What we know about fat may be wrong

Dr Ancel Keys (Jan 26, 1904–Nov 20, 2004) was an American scientist who studied the influence of diet on health. He is responsible, almost more than any other individual, for the public health misconception around fats that exists today. Through published work that was vaunted across the world, Dr Keys has had a far-reaching impact on how we think about the role of fats.

APRIL 24, 2016

BY DR GUY-ANDRÉ PELOUZE

What we know about fat may be wrong.

When Dr Keys first published his theories, alleging that saturated fats were uniquely harmful, they were controversial. This controversy remains strong today as the debate on the roles of fat and sugar in relation to cardiovascular disease (CVD) associated with atheroma (the fatty material that forms plaques in arteries) goes on.

This article reflects upon two main subjects: understanding the complexity of chronic diseases as the antithesis of acute infectious diseases; and the principle of falsifiability applied to atheroma theories and the practical consequences this entails.

After World War II, the work of Dr Keys played a fundamental role in the debate around fats. How?

Because it claimed to demonstrate a link between saturated fats consumption and atheroma: “Many factors are probably involved in the atherosclerotic development and in the clinical appearance of coronary heart disease, but there is no longer any doubt that one central item is the concentration, over time, of cholesterol and related lipids and lipoproteins in the blood serum. No other etiological (sic) influence of comparable importance is as yet identified.” (A. Keys, American Journal of Public Health, Nov 1953, vol 43, 1399-1407.)

Today, in reality, scientists see tobacco, diabetes and hypertension to be much more powerful risk factors. We condemn researchers who, for over 40 years, have not been keen to verify the data and the conclusions it suggested.

Epidemiology in modern history

Epidemiologic observations have drawn the attention of scientists for a long time on the link between dietary change and cardiovascular diseases. Examples of populations with low CVD prevalence or populations where CVD are the first cause of mortality have led epidemiologists to do research on food.

This is what we called the Diet-Heart Hypothesis. But it is so incredibly complex that even till today, we have yet to come up with a definitive answer. Simple hypo- theses (i.e. single-factor cause) and invalid experimental models have produced abundant literature, of which little is actually helpful.

We can, however, wonder about the recent dietary changes brought by the recent industrial transition. In the West, those changes can be qualified with three factors:

• Abundance of calories

• Abundance of carbohydrates

• Abundance of processed foods

Further to these, we should not forget about calorie expenditure. In industrialised countries, we have shifted to a sedentary lifestyle (at work, in public transportation or for personal activities).

Dr Keys supported his hypothesis with charisma.

How is that possible?

He and his team set out to study the dietary characteristics and lifestyles of different populations worldwide and compare the prevalence of coronary diseases. It was a rather large study at the time and needed significant funding.

This study addressed the issue of the heart attack epidemic that was hitting the United States and other developed countries at the time. He quickly focused on diet-related risk factors, mostly because they were easier to measure, particularly through blood levels.

Among macronutrients, Dr Keys had already explored fat and the indirect measure of blood lipids via blood cholesterol.

The study would be published in a book in 1980 (Seven Countries. A multivariate analysis of death and coronary heart disease).

In the meantime, Dr Keys got more famous, was interviewed often, and in January 1961, was on the cover of Time Magazine.

Dr Keys described a link in the studied cohorts between the percentage of saturated fats in the diet and the death rate by coronary events. The correlation was dependent on the number of countries studied, but it was significant in the cohorts he chose.

As there was a correlation between total blood cholesterol and the same events, and as Dr Keys highlighted that saturated fats (especially palmitic acid as it is the most common) increased blood cholesterol, a conclusion appeared.

He stated that saturated fats, including palmitic acid, were link-ed to coronary atheroma. Others have then bridged the gap, saying they cause coronary diseases.

Obviously, all of this was not true. Inaccuracies and biases made his observations invalid.

Even Dr Keys ended up publishing more balanced conclusions than others: “Our 10 year finding, and concordance with other studies, make it clear that the big three risk factors for coronary heart disease now established are age, blood pressure, and serum cholesterol. The findings about cigarette smoking as a risk factor indicate that here, too, relationships are not as simple as first supposed.” (Seven Countries, page 341).

