Problems Caused by Cooking Fats.
(Chapter 4)
Now we know from Chapter 3, that the heart problems are caused by wrong cooking oil. It would appear that the heart problem suddenly catches up with you. No it is not. Human body has very high tolerance level. Nothing happens in a day. There are genetic factors, but we will discuss those in Chapter 5. Here let us discuss the primary symptoms which indicate that there is problem in cooking oil consumed by a person. But do appreciate that different person react to different cooking mediums differently. My tolerance for one oil could be higher than your tolerance level. In short their are many symptoms which warn us long before triglyceride or heart disease sets in. The very first symptom is frequent acidity.
Acidity
There can be various reasons for acidity. Spices especially chili can cause acidity. But if other things are normal and yet there is acidity few hours after taking the meal, it is due to extra effort being made by stomach to digest the cooking oil. The fatty acids in the food are refusing to break down and human body has to generate extra acid to digest the same.
In short, if you are frequently taking Soda, or antacids be careful. You are on way to that Electric Cardiograph (ECG) machine. Alternate is to change your cooking oil.
Digestion
How good is your digestion? Does frequent digestion problems an indicator of health problem?
If generally your digestion of food is good, you are lucky. Most people do not even realize that they have a weak digestive system. Frequent bloating, gas or dysentery means digestive system is under stress. If this is caused by simple and fresh food, the cooking oil may be the cause of poor digestion. In other cases the food itself can be the cause of the problem. Remember the room temperature, in India will breed bacteria, in no time. Keep the food either in fridge or at a higher temperature by frequently warming it. However, if after taking all the precaution, the digestion is causing trouble, the cooking oil may be the source of problem.
Constipation
Why there are so many advertisements for medicines for curing constipation? Allopathy as well as Ayurvedic medicines claiming to treat constipation being shown on TV too frequently. It appears that the whole world is constipated. May be it is.
One reason is that in elderly the body including intestine and colon develops weakness and there is a problem of processing. But another reason is lack of right diet. No salad means no fiber and which means poor digestion. In the end it all leads to constipation. But if there is no other cause, cooking oil may be the cause of the problem.
Preadolescent children are also vulnerable due to their newly acquired consciousness of taste buds. They eat what they like and reject salad and vegetables. A common remedy for their constipation is warm milk with a spoon of ghee added to it. This milk is administered at night and voila, the problem is solved. However, the need of balance diet can not be under emphasized.
Balance Diet
A balanced diet must have lots of fiber, minerals, vitamins, protein, a little carbohydrate and a very little fat. As demonstrated in above example with children, Ghee is helpful in colon health. If we consider in terms of menu, a balanced food must have lots of salad (for fiber), minerals, vitamins, and enzymes (from vegetables and fruits), lentils, Paneer and meat (for protein) Wheat or rice as cereals (for carbohydrate) and the cooking oil for fat.
The entire discussion is based on presumption and underlying diet is balanced and is not in any way causing the problems mention herein above. Only then can we attribute the problem to cooking medium. If diet is not balanced, that itself can be the cause of problem. This aspect was considered and mixed up with oils in Malhotra’s report of 1967, mentioned in Chapter 3.
Now go back to Chapter 2 and note the various types of Oils and its base in terms of various acids. Note the carbon points mentioned in brackets like (C4) against Butyric Acid. Higher this number means longer it will take in digestion. Ghee has lowest (C4) and is easiest to digest. Let me give you few personal examples to co relate.
Personal Examples
Dosa, Idly and Sambhar is my favourite. These dishes originated from south where coconut oil is preferred cooking medium. In many south Indian restaurants in Delhi the cooking medium is coconut oil. I grew up without any exposure to it so it is difficult for me to digest.
Coconut oil is almost entirely medium and long-chain saturated fat, lauric acid being the dominant one at 12 carbons. Long and medium-chain fats like coconut require bile for absorption, which is a heavier digestive load. For people like me who are not metabolically adapted, it shows up as the discomfort in processing. Therefore, digestion problem with coconut oil is a normal consequence.
Short-chain fats like those in ghee absorb directly without bile dependence. There is a tradition of using it in combination with other cooking mediums.
Cooking with Ghee or Clarified Butter
At the molecular level, ghee is mostly very short building blocks, butyric acid being just 4 carbon atoms long. Human gut absorbs these directly without much digestive effort, like dissolving sugar in warm water.
Ghee’s smoke point is around 210 (+-20) degrees Celsius, which sounds high but it burns fast because it contains milk solids even after clarification, and those solids are what catch first. This is why a preparation cooked in ghee is most digestive and poses no problem. This helped me to answer the question is what is the right cooking medium in terms of digestion and health.
Tempering in Ghee
There is an additional cooking layer in India. It is called tempering. In this ghee is boiled with spices and added to cooked food mostly the liquid ones.
Tempering is the most demanding moment because cook is deliberately pushing fat to its limit to extract flavor from spices in seconds. Cumin, mustard seeds, dried chilies, asafoetida all release their volatile compounds only at high heat and only briefly. Ghee does this better than any oil because its milk solids and butyric acid carry and amplify those aromatic compounds in a way no refined oil can.
But the window is narrow, which is why it is a skilled job. A few seconds past the right moment and the ghee is bitter and the spices are carbon. However, if done right, apart from adding aroma to food, it also adds digestive element in the form of ghee.
Two Fat Cooking System
There is another trick applied in cooking at home. It is combining two fats like mustard and ghee.
Mustard oil’s smoke point is higher and more stable, so it carries the initial high-heat load of the cooking without breaking down. It is the reason that Ghee is added to the mustard oil, a little later in cooking. By the time ghee enters, the temperature has stabilized and ghee is doing flavoring and finishing work, not structural cooking.
This is a two-fat cooking system. Mustard oil as the structural, high-heat medium. Ghee as the aromatic, finishing, and tempering medium. This is not accidental traditional practice. It is an evolved culinary technology that happens to optimize both heat stability and flavor extraction while keeping the chain-length profile of the final dish closer to what Malhotra’s data would predict as protective.
No nutritionist designed this. Generations of cooks figured it out through exactly the ground-level observation.
Caution
Let me state it once again because it is very important. The problem is compounded by individuality. Two persons react differently to same cooking oil. People think or assume that something is wrong inside a person. That is not how it happens. Different people have different tolerance levels. Appreciate it and experiment with different cooking oils. Avoid the oil that causes the problem to ‘that’ person. There is no need that a cooking oil may cause problem to all the persons. If it is not good to ‘you’, ‘you’ have to discontinue it. Sometimes it means discontinuance for whole family.
Bottom Line
These are my reasons for using only ghee and mustard oil in my cooking and avoiding all the rest. Thanks for their contribution to the culinary experience of the world. My world does not need those.
This personal experience is reinforced by genetic study on the subject. It is a known fact that our genes do play a major role in how we react to out food and more importantly to the fats in food. This we will explore in Chapter 5.