A review of factors affecting fat absorption in hot chips

Consumption of hot chips is a convenience food in most countries. Unfortuna tely, these are high in fat and contribute to fat-related diseases in socie ties with a high fat consumption. There is substantial scope through best-p ractice deep-frying techniques for producing lower fat, high-quality chips. From a review of the literature, the main factors associated with a lower- fat content of chips are thick (>12 mm), straight cut chips; cryogenic free zing methods; low moisture content of potatoes (specific gravity >1.1); fry ing fat: chip volume ratio of 6:1; frying at optimal temperature (180 to 18 5 degreesC) during cooking and turning the temperature down (similar to 140 degreesC) and covering the vats during slack periods; vigorously shaking t he basket and hanging it over the deep fryer to drain after frying; maintai ning the quality of the frying fat by regularly skimming the cracklings, fi ltering the fat, and topping up the fryer with fresh fat; keeping the fat t urnover <5 days; regular cleaning of frying equipment. It is important that all deep frying operators are adequately trained in these techniques. It i s also important that the frying medium is low in saturated and trans fatty acids (<20%) because of their effects on blood lipids and low in linolenic acid (<3%) because it is readily degraded. The widespread implementation o f best-practice deep-frying would reduce fat content of hot chips and thus lower overall fat consumption.