He later became an advocate of the Mediterranean diet and kept studying it for a while. In 1975, he published How to Eat Well and Stay Well the Mediterranean Way.

Consequences still felt today

Dietary guidelines from experts and governments have been largely based on Dr Keys’ work.

To lower our intake in cholesterol and saturated fats, populations have massively consumed food products in which fats have been replaced with carbohydrates, and saturated fats with vegetable oils rich in omega-6.

This did not change the prevalence of atheroma-related diseases. New research even shows these changes may be linked to the obesity epidemic and type 2 diabetes.

Palm oil for one, which has a good balance between saturated and unsaturated fats, constitutes a healthy alternative – but it has been unjustly maligned for containing saturated fats.

There have been economic consequences too. This is linked to the food industry’s ability to quickly find a new market opportunity with low-fat food products. It has, as always, been shown to be very innovative in that regard.

Its lobby was powerful and the “low-fat” concept developed globally even though it is not possible as of yet to show it has any positive impact of cardiovascular health.

In the 40 years between Dr Keys’ work and the shadow cast upon it, many scientific articles have been published to try and explain the anomalies observed in real populations.

None ever questioned what had become a dogma. The different paradoxes, including the famous French Paradox, have only started to shake the foundation of his hypothesis.

Who bears the responsibility?

Surely, Dr Keys cannot be held responsible for how his data was used.

But his vision clearly influenced medicine for generations and overstated the importance of saturated fats and cholesterol in cardiovascular risk.

A summary of the Seven Countries Study on the University of Minnesota, US (where the study was coordinated), website, had this to say: “The main implications of the Seven Countries Study are that the mass burden and epidemic of atherosclerotic diseases has cultural origins, is preventable, can change rapidly, and is strongly influenced by the fatty composition of the habitual diet.

“The study implies the universal susceptibility of humans to CVD, but that the frequency of susceptible phenotypes is greatly reduced in favourable environments. It suggests there may be other and important protective elements in the diet and lifestyles of Crete and Japan.”

The only concession made to Dr Keys’ theories is the confirmation of a strong influence of the composition of lipids in the diet, but the words “saturated fats” are no longer used.

The Journal of the American College of Cardiology recently reminded physicians:“Atherosclerosis is a multifactorial disease and requires a multifactorial approach with smoking cessation, dietary modification and weight management, regular physical activity, attention to psychosocial risk factors, and pharmacological therapy of lipid and nonlipid risk factors.

“Comprehensive risk factor control is associated with improved prognosis, and our challenge is to develop care models that will allow us to achieve such control.”

We need to keep in mind that tobacco, type 2 diabetes and hypertension are, in that order, more powerful atheroma risk factors than LDL particles. There is no interest in dietary cholesterol in preventing CVD.

Saturated fats, like monounsaturated fats, and like carbohydrates, increase the amount of LDL particles when in calorie excess and promotes atheroma if other risk factors are present, and if phenotype is susceptible.

This is the reason why we cannot predict among high-LDL patients those who will have a cardiovascular, cerebral or peripheral event, other than watching the three aforementioned powerful risk factors, or having proper atheroma plaques exams.

In summary, Dr Keys was wrong, and his mistake has been compounded over the decades. It is time now to end the crusade against saturated fats.

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Dr Guy-André Pelouze is a French cardiothoracic surgeon, and a founder of the French think tank and research group Institut de Recherche Clinique (Institute of Clinical Research). Dr Pelouze is a widely quoted writer and commentator on health and nutrition in France. This article contains extracts from the scientific paper, ‘Ancel Keys: Science is not believing’.

http://www.star2.com/health/wellness/2016/04/24/what-we-know-about-fat-may-be-wrong/

This post is on Healthwise

A fat lot of good – Part 1

Fat lies, thin lies ... the truth about fat lies in this four-part saga on everything you ever wanted to know about fats, and maybe more.

APRIL 24, 2016

BY CHRIS CHAN

If the oil used for frying food is rancid or overused, the food cooked in such oils is potentially toxic.

The idea for this article started when an oversized lady bumped into me in the supermarket while desperately reaching for the last pot of low-fat cottage cheese on sale.

