FAT IS SO SENSUAL!

Ah, succulent marinade with coconut milk poured over raw fish! Ah, sumptuous vanilla ice cream! Fat infuses each dish with exquisite voluptuousness and, with reasonable consumption, it is an essential.

IT MAKES ALL FLAVORS TASTIER ~ In the kitchen, it is no secret to any chef: When excessively degreased, food loses texture and sometimes even taste. This is why the most popular recipes develop a multitude of flavors, from the smoothest to the most crunchy textures, reinforced, lengthened by all kinds of fat.

Who has never been seduced by tasty fried fish, or secretly savored onions bathed in oil? Who has not had a second serving of crispy, oven-browned ham rind? Who has not doubled their portion of fritters even if #it-s-notso-good-for-your-diet? Who has not fallen for flambéed bananas copiously sprinkled with butterscotch?

WHEN FAT IS DISGUISED

1 tbsp of oil = 10 g of fat = 90 calories!

• 100 g of chips = 3 tbsp of oil
• 100 g of fries = 2 tbsp
• 100 g of oven fries = 1 tsp
• 100 g of chocolate = 4 tbsp
• 1 medium pizza = 2 tbsp
• 1 large ice cream cone = 1.5 tbsp

It only takes 2 tablespoons of oil to increase tenfold the calories in a bowl of salad. 100 g of lettuce is 20 calories which goes up to 200 calories after seasoning!

A ROUNDER, LONGER TASTE ~ By itself, fat awakens the scent of garlic and herbs a hundredfold, rounds off the spiciness of onions, makes the fire of the chili flicker. Sweet potatoes or potatoes? Yes! But sautéed or divinely caressed with parsley butter, a game-changer on the plate. This is why we are much more addicted to chips, three times as rich in lipids – the scientific term for dietary fat – as large home-made fries cut with a knife, less fine and less permeable.

WHAT ARE THESE NOTORIOUS LIPIDS? ~ They are composed of small elements, fatty acids, taken for example from seasoning fats, ham fat or poultry skin and also the flesh of fatty fish. In the body, they play two major roles. On the one hand, they ensure the storage of energy. Their other role is more structural: they allow the proper fluidity of cell membranes, the transport of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K and the synthesis of sex hormones and also that of cortisol, the famous stress mediator.

AN EXPLOSION OF SUGARS IN THE MOUTH ~ Let’s admit it, fat tenderly comforts the taste buds and above all revives, when it is combined with sugars, a sensation of sweetness which subconsciously reminds us of the maternal breast: sweet-tasting sugars and others innocently hidden inside starchy foods such as tenderly seared bread, sweet potatoes or plantains or rice soaked in sauce. It is easier to understand why the food industry giants happily combine sugars and fats in snacks and ready-made meals. A bonus for “low price” ready-made meals, often much fattier than the more expensive ones. In this intense alliance, the higher the density of the fat, the more we succumb to temptation. Welcome, pizzas and lasagna topped with mozzarella, aperitif biscuits full of cheese, peanuts in crunchy appetizers; chocolate bars and sticks.

In the colorful Creole, “Sé sa ki ni anba dan ki ka désann an lèstonmak” means it’s what you eat that goes down to your stomach. What goes around comes around!

So treat yourself with some voluptuous dishes, in the land of melting sweets, but sparingly! Too much is never good.

THE OMEGA SAGA

There are two kinds of fatty acids.

First, saturated ones, contained in butter, fatty meats and lard pies which coat the walls of the arteries, block them and stiffen them. The sources of stroke, hypertension or myocardial infarction, these are the tastiest ones.

Second, unsaturated fatty acids, or omega-3 concentrated in fatty fish, rapeseed, walnut, camelina or hemp oils, and omega-9 in olive and avocado which, in turn, protect the skin, heart and vessels. A good point for canned tuna, sardines and mackerel but preferably with olive oil because sunflower oil, rich in omega-6, is pro-inflammatory!

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