chicken/fat (shmaltz) how unhealthy is it?

amother

Tue, Apr 08 2014, 12:06 pm

I have some guests coming for yomtov who will not use any oils because they are "manufactured." They only use shmaltz. Can anyone tell me how bad this is healthwise, or will one week of using only a minimal amount cause long-term medical issues? Awaiting your comments. TIA

gp2.0

Tue, Apr 08 2014, 12:52 pm

It's not unhealthy at all. More and more studies are showing that there is no link between saturated fats like chicken schmaltz and heart disease.

In fact, eating matzah for a week is definitely more damaging than schmaltz. Overloading on refined carbohydrates is unhealthy.

Eating eggs, butter, meat, chicken and schmaltz - perfectly healthy.

MiracleMama

Tue, Apr 08 2014, 1:22 pm

vintagebknyc wrote:

your friends have curious ideas.

Not really. Lots of families have this minhag on Pesach. But they usually don't eat by anyone else (outside their own family maybe). It's a little odd to accept invitations to someone's house that doesn't keep pesach the same way you do and then expect them to change the whole way they cook. I think so anyhow.

vintagebknyc

Tue, Apr 08 2014, 1:24 pm

MiracleMama wrote:

lol, sorry. I didn't realize this was a passover thing, but a general houseguest thing. (yes, I am pretending passover is not coming. fingers in ears. la la la)

papermageling

Tue, Apr 08 2014, 6:42 pm

Shmaltz is much lower in saturated fat than butter, to give you an idea, and it has a decent amount of monounsaturated fat, which is good. Going by this table, I'd say that it's probably better for you than cottonseed oil, definitely better than margarine (particularly the pesachdik ones), and worse than olive oil. In general, people consider monounsaturated fats the healthiest, followed by polyunsaturated, then saturated, with trans fat as the worst. The research isn't really completely conclusive, except that we know trans fat is really bad. As such, I prefer coconut oil to most margarine (and the OU said that Spectrum unrefined coconut oil is good for pesach this year) when I need a fat that's solid at room temperature.

Also, some people have concerns about toxins in cottonseed oil (it starts out toxic and has to be purified to render it fit for human consumption. It probably is quite pure at that point, but still not one of the healthier oils). Given that they're coming for pesach, could it be that they're worried about the cottonseed oil? You might want to ask them what they think of olive oil, which is certainly quite natural. Shmaltz is delicious and not as unhealthy as most think, but it really, really isn't suitable for all cooking.

allthingsblue

Tue, Apr 08 2014, 6:50 pm

gp2.0 wrote:

Beg to differ.

Saturated fats are no good, for various reasons. Definitely not "perfectly healthy."

But, if that's all your guests eat, then you can use it for just 1 week.

And btw who says matzah has to be refined? Go whole wheat!

Mama Bear

Tue, Apr 08 2014, 7:56 pm

I agree with the poster above who was confused how someone who is so machmir that they only use shmaltz, would 'mish' with a stranger. It's also very not etiquetteish to expect a pesach host to cook according to your chumras. When youre a guest, you eat what your host makes.

gp2.0

Wed, Apr 09 2014, 9:43 am

allthingsblue wrote:

Poster above did a better job explaining about monounsaturated fats vs other kinds, etc. Google "is chicken fat bad for you" and you may be surprised at what you find. An article published in British medical journal basically says there's no evidence that saturated fat is linked to heart disease. http://www.bmj.com/press-relea.....issue

And besides, chicken has more monounsaturated fat than saturated fat.

Even whole wheat matzah is usually mixed with white flour. And even whole wheat is still a carb vs a fat. And evidence is stacking up that carbs are to blame for obesity and heart disease, not fats.

Raisin

Wed, Apr 09 2014, 9:51 am

My parents do not use oil on pesach. But my mother barely uses schmalts. She does things like cook the potatoes with the chicken. No oil in salads so its probably pretty healthy. You can easily make one meal without any oil.

I know someone who used to have this minhag. One year she found a wheat kernel inside her chicken. Now she uses olive oil - and carefully checks each chicken before pesach.

Olives don't eat wheat.

sarah11

Thu, Apr 10 2014, 7:24 am

I have recently been learning that what we have all been taught about fat is actually totally wrong and fat has been scapegoated in some ways. If it comes from a grass-fed, organic, free range chicken then many would say that it is healthy! Although good luck finding such kosher chicken..

Ruchel

Thu, Apr 10 2014, 7:27 am

Health wise, poultry fat is not considered so bad. For some (both the old school, and a new school of thought) it's even healthy. Of course not to live on that lol! but in reasonable quantity. And this is one week.

OUAT they said butter cooking needed to go too, it was evilllll... and now, some are slowly going back to it.