Startled by the unexpected rudeness (wholly un-intentioned, I’m sure), the incident started a long chain of thought about fats on the slow walk home – and the result is this somewhat intricate discourse into the curious world of fat, its consumption and the consequences.

It is hoped you will find it at least a little informative – and perhaps it might even change some long-standing perceptions.

A world of manufactured lies and half truths

For a long time, it bemused me that people wanting to eat healthy food choose some low-fat or fat-free product to consume over a food option made with natural ingredients.

What do they think they are getting with a “low-fat” or “fat-free” alternative? The not too palatable answer is they are probably ingesting some heavily processed concoction made from a cocktail of chemicals – and with indeterminate side effects on health.

So perhaps “low-fat” is not exactly wholesome – but if enough people (and marketing departments) say it is healthy, sooner or later public opinion will change and then suddenly these chemical concoctions get perceived as “healthy”.

For anyone who believes in good statistics and facts, public opinion can often be an intellectual and illogical nightmare. But the public is not to blame for its opinions – in modern times, it seems that around 85% of what we see, hear or read about scientific food or health research is directly or indirectly sponsored.

This is compared to much less than 20% a hundred years ago – and to be fair, there were proportionately a lot more investigative journalists then and access to news was seldom free and rather limited.

Some really disturbing trends

There are now millions of people in the media business busily creating “content” rather than doing proper science journalism or fact reporting – and why bother with hard investigative work when it’s easier to pick up and re-write newsflashes from drug companies about new “weight loss” pills, or another “cure for cancer” or whatever item the marketing departments want to push that day.

Evidence of this is the propagation of the same story (perhaps written only as the viewpoint of one researcher or editor) on hundreds of internet news sites – often blindly boosted by social media.

Such rampant repetition of any narrative would tend to confer some sort of undeserved credibility to the premise behind any story, especially in the eyes of the uninquisitive public.

So quite often, whole sections of public opinion today are based on sketchy or even incorrect information.

Facts and logic are, to some extent, almost becoming irrelevant – note the current blight of religious militancy globally and the backlash against intellectual thinking in the Donald Trump 2016 campaign for the US Presidency.

It might seem that millions of people are actually proud of being irrational and ignorant – and this is something you should find really disturbing.

In general, people also have a habit of disliking facts when facts are disagreeable to their lifestyles, though their reaction is often not as extreme as others. For example, corrupt politicians in power really don’t like awkward facts about their crimes to be publicised, to the extent that they even try to influence public opinion by lying, issuing fake or distracting propaganda, banning the free press, blocking access to the internet and usurping the legal system, a common tactic used by tin pot dictators such as in North Korea or some African countries.

In short, public opinion matters – and to people with vested interests, it really matters a lot.

Fat – a subject close to the heart, literally

On a more mundane level, my own family didn’t believe me when I protested for many years that eating low-cholesterol and low-fat foods doesn’t make sense. Their objections are very well-intentioned as the accepted public opinion is that it is really necessary to cut down our consumption of fats (and especially cholesterol) – and this has been drummed into us for decades.

Fat deposits causing a clog in blood vessels.

The uncomplicated rationale is that cholesterol is known to be one of the main components of the plaque (known as atheroma) which plugs up the arteries – over time, this becomes a disease called arteriosclerosis which leads on to coronary heart disease (CHD) and heart attacks. The other components of atheroma are calcium, fibrin (a blood clotting agent), various fatty substances and other white blood cell-related detritus. Incidentally, CHD is the number one killer in the USA and has the same unenviable standing in pretty much the rest of the developed world.

The problem with this advice is that the human body itself produces every day far more cholesterol than we can obtain from food. Cholesterol is a vital compound needed for the proper functioning of the body – without it we would die immensely faster than from CHD.

For a start, the mobility of the blood cells in our body wouldn’t be possible without cholesterol – and we wouldn’t be able to digest fats or vitamin D either, among other things. So in my mind, eating food with cholesterol really should not be the cause of any significant health problems.

It turns out that the actual underlying cause of arteriosclerosis is arterial damage – and it is a bit of a tangled story. Cholesterol forms the bulk of the components which attend damaged arteries – and there is some debate over whether it is present there by design or by coincidence.

