20th Jun 2008
Remember when hydrogenation was a good thing?
In the 1930’s…
Skippy Peanut Butter
Improved by HYDROGENATION
Hydrogenation? What’s that? Sounds scientifickal!
Since partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are cheaper than animal source fats, are available in a wide range of consistencies, and have other desirable characteristics (e.g., increased oxidative stability (longer shelf life))…
Improved by making it cheaper, smoother, and longer-lasting, I guess, but also full of tasty trans fats.
Originally seen at Serious Eats
When my mother was taking organic chemistry as part of her horticulture degree, she spent a lot of time trying to teach me (at age 4-5) simple versions of things she was learning: steriochemistry, functional groups, carbon backbones. She showed me pictures from the course notes of saturated and unsaturated fats, and it was obvious why the unsaturated ones (with their rigid double bonds) wouldn’t pack as tight, resulting in more oily (as opposed to fatty) masses. Hydrogenation was to fix this and make margarine and peanut butter less runny.
Years later, my father the physician tried to get us off hydrogenated margarine entirely. He bought a squeeze bottle of margarine, and when it was empty, he refilled it with salted safflower oil. (After all, what else goes into margarine?) For some purposes, it worked fine, but you couldn’t cook with it, and it was messy. After a couple months, he abandoned the experiment.