About coffee companions and cream.

Plant fat powder

Plant fat can not improve the internal structure of food, increase aroma and fat, make the taste delicate and thick, so it is a good companion of coffee products, which can be used in instant oatmeal, cake, biscuit, etc., to make the cake delicate and elastic; biscuits can improve crispness, not easy to remove oil. The final fast solubility of plant fat is good, and the flavor through essence is similar to "milk". It can replace milk powder or reduce the amount of milk in food processing, so that the production cost can be reduced on the premise of maintaining stable product quality.

Recent studies have shown that the partial hydrogenation of vegetable oil is actually the process of changing the unsaturated fatty acids of vegetable oil into saturated or semi-saturated state, in which trans fatty acids are produced, which can increase the low density lipoprotein in human blood. High density lipoprotein decreases, induces vascular hardening, and increases the risk of heart disease and cerebrovascular accidents. However, total hydrogenation does not produce trans fatty acids, and the current process of full hydrogenation is very mature. Recently, in revising the composition of the food pyramid, the United States has made it clear that attention should be paid to the issue of trans fatty acids, requiring manufacturers to indicate the content of trans fatty acids in their products. To this end, oil manufacturers have also developed new hydrogenation technology, which does not produce trans fatty acids in the process of hydrogenation, and has been used in some products to replace the original plant fat powder containing trans fatty acids. The World Health Organization and European and American countries have successively made recommendations and regulations on the safe upper limit of daily intake (2 grams) and the ratio of food containing trans fatty acids (1%).

Coffee companion

There are many people like to add milk when drinking coffee, the color of coffee with milk will become lighter and the visual effect will be better. Coffee with milk is also more popular in taste. At first, the container of milk was called "creamer". Later, the milk added to the coffee was called "creamer". But liquid milk needs to be refrigerated, so it is very inconvenient to use. In the 1960s, Nestl é developed something called "coffee companion" to replace milk as "creamer", which is translated as "cream" in Chinese. It is very popular because it is powder and does not need to be refrigerated. Later, other companies produced similar products, but "Coffee partner" is a registered trademark of Nestl é and cannot be used. It is generally directly called "non-dairy creamer", or rather, "Coffee Brightener (coffee whitener)".

Although coffee companions are called "non-dairy" products, they do contain milk ingredients. The most critical ingredient casein is the main protein in milk. When coffee partners were developed, casein was only a by-product of cheese production, was cheap, and no one treated it as a "milk product". In recent years, because of the high nutritional value of casein, the price of casein has soared, manufacturers are looking for other cheaper proteins to replace. At present, similar products made from soy protein and wheat protein have entered the market and become veritable "non-milk essence".

In the past, this product was only used as a coffee brightener instead of milk. Later, some people rinsed him directly, while others added it to cakes, cream and other foods as a food raw material. Because its shape and the products after flushing are very similar to milk powder and flushed milk powder, it is called "milk essence" by the Chinese. In industry, it is more often called "fat plant powder".

The difference between milk essence and milk powder

Milk powder is directly dried by spray drying of natural fresh milk. as a natural agricultural and livestock product, it has a certain standard proportion and is not allowed to add anything else (except seasoned milk powder and functional milk powder). And "cream" is the general name of many products used in coffee, more refers to the artificial preparation of fat powder. When milk or milk powder is used in coffee, its purpose is to whiten, thicken, smooth, and neutralize bitterness, it is a kind of "cream". However, although the fat powder used in the same coffee use is also a kind of "cream", it can be tailor-made without a certain standard proportion. It is mainly made of hydrogenated vegetable oil, sugar and casein white. It is supplemented by emulsifiers, stabilizers, flavors and pigments. The nutritional value of plant fat powder used in general coffee is much lower than that of milk powder, but there are also plant fat powder specially used for baby milk powder. Unsaturated fatty acids rich in linolenic acid, etc., without hydrogenation.

Coffee cream, core indicators:

First, the whitening effect: related to the amount of casein, fat ball size, microcapsule technology.

Second, solubility: it is related to particle size, particle diffusivity, emulsifying effect and the number of coke particles.

Third, thickening: related to the amount of protein.