Regardless, if the causes of the arterial wall damage are not removed, then the persistent build-up of cholesterol (and other atheroma compounds) will cause arteriosclerosis.

Patching up damaged arteries with cholesterol is known as atherogenesis and might have been an evolutionary development – this is deduced from the fact that arteries can detect the formation of atheroma and widen themselves to some degree.

However, this offers only a temporary and limited degree of protection if the underlying causes of arterial damage are not removed as the atheroma compounds will then keep building up and eventually result in arteriosclerosis.

Cholesterol – the bad and the good

So is cholesterol bad or good? The answer is both. We need cholesterol to survive and our own bodies produce it in greater quantities than we can normally get from food.

However, the profound role of cholesterol in atheroma and arteriosclerosis means that some people desperately need to reduce the amount of cholesterol (held inside the atheroma) in their arteries. What they need even more is to reduce the amount of damage to their arteries so that the atheroma has a chance to dissipate.

Blaming cholesterol solely for the cause of arteriosclerosis is simply not correct – although once someone has arteriosclerosis, it is really sensible to take medication to reduce the cholesterol in the arteries – please do take medical advice on this if it affects you.

Causes of arterial wall damage

And what causes arterial wall damage? This is where more unpalatable facts come in, for they are mostly comments on modern lifestyles. It has been proven conclusively that the following items are significant causes of arterial wall damage:

Smoking – there is overwhelming evidence that the toxins in cigarette smoke cause cell damage not only in the lungs but also in arteries and other organs. It also decreases haemoglobin’s ability to transport oxygen in the blood, leading to the heart pumping harder – and you would doubtless already know that smoking is the leading cause of cancer in most countries

High blood pressure – this is obviously a leading cause as high blood pressure simply means more strain on the arterial walls, especially as you grow older. There are several causes of high blood pressure, such as obesity, stress, smoking, inactivity, too much dietary salt, alcohol, etc.

Sadly, it seems that there is a 90% chance of modern humans getting prehypertension at some point in life – this is a condition where blood pressure is higher than normal but not to the point of hypertension.

Glucose and diabetes – a surplus of glucose in the blood is actually toxic and eventually an excess of this monosaccharide will damage the cells in arterial walls. Too much blood glucose occur when you overeat certain carbohydrates (such as jasmine rice, potatoes, white bread, etc) and sugary foods – and problems occur if the excess blood sugar isn’t removed by insulin directing it away into skeletal muscle tissues. Insulin is produced by the pancreas to regulate blood glucose, but chronic exposure to high levels of insulin causes tolerance and eventually a form of Type 2 diabetes.

Obesity – there are pretty definite correlations between obesity and high blood pressure and also diabetes, so arterial wall damage is a highly probable consequence of obesity.

Genetics – some people are simply more prone to getting arterial wall damage and there isn’t much they can do, except perhaps take medication once the condition has been detected

Inflammation response – there is a lot to say about this subject – and I mean, a LOT. Please read on for more on this subject.

AGEs – Advanced Glycation End-products (AGEs, also sometimes known as glycotoxins) are produced when food is cooked with dry heat (ie. baked, fried, roasted, grilled, etc). They are usually the result of monosaccharides (simple sugars) combining with amino acids (components making up proteins) when food is cooked in dry heat at temperatures of over 135°C – it is a process known as the Maillard Reaction.

AGEs are created via heat-induced, somewhat random chemical interactions and can end up as simple molecules or more usually, longer or highly complex chained compounds (or polymers).

Some AGEs are rabidly toxic to the body because they are so reactive – and it is critical to note that the human body is unable to easily remove AGEs once ingested. One common AGE known as glucosepane can never be removed from the human body.

AGE, RAGE and frying oil

I want to expand a little about AGEs as their role in arterial wall damage is often overlooked.

AGEs are known to cause damage to the protein structures in cells (including arterial walls) and also induce inflammation in various parts of the body – one major reason is an odd gene in the human body known as the Receptor for AGE (or RAGE).

When a RAGE binds with an AGE, it triggers an inflammatory reaction in tissues – and oddly, that is about all it does. Normally, inflammation is a protective mechanism and is part of the body’s response to pathogens, cell damage or irritants – but with AGEs, the body often cannot clear them and the affected cells eventually get damaged due to the persistent RAGE-induced inflammation.

