New Patented Process Eliminates Trans Fats and Produces Healthier Cooking Oils

01/02/07 NeoFat Industries announced that it has been awarded United States Patent 7,101,584 for its new cooking oil manufacturing process. Micro-molecular hypersaturation, or microsaturation for short, has the potential to revolutionize the manufacture of cooking oils.

The new process transforms common, whole, Essential Fatty Acid-rich cooking oils into products with increased shelf life, while eliminating or significantly reducing the need for hydrogenation. The breakthrough that produced a United States patent was a discovery that fat molecules of different lengths (short-, medium- and long-chain) will essentially "fold" into each other at room temperature when agitated in a very specific ratio mixture.

The result is a cooking oil product rich in Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs), with the extended shelf-life and flavor stability of hydrogenated oils but without the unhealthy trans fats that are unavoidable byproducts of partial hydrogenation. The process doesn't change the oil's flavor profile, and can give the oil an even lighter taste, if desired.

"Microsaturation, which is the result of more than a decade of research and testing, will simultaneously make cooking oils healthier for human consumption and much less expensive to manufacture, without altering the flavor," said Gus Papathanasopoulos (POP-uh-thahn-oh-SOF-uh-lus), CEO of NeoFat Industries.

NeoFat's microsaturation process addresses an enormous industry challenge. The United States alone consumes more than 8.5 billion pounds of shortening, 8.8 billion pounds of salad and cooking oils, 1.1 billion pounds of margarine, and 560 million pounds of other edible fat and oil products each year, according to the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils.

Food manufacturers stand to reap cost substantial savings. The company says that cooking oil processors can adapt the new process using their existing facilities and equipment. They simply won't need to spend as much as they used to spend on energy, or have any need for hydrogen gas and catalytic compounds.

Health Benefits

"It's actually difficult to know where to begin when talking about this technology," said Papathanasopoulos. "We originally set out to develop cooking oils that could be used to economically produce high-density calorie profiles (translation: energy foods) to support extreme human activities such as military operations, mountain climbing, distance running, space flight, and so on. And we succeeded. The dense calorie profile of our oils is unprecedented."

"But along the way, we discovered that our new fat molecules were smaller and digested better than the long chain fatty acid molecules typically found in most cooking oils. In short, we have developed a saturated fat molecule that digests more completely and thus deposits less fat in the body," he said, adding, "It's simply a more healthy oil."

Research suggests that this new "hyper-saturated" mixture travels through the human digestive track differently than conventional saturated fats and metabolizes more completely. In a 90-day controlled study, microsaturated oils appeared to lower triglycerides by 51 percent and serum cholesterol by 15 percent in the study group. In other words, the result is a healthier fat, with more calories per unit volume than other edible oils (fats) but with less fat being deposited on the body.