The sizzling sound of saturated fat. Wedges are being cooked in beef tallow and served up at a primary school.
“The push generally has been towards healthier options, salads and promoting whole grain breads and low fat product, so I'm sure there is some resistance towards frying the food for Bluestone in the beef fat,” said Cate Sutherland, catering manager at Timaru Boys High School and Bluestone Primary School.
And there has been some turn around in tuck shop ideology but it’s not just about saturated fat - it's about preservative free food.
“I've long thought about the additional things in foods - the chemicals and the hormones and preservatives, things that are put in to add colour and increase the lifespan of shelf goods and yeah I did see that they could potentially be causing some harm so I was happy to follow through with it, said Sutherland.
Sutherland is following through with the theory cooked up by mum Rachel Tomkinson.
“For a long time we've been taught that saturated fat’s especially a bad for us but I believe whole heartedly that that’s definitely wrong. Back in the old days grandma used to have dripping sandwiches, didn't hurt them they didn't have cancer like they do today,” said Tomkinson.
Rachel Tomkinson is the last person you'd expect to be an advocate for saturated fat.
She's a nurse and personal trainer - obsessed for years with diet foods.
These days her obsession is with preservatives
“Msg or mono sodium glutamate or more sad goo – it’s easier that way and basically goo has been around for 100 years and it’s excitotoxin and it tricks our brain for us to want to keep eating more and it throws us out of balance,” said Tomkinson.
Artificial additives like msg are present in almost every processed thing we eat...disguised under a multitude of names.
Rachel believes that it was her msg full diet that gave her breast-fed daughter chronic eczema and multiple allergies.
“Until I eliminated those foods and introduced funnily enough what healed Jenna were the things we're not supposed to have which is saturated fats such as dripping cream butter all those things and she came right,” said Tomkinson.
It was a radical shift in thinking for a health professional.
But the proof says Rachel was in the pudding, apple crumble.
“Saturated fats give food flavour and they keep you content - so when the flavour went out of food with the fats they had to put something else in to make it palatable and to taste good so hence why the glutamate industry went 'boof,' skyrocketed with the processed foods industries because the goo came in to replace the fat,” said Tomkinson.
And could the cost of that...be our health?
Liam Bain was born with severe allergies and was following a strictly gluten and lactose free diet when he got sick six months ago.
Doctors were at a loss.
Then Melissa Bain read Rachel’s book and overhauled his diet
“And that was really scary. I’m not underestimating the fear was huge to re-introduce wheat, which we weren't meant to be giving him but organic wheat in its purest form to put a child to bed we were really scared and no reaction – nil,” said Tomkinson.
Four restaurants have also adopted Rachel’s saturated fat - preservative free food on their menus
“It totally makes sense when you think about it it’s like what Mum and Dad used to feed us isn't it?” said Debs Wilson from Pukeko café and deli.
CampbellLIVE