The problem is that most of us seriously enjoy eating food loaded with AGEs – for these are the aromatic compounds that give that special delicious flavour to grilled, fried or roasted meats and baked goods. Photo: The Star

Chronic inflammation in the cells lining the arterial walls due to RAGEs will eventually damage them.

The problem is that most of us seriously enjoy eating food loaded with AGEs – for these are the aromatic compounds that give that special delicious flavour to grilled, fried or roasted meats and baked goods.

Why most humans love AGEs may have an evolutionary basis – the smells and aromas of AGEs confirm that the food has been cooked with fire (or dry heat) and therefore unlikely to harbour dangerous bacteria or parasites, like those found in uncooked food.

As a little aside, there is some odd research evidence that milk from the Ethawah goat can reduce the inflammation caused by RAGEs – and I would bet that you didn’t know this before.

And before you ask, the answer is No, I don’t know about the effect of milk from other goats – but for a fee, I can find out for you.

So although life would probably be not worth living without AGEs to flavour our food, especially for gourmets, there are some ways we might be consuming excessive, dangerous amounts of these compounds and other related toxins which lead directly or indirectly to arteriosclerosis – and one major culprit appears to be the utilisation of unsuitable, rancid or overused cooking oils.

The oils used for commercial baking and cooking are very often plant-based – usually that’s because they are the cheapest oils available. All oils decompose when heated – this decomposition can be most clearly observed by the smoking effect once the oil exceeds a certain temperature (known as the smoking point).

The smoking point and rate of decomposition is different for the various kinds of cooking oils. The lower the smoking point, the less suitable the oil is for frying, although this is by no means the only criteria of unsuitability.

And if the oil is rancid or overused, then food cooked in such oils is actually potentially toxic. You are much more likely to encounter problems with oils when eating out as your home will very probably maintain cooking products in good storage conditions.

But actually that is also not the full story – else it would be easy to attain great cardiovascular health by just avoiding food cooked in a few oils, and that is simply not true.

In fact, as you will see, the story is not straightforward at all and the story of fats and health has been riddled with misunderstandings for years.

It sometimes reminds me of a lady visiting the Far East who asked, “I’ve had fish balls now for three days in a row – do Asians eat any other part of the fish?”

Next: A slippery, oily look into the role of hydrogen in fats

Source:  http://www.star2.com/food/food-news/2016/04/24/a-fat-lot-of-good-part-1/

This post is on Healthwise

Diet secrets you can learn from Japan

An official slogan for improving the nutrition of the Japanese population was issued by the Japanese government in 1985: “Consume Thirty Different Food Items Each Day.”

APRIL 26, 2016 FOOD, HEALTH, NUTRITION

BY AGENCY

This Japanese meal has miso sauce, daikon, salmon, omelet, purple radish, cauliflower, broccoli, carrot, burdock, chestnut, grapes, dried baby fish, rice and miso soup. Photos: Reuters

The food items were divided into six categories, and we were advised to choose evenly from each category. Each ingredient, it was said – meat, poultry and fish, soybeans, grains, vegetables and fruits, milk products, and sea vegetables – contains its own nutritional properties, so following this slogan will help to create balanced meals.

Even before this public announcement, there was a growing awareness that the Japanese diet since the turn of the 20th century had succumbed to influence from the West. It was thought that we must return to our own traditional diet to achieve optimum nutrition.

Just for fun, from time to time I still count how many different food items I have consumed in a single day. This practice was instilled in me by my mother. Recently I made the count for all three meals, and found I’d consumed 21 separate foods on that day; far short of the government’s recommendation. This caused me to think. How and why did this government recommendation come about? Is it still a realistic guiding principle?

A high-scoring lunch of kinpira (flavoured carrot, parsnip and burdock) and soba buckwheat noodles, fried tofu, cabbage, onion, fennel bulb and egg.

Here is what I found.

Until 1868, Japan lagged far behind Western countries in technology, science and engineering because of the closure of the country to foreign trade for 260 years. Even the small physical stature of the Japanese population was blamed on a poor, very limited Japanese diet that was based on small quantities of rice, fish, soybean products, with some vegetables and seaweeds.

