Jamie Oliver's crusade for less fried food for kids' meals has prompted some manufacturers to experiment with equipment which delivers a healthier range of options
If Jamie Oliver had known what he was getting into, he might have thought twice. The TV-chef-turned-children's-food-crusader put the cat among the pigeons earlier this year with his Jamie's School Dinners TV programme.
The series sparked a public outcry by making it clear just how little money local education authorities spend on school dinners. What our children want, we are told, is fresh, healthy food, not deep-fried, pre-packed rubbish high in salt, sugar and fat.
The government, naturally, insisted that it has been planning to sort out the problem all along. By the time the Labour conference rolled around in September, education secretary Ruth Kelly was on stage to pledge a ban on "low-quality re-processed bangers and burgers high in fat, salt and sugar being served in schools" from September.
The scope of the government's action is also expected to see chocolate, crisps, salted nuts and fizzy drinks removed from school vending machines and canteens. Controls to ensure that deep-fried food such as chips, as well as ice cream, are not served more than twice a week are also likely.
For pubs, the debate highlights the minefield that children's menus create. Parents insist that they want to see healthier options and a wider choice for their kids.
But when push comes to shove, the reality is that burgers, chicken nuggets, sausages and chips are still popular - very often because parents know that's what their offspring will eat.
When you're paying at least £3.99 of your hard-earned cash for a kids' main course, spending it on a humus and pitta bread dip with a salad accompaniment that may get sent back untouched can be a tough call.
Breast cancer
If chips weren't facing enough of a battering already, this summer also saw plenty of media attention to research by Harvard Medical School which suggests that giving under-fives one portion of chips a week increases their risk of breast cancer by 27 per cent, while girls who eat chips every day could be doubling their chance of developing the disease.
At the centre of the concern is a chemical found in chips called acrylamide, formed when starchy food is heated at high temperatures. Acrylamide is known to be carcinogenic, although opinion remains divided as to whether it presents any risk to humans at the levels present in food.
All of which hasn't stopped the attorney general of health-conscious California bringing a legal action against food companies including Burger King, McDonald's and Frito-Lay, owned by PepsiCo, calling for warning labels to be put on all chips and crisps sold in the US state.
Where California leads, the UK's Food Standards Agency has been known to follow eventually. Pub equipment suppliers are already looking at ways to address the genuine health concerns, as well as plan for any new legislation that may be used to regulate fried foods in the future.
Hobart UK recently set its cooking experts the challenge of finding a feasible solution for caterers concerned with healthy eating. Their mission was clearly defined: to identify ways of recreating fryer foods, eliminating the frying process and any trace of oil.
Hobart UK product development manager Terry Ashmore says: "Other manufacturers have re-engineered their commercial fryers to reduce oil consumption and address current health risks, but we have taken our research a step further.
"Armed with years of technological expertise and guided by escalating fears over obesity, we have successfully maintained the look, texture and taste of fried chips by cooking budget, frozen non-oven chips in our state-of-the-art convection steamer."
Initial trials were carried out at an inner city school in Birmingham. This saw foods successfully transferred from the fryer into the convection steamer, producing the same end results without the use of fats or oils.
This was achieved with a cooking programme that uses a combination of convection and humidity.
Nutritional benefits
Mr Ashmore says: "We have significantly improved the nutritional benefit of the food, while maintaining customer acceptance. This trial has resulted in the existing fryers becoming obsolete, showing a substantial saving and negating the need for any frying agents."
He added: "Pub chefs are gradually starting to accommodate customers looking for healthier options. Our new cooking programme can give every establishment a competitive edge. With the vast increase in the amount of meals consumed in pubs across the UK.
"Hobart's new easy-to-use electric CSD UC Convection Steamer, with self auto-cleaning and rapid automatic turbo cool-down, allows operators to cook fryer foods in a healthier way.
"Our convection steamers are also engineered to help operators save time and money, through total energy efficiency."
Falcon eliminates variable cooking disasters
Hobart's solution - doing away with the fryer entirely - may seem extreme to some pub operators. Another supplier to have looked closely at this issue is Falcon Foodservice Equipment, part of the Aga Foodservice Group.
Falcon insists that pubs can offer healthier fried food on the children's menu by changing the way foods such as chips and coated products such as nuggets are fried.
The company launched an awareness campaign to highlight how food can still have the crispness and flavour which comes from frying, but have less oil in the food when it is put on the plate.
According to Falcon marketing manager Barry Hill, the two main contributors to greasy, fried food in pubs are poor oil management and fryers which can't maintain cookingtemperature in the face of heavy demand for fried food.
Without daily oil filtration, food debris in the oil will burn and accelerate the breakdown of the oil. When oil breaks down more of it is absorbed into food. Mr Hill says: "When you can see the oil glistening on the surface of nuggets and chips that's a clear sign that there could be a problem with the oil. Children might not notice, but a good pub chef should."
Regular filtration is the key to keeping oil clean and extending its life. Falcon has installed in-built, semi-automatic oil filtration on its award-winning Infinity fryer.
Mr Hill says: "When fried food comes out of an Infinity fryer it is crisp and dry. That's a sure sign that only the minimum of oil has been absorbed during frying."
The other way excess oil can be absorbed into fried food is through frying temperatures which are too low.
Pub chefs know that frying frozen chips at the recommended temperature of 180ºC seals the chip and forms a barrier to excess absorption of oil. What is not widely known, says Falcon's technical manager John Scott, is that chips are actually fried at a lower temperature than 180ºC, whatever the thermostat on the fryer may say.
Mr Scott points out: "The fryer thermostat indicates 180ºC, but as soon as frozen food is put in the fryer, the oil temperature plummets. Frozen chips take between three to four minutes to brown and pub's kitchen staff work to that.
"What they might not know is that the frozen food has dropped the oil temperature to 160ºC or lower. The lower the oil temperature, the more oil which is going to be absorbed. How fast oil temperature can recover from that initial cold shock has an impact on the fat content of the food being fried."
Falcon has addressed this in its Infinity fryer by doing away with the slow conventional gas burner system used in gas fryers, in favour of one that is more allied to the rapid heat-up system used i