interesterified

Have you ever wondered about those phone numbers on consumer products like milk or margarine that say "If you have any questions about our product call 800-555-1234"?  I certainly have but until today I hadn't called.  I called today after reading the ingredients on a Marie Calendar frozen chicken pie box.  There on the fifth line down, second word over was this word I had never in my life seen:  interesterified.
What the ??? I thought.  I tried breaking it down interest-terrified, no; in-terestial-fried, no; in-te-rester-i-fied, no again.  So I called.

I don't know what I was thinking. Yes, I do.  I expected some happy Nebraska farmer to be spending a day off in the office just waiting for a call from me so that he could carefully and cheerfully explain what this mysterious word meant.  But I should have expected an automated, impersonal answer such as, "Good morning from Con Agra, the smallest name for the largest food supply company in the world.  You may select a menu item at any time by saying that item.  Are you calling about Marie Calendar Chicken Pies or Another Product?"

I carefully said "Marie Calendar Chicken Pies".

The machine said, "I'm sorry I didn't understand your answer.  You may select ...

After three unsuccessful attempts to understand me, the machine began tagging button punching to my menu:  "If you are calling about Marie Calendar Chicken Pies say 'Chicken Pies' or press 1; otherwise press 2."  It understood my button even if it didn't see which finger I was using to press it.

The next level followed with choices about caloric and other health facts, allergic reactions, menus, ingredients, and so on.  We played our little game until the machine finally gave me button choices and I was able to give her the finger again.  I chose ingredients.  The machine read the ingredients, noting that they were in decreasing order of weight in the actual product and that the actual weights were a trade secret...  But no explanation of interesterified.  I pressed the button to talk with an actual customer representative and "surprise" I was told that "all our customer representatives are assisting other customers" so I should wait or call back.  Five minutes later I was still getting the same message with no hint as to when my name might come up on their board.

I decided to Google.  Wiki Encyclopedia quickly responded with the following:

Interesterified fat is a type of oil where the fatty acids have been moved from one triglyceride molecule to another. Interesterification does not alter the fatty acids. This is generally done to modify the melting point, slow rancidificationand create an oil more suitable for deep frying or making margarine with good taste and low content of saturated fatty acids. This is unlike partial hydrogenation which produces trans fatty acids.

Aha!! They've found a way around the ban on transfat oil!    Other Google responses indicated that although the jury is still out on interestereified oil we should be cautious.  We've been deceived before.  But that's another story.