Has there been a change in cooking oil?

R

richard-in-cincy

Well-known member
Back when I was on vacation and eating whatever I wanted, I made a beeline to my favorite bakery to get sourcream sticks (a fried and glazed cake doughnut like object--totally sinful). I took one bite, tasted an awful after taste, and couldn't finish it. I had another fried pastry thing and detected the same flavor. Then I detected the same flavor again a couple more times in several non-fried dessert items.

What new wickedness has the industrial food complex foisted upon us now?

 
They've changed to a cheaper fat. Make sure you tell them this is NOT acceptable! Good Luck! (nt)

 
Could you be noticing a sort of fishy taste from canola oil? The only place I've picked up on it is

in Cape Cod reduced fat potato chips and then only once in awhile but other people have told me they can detect it if they use canola oil at home. I would suspect you have a very well developed sense of taste and would pick it up.

 
Not odd if the places are all being served by the same middleman/salesperson/supplier. . . (nt)

 
So no one else has noticed a change?

Marilyn, I thought about that, but I also smelled it in the bakery and have had traces of the tastes is several different places. Sort of an antiseptic/disinfectant smell/taste now that I think about it. It was an incredible turn off, especially after waiting so long to get my hands on that sour cream stick. smileys/frown.gif

I'm pretty much convinced there has been some big conversion/switch of industrial cooking oil and that most people won't notice. It could be a localized thing with suppliers as well.

 
Maybe something to do with the trans-fat bandwagon that everyone scrambled to jump off?

Maybe they used to fry in something different... but now can claim no trans-fats if someone asks?

 
Good gracious. This may be the first time that living in a culinary wasteland has its advantages.

I never buy pastries out. Locally, we have ONE french bakery plus the generic bakeries in the grocery stores and my stuff is better. I almost wept after tasting the pastry cream from the French bakery. It was gluey and just plain nasty. And this guy is FRENCH! Plus I've tried every dessert in every local restaurant. Most are some form of dairy dessert (like a flan or cheesecake) that can sit forever. Almost all are purchased premade desserts. No CIA pastry chefs on my side of the state. The cakes tend to have...geez, I guess "a funny taste" would describe it. Hummm, now you have me wondering? I just know they're never as good as mine...even when mine is only a jazzed up cake mix version.

I know the industrial chocolate icing has definitely changed. I used to buy it by the pound from the Publix bakery when I needed something quick or was doing a pastry "lunch & learn" here at work. The baker would scrap some out of a 5-gallon container, so you know it's produced in even bigger quantities if it's shipped in that size. Somewhere along the line they decided that wasn't smart to do, so they stopped. But it was getting nasty toward the end. I just assumed it was because I had eaten jar after jar of Dyslexic sauce or made Alice Medrich's chocolate buttercream with butter and Callebaut too often to accept anything less.

Oh...and Dunkin Donuts! Fortunately for my thighs, I can't put one of their donuts in my mouth without getting that ucky taste.

 
Yes, the world of industrial desserts has really taken a nose dive to

incredibly awful from their previous lofty heights of well-below average.

The junk that people bring into the office is not fit for consumption. It's all store bought and it is all absolutely disgusting. I wouldn't touch it even if I wasn't low carbing.

And the bakery I mentioned in the first post? I was actually there to buy cake and ice cream for a birthday party. They are renowned for their ice cream and their bakery had been my preferred one after my favorite one closed down a while back. What do we want in a real bakery cake? Icing. It was the same deal as you experienced. I think they bought this junk they were passing off as bakery cake icing.

But even their ice cream has been put throught the industrial food destroyer. This is the local Cincinnati company that Oprah made famous a few years back by announcing they had the world's best ice cream. And they did. But after 125+ years, the present generation got greedy and started expanding. They built a factory and stopped making it the way they had to give them over a century of happy customers. THe present product is a faint memory of the way it used to be. And happy little chemcial processed food consumers continue to eat it all up as if nothing happened. The lable on this ice cream used to read: Cream, sugar, milk, sometimes eggs, and the flavoring they used (peaches, raspberries, chocolate, etc.). Nothing else. Now it's loaded with carageenan, guar gum, and all the other wonders of factory-produced ice cream. And it's even more outrageously expensive that ever. We've stopped buying it, because it isn't worth the money. We could whip up a quart of great ice cream for what they're charging for a pint and actually use the quality ingredients without the junk additives.

And that is the problem. The masses have been retrained and their tastebud expectations have been lowered by all the processed chemical laden food they eat.

The few of us left who do notice the difference do not matter because we are so small in number.

Ignorance, as "they" say, truly is indeed bliss.

 
I don't know, C. They just used to scrap a big wad into a clear plastic clam shell for me

and stick a price on it. No list of ingredients because it really wasn't a sell item. I started buying it almost 10 years ago and the last time was ~4 years ago. It definitely changed during that period.

It's the dark, shiny chocolate icing....not the drizzle version.

 
I would guess that generic "vegetable oil" formulas change depending on what the market

Price is on the different components. I'll bet they used to add a lot of corn oil and now that corn is at a premium because of ethanol they are subbing a different proportion of something else that you find objectionable. To me, if you dislike it it would be most noticeable in a bread product.

 
I have noticed off tastes from baked goods some, not consistently though

I always assume it's whatever oils and shortenings they can get the cheapest sometime or that it's old. I bought a whole bunch of baked goods from this place and they weren't even really edible and I had gotten the same thing less than a month earlier that was to die for.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top