Do you love having ice-cream but abstain since it is loaded with saturated fat? Worry not! A scientist from the University of Copenhagen is now developing an version of the dairy treat with any of the unhealthy substance in it.
Saturated fat is linked to higher cholesterol, heart disease and strokes.
Merete Bøgelund Munk is working on a method to alter the conventional structure of ice cream using unsaturated fat oil droplets.
Speaking to Reuters she said that saturated vegetable fat is solid, so what she is attempting to do, instead, is make ice cream with liquid oil.
Munk further adds, “But it's important that to create a structure in the ice cream, to stabilise the ice cream, it is important that the lipid is solid and therefore we are structuring the liquid oil into solid fat by adding some structuring molecules.'
According to Munk, the method not only has health benefits but there environmental advantages to this potential new way of manufacturing ice cream as well.
Many ice creams contain palm oil – the most widely consumed vegetable oil on the planet causing widespread rainforest destruction and a threat to endangered species.
Munk went on to add that selecting an oil, which is produced locally would allow manufacturers a bigger selection to choose from.
The research is being carried out in collaboration with Scandinavian fat supply giants AAK.
Munk plans to test her new technique at production scale very soon. If and when the method as validated, AAK may seek to commercialise a fat-free ice-cream product.
