and not enough unsaturated fat in their diets.

The average intake of saturated fat and unsaturated fat is 40 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively, of total fat.

The dietary recommendation for saturated fat and unsaturated fat is 30 per cent and 70 per cent, respectively, of total fat intake. This ratio needs to change to meet dietary recommendations.

The 2010 National Nutrition Survey also shows that one in two Singapore residents eats at hawker centres, foodcourts or coffee shops almost every day.

Many of these establishments use palm oil, which is stable for cooking at high temperatures due to its saturated fat content. However, with the overconsumption of saturated fat and known health benefits of increasing unsaturated fat intake, the Health Promotion Board (HPB) has worked with local manufacturers to develop a healthier cooking oil.

This oil has some of the saturated fat replaced with unsaturated fat, and is also stable at high cooking temperatures. The HPB is encouraging hawker vendors to use this healthier oil.

Also, the HPB is working with hawker stalls to offer brown rice and whole-grain noodles in place of white rice and regular noodles, thereby helping to reduce intake of refined carbohydrates.

Reducing the intake of saturated fat and refined carbohydrates, and increasing the consumption of good fats and whole grains, will help reduce the risks of coronary heart disease and stroke.

Dr Grace Soon

Centre Head and Chief Nutritionist

Centre of Excellence (Nutrition)

Health Promotion Board

ST Forum, 15 Mar 2012

Cooking oil: What matters is what's done with it

THE proposals on new hawker centres have come along with trenchant calls for serving healthier food, and a demand for hawkers not to use palm oil for cooking ('Insist that hawkers offer a healthier alternative to palm oil' by Ms Molly Teo; March 1).

It has been conventional wisdom that cooking oils like palm oil are harmful because they raise the amount of bad cholesterol.

The Harvard School of Public Health recently highlighted the controversy over this, especially in the face of latter-day research that found insufficient evidence in epidemiological studies to conclude that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease or stroke.

In particular, palm oil, which is rich in palmitic acid, has no effect on cholesterol levels because of its unique molecular structure.

What is certain is that this irrational fear of saturated fats has caused the public to switch to a highly refined carbohydrate diet consisting of white rice, white bread, sugary drinks and the like.

This has resulted in obesity rates skyrocketing, along with the incidence of atherosclerotic events, which people had hoped to prevent by avoiding saturated fats.

It is also worthwhile noting that palm oil's perceived 'liability' of having more saturated fatty acids as compared to other oils allows it to resist the high heat of deep frying, as well as the inimical effects of oxidation, far better than 'healthy' oils like rapeseed oil or olive oil.

Yes, the oil matters, but not as much as what we do with it, how much we consume of it and what we eat along with it.

Dr Yik Keng Yeong

ST Forum, 10 Mar 2012