Developing Trans Fat Solutions for the Baking Industry

As the U.S. food industry works to reformulate products to reduce or remove trans fat, the baking industry faces a particularly complicated challenge due to the diverse functional requirements of oil and shortening within baking applications.

Developing oils and shortenings with low or no grams trans fat per serving for baking applications is more complicated than for frying applications. In frying, oil primarily functions as a heat transfer medium. While paying consideration to taste and physical characteristics, one can select oils as needed for light, medium or heavy duty applications.

By contrast, the functional requirements for bakery oils and shortenings are more diverse and can be very complex. Bakers often rely on formulations containing blends of multiple components. Shortening selection is specific to each application and to the finished-product requirements.

For example, I once worked on the development of shortening for a pastry that needed to have a cone shape with a slight curl at the top. We tested numerous shortening formulations, with varying combinations of three base components (basestocks), but the pointed top refused to curl. Finally, with the addition of a fourth component, five-percent soybean oil, to the shortening formulation, the top of the pastry slumped slightly during baking to form a perfect curl…and we added one more formulation to the list of shortening products used by the baking industry.

The different types of shortenings used by the baking industry number in the hundreds to meet the needs of products ranging from breads, rolls, cakes and icings to cookies, pastries, fillings and confections. Industrial bakeries endeavor to limit the number of shortenings they use by selecting a multi-purpose shortening when possible and as few specialty shortenings as possible for their line of products. However, the situation is changing as companies seek to use shortenings to create products with zero grams trans fat per serving.

Oil processors are making excellent progress in removing trans fats from many shortening formulations. However, some bakeries find that the reformulated shortenings have narrower ranges of performance that limit the number of products that they can make. As result, these bakeries find it necessary to increase the number of shortenings they use to maintain production of their full line of products.

Bakeries also face a challenge when testing shows flavor differences between products made with new and old shortening formulations. The industry ideal for taste testing has long been to show no difference between test and control products, but that is changing. Rather than exactly matching flavor, the criterion for success is now determined by achieving either a match or a win on product preference.

The techniques being used to make shortening with low and no grams trans fat per serving include blending, interesterification, and reduced trans hydrogenation. The starting materials include commodity oils, trait enhanced oils, solid and liquid components from fractionated oils and fully hydrogenated oils. The oil refining industry uses all of these techniques and materials to replace trans fat in shortenings, but keeping pace with the growing demand from bakeries challenges both industries.

In my opinion, trait enhanced soybean oils offer the best opportunity for increasing production of shortenings with zero grams trans fat per serving to meet the growing needs of the bakery industry. Applications for the new oils, both those currently available and those in the pipeline, are noted below.

Low-Linolenic Soybean Oil

The low-linolenic trait enhances the flavor stability of soybean oil and provides support for improved oxidative stability that delivers performance in baked goods similar to that of lightly hydrogenated soybean oil. Use low-linolenic soybean oil as a direct replacement for lightly hydrogenated oil in making white breads, rolls and pizza dough.

Fluid shortenings are made by incorporating a small percentage of high melting fat in liquid or lightly hydrogenated oil. With the addition of emulsifying and leavening agents, they can be used in place of solid shortenings in a number of applications. Fluid shortenings with zero grams trans fat per serving can readily be formulated with low-linolenic oil and a small percentage of fully hydrogenated soybean oils.

Increased Oleic Soybean Oils

Increasing the oleic content of soybean oil in combination with low-linolenic dramatically increases oxidative stability, with values doubling for mid-oleic and doubling again for high oleic oil. Applications for mid-oleic include usage as a spray oil for crackers, coating oil for baked goods and as a blending component for formulating numerous types of margarines and shortenings. The use of mid-oleic oil in combination with interesterification adds more options for making shortening with zero grams trans fat per serving. Mid-oleic is just entering production and leading bakeries have already made arrangements to obtain samples and conduct testing.

Production of high oleic soybean oil will follow mid-oleic oil in about two years. With four times the oxidative stability of regular soybean oil, it will provide unique and exceptional performance. High oleic oil will further extend usage of soybean oil in bakery applications beyond the applications supported by mid-oleic. However, bakeries can expect competition from the frying industry for supply of this high-performance oil. Those wishing to test high oleic oil should contact their suppliers as soon as possible.

Increased Stearic Acid

Early work demonstrates that increasing soybean oil’s stearic acid content to at least 25 percent yields a margarine-like base material. Producing margarine directly from a soybean would be quite impressive.

Even more impressive, high stearic soybean oil appears to offer the best direct alternative to the partially hydrogenated basestock used to formulate a wide range of shortening products with respect to trans fat solutions.

Stearic is, by definition, a type of saturated fat. However, scientists suggest that, unlike saturated fatty acids with shorter carbon chain lengths, stearic acid does not increase (blood) cholesterol. The FDA may consider labeling stearic to differentiate it from palmitic and other saturated fatty acids that have been shown to raise cholesterol. With consideration for both avoiding trans and limiting cholesterol, products formulated with high stearic soybean oil can support a dual health benefit.

Increased Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Long-chain omega-3 fatty acids are important dietary components for overall health. Fish oil is the preferred source of omega-3s because it contains the types of omega-3 fatty acid that are most bioavailable. However, it is not the primary source of omega-3s in the U.S. diet due to relatively low consumption of fatty fish.

Therefore, researchers are developing soybeans to produce oil containing more than 25 percent long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. Some oils contain stearidonic and others contain EPA and DHA, either singularly or in combination.

Oils containing omega-3 fatty acids require special handling and are not intended to formulate shortening. Baking companies may someday use increased omega-3 soybean oil as a food additive in fillings and toppings to increase the nutritional benefits of their baked goods.