The Meiji Emperor encouraged the population to begin consuming beef, a food item previously banned for ordinary citizens. Newly imported Western ingredients included meat, meat products, milk and butter, and new preparation techniques led to the creation of new “Japanese” dishes that were called “yo-shoku” (Japanized Western dishes).

Yo-shoku dishes with their rich flavours and large servings instantly became national favourites: beef steak, pork cutlet, curry and rice, “omu-rice” (stir-fried morsels of chicken and rice, seasoned with tomato ketchup and wrapped in an omelet), to name a few.

Dietary changes brought risks

During the heyday of Japanese boom-times in 1970-1990, even more varieties of Western foods became available and popular (provided by the major Western fast-food companies). And Japanese began consuming increasing quantities of rare cheeses, foie gras and expensive wines.

These dietary changes came with hefty penalties: Diabetes became more widespread. Heart disease became the No. 2 killer in Japan. And – this was formerly unthinkable – morbid obesity is now present in the country.

Meals dominated by fat, meat, meat products, egg, sugar and milk products push up calorie consumption but not the number of daily food items. The broad categories of foods of the traditional complete Japanese diet such as seafood, seaweed, vegetables and more fruits are lacking. So the 1985 rule was an attempt to bring variety back to the everyday diet.

A fish stew of porgy, squid, hard-shell clam, onion, corn, tomato, and green and yellow zucchini in dashi broth.

Want to try eating 30 different foods in a day? Choose at least two items from each of the six food categories. Since consuming vegetables and fruits is good for health, add two additional items from categories 3 and 4. If you do this, you will easily approach 20 separate food items – a good start for reaching the goal of 30 items that the Japanese government recommended. By following this practice, you can change the way you plan and prepare meals to benefit your health.

Six categories of food items

The six categories of food items and what they provide:

1. Meat, fish, poultry, egg, tofu products (protein).

2. Small fish that can be eaten whole with bones, milk and milk products (calcium).

3. Green and yellow vegetables (carotene, plus other vitamins and minerals).

4. Other vegetables and fruits (vitamin C, plus other vitamins and minerals).

5. Grains, potato, bread/cakes/cookies (carbohydrates).

6. Cooking oil, nut and seed oils, nuts and seeds (fat).

Rules to follow

As you begin your “Thirty Different Food Items Each Day” project, please observe the following rules. Do not count the same ingredient twice. Do not count ingredients used for garnishes in soups, salads and the like; they have minimal nutritional and caloric value. You can, however, count ketchup, mayonnaise and sauces, which have substantial caloric content.

Enjoy this stir-fried rice recipe, which gives you a 7 score for the dish.

A flavourful and satisfying vegetable rice dish with carrot, onion, fennel bulb, kale, brown rice, pine nuts and olive oil.

Seven Score Vegetable Stir-Fried Rice

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

Sea salt

1 cup chopped carrot

1/4 cup chopped fennel bulb or celery

3 1/2 ounces kale; leaves, cut into thin slices crosswise; stems, cut into thin slices slanted

4 cups cooked and cooled brown rice (preferably made a day in advance)

1/2 cup pine nuts

2 tablespoons butter

1 to 2 teaspoons shoyu

Freshly ground black pepper corn

Directions

Heat a wok or deep skillet over medium heat and add 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil. When the oil is hot, add the onion along with pinch of salt and cook, stirring, 1 minute.

Add the carrot, fennel bulb and kale stem along with pinch of sea salt and cook, stirring, 2 minutes. Add the kale leaves, and cook, stirring, 30 seconds. Move the vegetables to one end of the wok (or transfer to a temporary bowl). Add the remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons oil in the empty space of the wok.

When the oil is hot, add the rice and cook, over medium heat, stirring, until the rice is fully heated up, or about 2 minutes. Then combine and toss the rice with the cooked vegetables. Add the pine nuts and give several large stirs. Add the butter, soy sauce and freshly ground black pepper and toss the mixture thoroughly. Divide the rice among 4 plates and serve hot. – Reuters/Hiroko Shimbo

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Hiroko Shimbo, a widely acclaimed chef-consultant and Japanese cooking instructor, is the author of Hiroko’s American Kitchen, The Japanese Kitchen and The Sushi Experience.

http://www.star2.com/health/nutrition/2016/04/26/diet-secrets-you-can-learn-from-japan/

This post is on Healthwise

The science of making dashi

Over his loaded schedule as chef-owner of Kyoto’s three Michelin-starred Kikunoi restaurant, Yoshihiro Murata travels the world to spread the word about washoku. The traditional Japanese cuisine was listed by Unesco as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity in 2013 and Murata played no small role in campaigning for its listing.

