
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995                   TAG: 9509290079
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Fort Worth Star-Telegram
DATELINE: FORT WORTH, TEXAS                                LENGTH: Short

FOOD TESTED BY GERBILS AND 29 NUNS

It's the low-cholesterol dream of restaurateurs and food makers: a cooking shortening that doesn't raise bad cholesterol levels or contain unhealthy trans-fatty acids, but still delivers the old flavor and multiple uses of traditional lard, beef tallow and shortening.

Now - after dietary tests on hamsters, gerbils, monkeys and 29 Catholic nuns - the new Appetize line of engineered fats promises to transform the dream into reality.

It will be made in Fort Worth, 100 million pounds of it per year.

``The Appetize line is 100 percent natural and is not hydrogenated,'' said the Bunge Foods Group, which has been licensed by Source Food Technology of Minnesota to make and market Appetize in North America. The process to remove cholesterol is a patented steam-stripping method, the company said.

Studies show that diets containing Appetize fats can lower total serum cholesterol levels and the so-called ``bad'' cholesterol in hamsters, gerbils and monkeys, Source and Bunge said. Bunge also touted a dietary study of 29 nuns at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn., that indicated that Appetize engineered fats are healthy diet alternatives.

``The 29 sisters ... experienced a 7 percent drop in overall cholesterol and a 9 percent decrease in low-density lipoproteins, LDLs, or bad cholesterol,'' Bunge said.

by CNB