Fourth, neutralization: it is related to emulsifying effect, selection of raw materials and proportion, and essence.

The general use of coffee plant fat powder production is to meet the above indicators. The addition of casein is used to encapsulate fat balls rather than provide nutrition, and casein is only about 2-4% of 30% fat. Generally speaking, the producers of plant fat powder boast more about function and application in the product catalogue, and there will never be any declaration that nutrition can replace milk powder. As the vast majority of plant fat powder is used in the category of leisure drinks and non-staple food, it is not suitable to use nutrition as the standard to test it, just as it is the same reason to use nutrition standard to test candy and cola. The name "cream" has its historical origin. The English word cream is cream. Milk, condensed milk, milk powder and fresh cream added to coffee are all called creamer, and vegetable milk and vegetable fat powder are all called non-dairy creamer, or directly called creamer. So creamer "milk essence" is a general term, it does not have to be milk or milk ingredients, at best it is a subdivision of "animal milk essence" and "plant milk essence". If you really want to cheat, it is also called milk powder directly. For the literal requirement to contain milk ingredients in order to use the word "milk" as the name, this is too picky. "Coconut Milk" also emphasizes that 100% of the raw juice is not mixed with milk powder, there is no fish in the famous Sichuan dish "Yu-Shiang Eggplant （Sautéed with Spicy Garlic Sauce）", and the community without a single flower is also named "XX Garden". Only a small number of unscrupulous businessmen directly sell vegetable milk essence into packaging as milk powder is deceptive.

In fact, there is no direct relationship between cream and hydrogenated oil, and the domestic panic about cream comes more from the worry about hydrogenated oil.

In the production process of cream, the shape and taste of the finished product are better when the oil with high melting point is used. The fat in vegetable oil is mainly unsaturated fatty acid, so it has a low melting point and is liquid at room temperature. Through catalytic reaction, hydrogenation on some unsaturated bonds to make it saturated can improve the melting point of vegetable oil, thus increasing the stability of vegetable oil and its application performance in food processing. Hydrogenated oil happens to be conducive to the production of cream, so it was once widely used, hence the name "plant fat powder".

But later scientific research shows that hydrogenated oil contains more trans unsaturated fatty acids. These trans fatty acids are not good for the human body, but are harmful to health, so the use of hydrogenated oil is opposed.

However, the harm of trans fatty acids is not very great. Institutions such as FDA and WHO believe that eating 2 grams of trans fatty acids a day has no significant effect on human health, so a certain amount of trans fatty acids is allowed in foods. If cream is only used as a coffee brightener, it is difficult for the human body to consume more than 2 grams a day; therefore, many of the cream on the US market is still produced from hydrogenated oil. If cream is rinsed or used as a raw material to make other foods, it is possible to eat too many trans fatty acids, which is not good for the human body.

After all, the only way to produce cream is to hope that the melting point of the oil is high enough, not only by hydrogenated oil. In fact, even ordinary vegetable oil can make qualified products. The cream produced today may not use hydrogenated oil at all. What's more, the new hydrogenation technology can also provide hydrogenated oil with zero trans fat.

Human health

Recent studies have shown that the partial hydrogenation of vegetable oil is actually a process of changing the unsaturated fatty acids of vegetable oil into a saturated or semi-saturated state, in which trans fatty acids are produced, which can increase low-density lipoprotein in human blood. high-density lipoprotein decreases, induces vascular hardening and increases the risk of heart disease and cerebrovascular accidents. However, total hydrogenation does not produce trans fatty acids, and the current process of full hydrogenation is very mature. Recently, in revising the composition of the food pyramid, the United States has made it clear that attention should be paid to the issue of trans fatty acids, requiring manufacturers to indicate the content of trans fatty acids in their products. To this end, oil manufacturers have also developed new hydrogenation technology, which does not produce trans fatty acids in the process of hydrogenation, and has been used in some products to replace the original plant fat powder containing trans fatty acids. The World Health Organization and European and American countries have successively made recommendations and regulations on the safe upper limit of daily intake (2 grams) and the ratio of food containing trans fatty acids (1%).

Now the world's major fat powder manufacturers: Nestle, Suzhou Guangyi, Shandong Tianjiao, Carey, Jinghua and so on.