APRIL 21, 2016

BY JULIE WONG

Guests were served a bento box lunch of yakimono (grilled fish), glossy tiger prawn, roast duck, seafood paste stuffed shitake, sesame seed tofu, dashi and wasabi jelly with dried scallop rice. Photos: The Star/Faihan Ghani

The venerable chef and goodwill ambassador for Japanese cuisine was in Kuala Lumpur earlier this year to give a demo on making dashi, a stock con-sidered to be at the centre of Japanese cuisine. It has been said that in Japanese cuisine, all roads lead to dashi, the base of all that is umami and yummy.

While making dashi by boiling together kombu seaweed and dried bonito fish flakes makes a reasonable dashi, there is a better way to do it, said Murata who is a Great Master of Traditional Japanese Cuisine and chairman of the influential non-profit Japanese Culinary Academy.

Brewing New Style Dashi with morel mushrooms, dried tomato and minced chicken breast meat.

Together with Kyoto university researchers, Murata has found the optimum method for making dashi – or how to extract the maximum umami flavour by controlling heat and timing.

Murata’s recipe calls for soaking 50g of kombu (kelp) in water for an hour at 60°C as it is the optimum temperature for extracting umami, widely known as the fifth flavour element.

The seaweed is then removed and the water temperature raised to 80°C before papery shavings of dried bonito (katsuobushi) are added.

The tuna flakes are allowed to steep in the stock for just 10 seconds before being strained to avoid over extraction and gaining of unwanted taste elements.

The water for dashi is not allowed to come to a boil but if it happens, the umami is still there but the taste of the dashi will be different – clarity and a clean, delicate and nuanced savoury and sweet taste are what define excellent dashi from the merely good.

Dried morel – ot shiitake – mushrooms can be used instead of dried bonito flakes to make a vegetarian dashi.

“For hundreds of years, we have been making dashi the wrong way,” said Murata through an interpreter, referring to the common practice of boiling kombu and katsuobushi to make dashi.

While his cooking is rooted in tradition, the chef – who always carries a thermometer in his sleeve pocket – takes a progressive approach to cooking which does not preclude the use of science to allow him to accurately communicate Japanese cuisine to the world.

The world’s most unconventional chefs, Ferran Adria, Hes-ton Blumenthal, Rene Redzepi and Pascal Barbot have all spent time in Murata’s kitchen.

His legendary restaurant Kikunoi has stood at the foothills of Kyoto for more than a century (established 1912 during his grandfather’s time), serving an elaborate parade of washoku dishes in a multi-course kaiseki ryori, the equivalent of the western degustation menu.

“There are 65 different items in a typical kaiseki ryori course and only 1000 calories,” said Murata. In comparison, a hamburger has about 1800 calories and a French meal of 25 items has about 2500 calories.

“So many chefs are curious about how we achieve this.”

Japanese cuisine is one based on seafood, grains and vegetables. For nearly 300 years (from 1635) Japan practised a closed door policy limiting trade and travel to curb the spread of Christianity by missionaries.

“For almost 300 years we had no meat and developed a taste for using only umami to enhance flavour,” Murata said, adding that there is zero calories in umami whereas 1g of tasty fat has 9 calories – so one can lose weight by replacing a meal with three bowls of miso soup made with dashi!

Dashi, a deceptively simple, clear broth at the heart of one of the world’s greatest cuisines, uses just three ingredients – seaweed, dried tuna and water – to produce a liquid with a maximum of umami, that savoury, meaty taste that coats the mouth and feeds the soul.

What gives kombu its high umami are two amino acids, glutamic and aspartic. When bonito flakes are added, the glutamate of kombu and the inosinate of bonito flakes produce a synergistic effect.

