Finessing Fat Reduction

Palm oil products are bad for both our health and the environment. They've been linked to massive deforestation in the tropical ecosystems where oil palms grow, and they're also very high in saturated fat. Palm shortening (which is made from palm oil) has 35% saturated fat content, says Catriona Liddle, head of the Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.

Liddle and her co-researcher and co-inventor, Julien Lonchamp, reader in Food Science at Queen Margaret University, recently announced their formulation for a palm shortening replacement that targets bakery industry applications. They've called it PALM-ALT, and the response, they say, has been overwhelming.

The challenge was finding a substitute product that's as inexpensive and as functional as palm products. Liddle and Lonchamp also wanted a formulation that is vegan and clean label. What they came up with is a mixture of rapeseed oil, fibers, and proteins from oats and linseed that's a semi-solid fat, comparable to a loose mayonnaise, says Liddle. It also contains varying amounts of water, depending on the recipes for different applications. The researchers say it has 30% less total fat and about 84% less saturated fat than palm shortening.

“What we’ve done is taken an oil that is liquid at room temperature and added some clever things into it and mixed [it] in a very specific way,” Liddle says.

Rapeseed oil is readily available in many regions of the world, so the core ingredient needn't be shipped long distances. Lonchamp and Liddle estimate that it's 70% more sustainable than palm oil. (They're waiting for a life-cycle analysis to confirm that figure).

Better Baked Goods

The researchers tried more than 100 variations before they settled on a few that they tested by making baked goods, and then narrowed those down to the final PALM-ALT formulation.

They've experimented with PALM-ALT in cakes, biscuits (aka cookies), shortbread, bread, and oat cakes. They compared those products with two controls, one made with palm shortening and the other with rapeseed oil. They used a one-to-one replacement, working with industrial recipes, says Liddle, and were satisfied with PALM-ALT's performance. The rapeseed oil produced the least appealing results.

The cakes they made were particularly successful, says Liddle, because they were able to substitute 80 grams of their fat for 100 grams of palm shortening. The PALM-ALT cakes also rose higher because the fat has a higher acidity.

There are a few drawbacks. PALM-ALT requires a refrigerated supply chain and storage because of its water content. And because of the water, it has a shorter shelf life than palm oils. And while rapeseed oil is inexpensive, it's not as cheap as palm oil (not accounting for palm oil's environmental footprint).

The researchers used texture analysis, rheometry, and other lab testing on their creation. Lonchamp ran the sensory analysis using 12 panelists trained for bakery products. The baked goods were assessed for parameters like aroma, texture, and flavor. The panelists didn't register any sensory differences between the palm shortening and PALM-ALT samples, says Liddle. "We were pretty happy about that, I have to say, and it allowed us to proceed with the project with more confidence that it wasn't just a biased look from the inventors," she notes.

PALM-ALT sounds like a reasonable idea, says Michael Eskin, distinguished professor in the University of Manitoba’s Department of Food and Human Nutritional Sciences. Eskin also notes the many challenges of developing, testing, and launching a new food product, invoking the failure of the Olestra fat substitute as a cautionary example. But he says that finding palm product alternatives would be a good thing.

"It won't obviously totally replace palm oil, but I think if there was a reduction in the amount [of palm oil], it would certainly have a benefit in terms of the environment," Eskin observes.

More recently, the researchers ran a 40-person untrained consumer sensory panel. They are also working on a version of PALM-ALT that can be used in pastries. The current formulation isn't firm enough, says Liddle, and finding a replacement with the right texture and firmness is difficult without reinstating saturated fat.  

Since Lonchamp and Liddle introduced PALM-ALT, they've heard from manufacturers, venture capitalists, and consumers. They have filed an international patent application, and they are looking at licensing it to manufacturers, among other options.ft