Making New Traditions

 

 

Did you know many traditional tortillas were made with pork lard? I mean, pork fat: the parts of pork that are thick and white!

Thankfully, most commercial tortillas, today, are made with vegetable, seed, or olive oils — even those at Taco Bell. So, no-thank-you to recipes that still use lard.

And it's not that lard has so much saturated fat. (There's more saturated fat in butter and in palm oil than in lard.) But lard isn't a best choice. That's because lard that doesn't need refrigeration, tends not to have health benefits but does tend to have trans-fats that, along with the saturated fat, help raise cholesterol. Even refrigerator lard can create trans-fats when cooked at temperatures higher than 370° F.

And, let's face it: Other than the fat in healthy, immune-building milk, animal fat is just gross.

In today's health-aware world, why depend on an animal fat that doesn't bless our hearts?

Although almost any cooking oil can work as a tortilla ingredient, heat from cooking may destroy or diminish some of the heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids and other antioxidants in some cooking oils. The higher the temperature, the fewer the health benefits in oils such as refrigerator lard and extra-virgin olive oil. So, the best oils for putting tortillas on hot iron, are those that keep more of their benefits during high-heat cooking.

Both canola and avocado oils are beneficial compared to other oils used to prepare our everyday foods. And both can take the heat.

Canola (rapeseed) oil has the least saturated fat of all cooking oils — and boasts 93 percent healthy fats, including omega-9, omega-6, and omega-3 fatty acids. As part of canola oil, these healthy fats may survive a few minutes cooking at temperatures up to 400° F.

Canola beats all other cooking oils in another way, as well. Canola (rapeseed) oil has about a 3 to 1 balance of omega-6 fatty acids compared to omega-3 fatty acids, which some health scientists say is far better than oils with high ratios of omega-6 to omega-3.

Some scientists believe omega-3 fatty acids help prevent any inflammation omega-6 acids may cause; and with that 3:1 balance, canola oil is the best of any cooking oil. Canola also can be affordable.

Avocado oil is the only other contender for better health with high-temp grilling.

Avocado oil has 88 percent healthy fat — mostly omega-9. And avocado oil is only about 12.5 percent omega-6, kind of meaning it's deceptively healthy. That's because the corn oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil, and other oils used to produce most processed foods (including the fast foods) we're eating daily, are heavy on omega-6, and advocates say we're getting too much of it.

Some dietary science recommends we prepare our own foods, using oils that have less of it — less omega-6, because omega-6, sometimes, can contribute to inflammation, compared to a virtual guarantee that omega-3 foods help reduce inflammation.

We can say avocado oil is "deceptively" healthy, because, despite there being considerably more omega-6 than omega-3 in avocado oil, the 12.5 percent omega-6 in avocado, is far less than the 57 percent omega-6 in corn, 54 percent in soy, and 54 percent in cottonseeds.

Having a cooking oil in our daily diet that has less omega-6, can help relieve high blood pressure and other problems that contribute to inflammation. And, again, avocado oil, like canola oil, can take the heat. In fact, avocado oil and its benefits can hold up, for a few minutes, to a grill as hot as 520° F.

Tortillas grill at about 450° F, and preparing them fresh can make a great new tradition or hobby.

Click the photo above, for a fresh way to use tortilla bread.

 

Did you know cheddar cheese has a tiny amount of natural trans-fat?

In some stick margarines and vegetable shortenings, artificially produced trans-fats occur when hydrogenation forces a liquid fat to become solid, a problem recognized as so serious a hazard to American heart health, that adding artificial trans-fats to cooking oils and processed foods, has been outlawed. Still, small amounts of trans-fats occur when cooking oil is reused in some restaurants; when oils are heated to make stick margarine; and when healthy bacteria cause cheeses to curdle. But, no worries! A little cheddar, sometimes, can be okay.