“The two together gives you eight times the umami effect,” said Murata impactfully to a roomful of chefs, restaurateurs, corporate personalities, ambassadors and media at the residence of Japanese ambassador Dr Makio Miyagawa.

“And to make it taste sweeter, add a little salt to the dashi,” he said.

Dried tomato has as much glutamic acid as kombu and can be used as a substitute in dashi making.

Murata said vegetarians can make a dashi using dried mushrooms like shiitake and morel to replace the bonito flakes. Dried shiitake and morels also have high content of another umami substance, guanylate. Guanylate in a raw mushroom is rather low but is very high in dried mushroom.

Murata then demonstrated how to make a new style of dashi without kombu or bonito flakes!

In this new recipe, kombu is replaced by dried tomato – which has about the same amount of glutamic acid as kombu – and bonito flake is replaced by dried shiitake or morel mushrooms.

The dried ingredients are soaked overnight and then boiled in water together with some chicken breast to make a light and clear umami-packed stock in about an hour of simmering.

Dashi has a different taste profile from that of western-style stock but in both techniques, chefs are aiming to extract the umami taste of the ingredients. Free glutamate is one of the major amino acids found in various types of stocks, and it is rapidly extracted from food ingredients in the early stages of cooking, reports Kumiko Ninomiya in her article “Science of Umami” published online at BioMed Central.

“The use of ingredients high in umami such as dried kombu and bonito allow for a tasty stock to be made quickly. Kombu is dried slowly over a long period of time to remove moisture and odour, and boiled fillet of bonito is smoked and sprayed with a mold culture (Aspergillus glaucus) to make the hardest food in the world.

“Umami is concentrated in advance in these ingredients and can be rapidly extracted during cooking. Thus, cooking time for dashi is considerably shorter than in making a western stock” – which may require hours and days of simmering.

Goodwill ambassador of Japanese cuisine Chef Yoshihiro Murata of the three Michelin-starred Kikunoi restaurant in Kyoto was in KL to demonstrate the perfect way to make dashi with dried kombu seaweed and bonito flakes.

However, dashi has only a few amino acids while western soup stocks have more, including glutamate, alanine, and arginine.

Although the free amino acid profile of dashi is simpler, miso, a fermented soybean paste, can be added to dashi to add a variety of free amino acids to make miso soup. As a result, the total free amino acid content in miso soup and consommé is quite similar, according to the report.

Together with soy sauce and other seasonings, dashi helps reduce caloric intake and the danger of obesity compared with dishes that use oil or animal fat.

According to Nutritional Neuroscience, an international journal on nutrition, diet and nervous system, daily ingestion of dashi, even at low concentrations, reduces anxiety and alters amino acid levels in the brain. “Daily intake of dashi has also been shown to improve mood status such as tension-anxiety in humans,” the journal says.

ICHIBAN DASHI

30g kombu dried seaweed

50g dried bonito flakes (katsuobushi)

1.8 litre water

Wipe the surface of the kombu with a moist towel. Place the kombu in a saucepan with the water and heat it up to 60°C on very low heat. Let the kombu steep for 1 hour at 60°C.

Remove the kombu and bring the broth slowly up to 80°C. Remove the pan from heat and add the dried bonito flakes to the broth.

Leave bonito flakes to soak for 10 seconds – just about the time it takes the flakes to sink to the bottom of the pan – then remove the flakes by straining through a fine sieve or muslin bag without pressing – pressing may extract bitterness.

Murata always carries a thermometer around to measure the temperature of his dashi stock, crucial to getting it perfect.

NEW STYLE DASHI

10g dried tomatoes

10g dried morrel mushrooms

200g chicken breast meat

4g salt (or 2% of meat weight)

2 litre water

Soak the dried tomatoes and dried mushrooms in the water overnight. Remove any visible fat from the chicken breast and grind the meat with a food processor. Add salt to the meat, mix well and set aside for 1 hour.

Tip the tomato, mushroom and water into a saucepan. Add chicken and bring to a gentle boil over medium heat.

When chicken is cooked, remove from heat and strain the dashi through a fine sieve or muslin filter bag.

http://www.star2.com/food/food-news/2016/04/21/the-science-of-making-dashi/

This post is on Healthwise