Currently browsing posts about: Fats-and-oils

Seed oils, according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr, are the unhealthiest ingredient in the food supply, not least because they are cheap and subsidized.

He also says they are one of the worst things you can eat.

Really?  I don’t think so, although seed oils, like everything else high in calories, are best consumed in moderation.

OK.  Here’s my understanding of what’s up with seed oils.

The basics

• They are essential in the human diet.  We require two fatty acids, linoleic (omega 6) and linolenic (omega 3), best obtained from seed oils.
• All food fats, seed oils no exception, are mixtures of saturated, unsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids; only their proportions differ.
• All food oils have about 120 calories per tablespoon; this is why fat is fattening.
• Unsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, when substituted for saturated fatty acids, reduce blood cholesterol levels and heart disease risk.

On this last point, a recent epidemiological study, Butter and Plant-Based Oils Intake and Mortality, found:

• Higher intakes of canola, soybean, and olive oils was associated with lower total mortality (the investigators couldn’t find enough respondents who ate safflower or corn oils to study the effects of those oils),
• Every 10-g/d increment in plant-based oils intake was associated with an 11% lower risk of cancer mortality and a 6% lower risk of CVD mortality.
• Substituting 10-g/d intake of total butter with an equivalent amount of total plant-based oils was associated with an estimated 17% reduction in total mortality  and a 17% reduction in cancer mortality.

Note: butter has a similar fatty acid composition to beef tallow.  If they had studied beef tallow, I would expect the results to be similar.

The arguments against seed oils hold grains of truth but require explanation [my comments]

• We eat too much of them and with too much fried food [no argument on this one]
• Consumption increased from 1980 to 2000 in parallel with the rise in obesity [true, but so did calories from all other sources, and this is just an association].
• Their ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids is much too high [true for some seed oils, but not for olive, soy, or canola].
• Seed oils are extracted using hexane, a dangerous organic solvent [true, but processing removes most of it, and only slight traces remain. Still, it would be good if chemists could find “greener” alternatives].
• Highly unsaturated seed oils can become rancid quickly [true, which is why they need to be stored in dark bottles and refrigerated].
• Omega-6 fatty acids cause inflammation [not really, if anything, they are slightly anti-inflammatory but not by much; omega-3 fatty acids are somewhat more anti-inflammatory than omega-6’s, but that doesn’t mean omega-6s are terrible.
• They have too many calories and are mainly in junk foods [true, hence moderation].

One additional issue: replacing them

The soybean industry,  clearly in its own self-interest, notes that a reduction in use of soybean, canola, corn, cottonseed, grapeseed, rice bran, safflower and sunflower oils, would likely see an increase in use of imported palm oil, which will raise food costs.

That’s not all it would do.  As I’ve written previously, palm oil raises so many issues that it’s hard to know where to begin: unhealthy degree of fat saturation, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, child labor, labor exploitation, adulteration, and criminal behavior, with everyone who consumes products made with palm oil wittingly or unwittingly complicit in these problems.  See, for example, Jocelyn Zuckerman’s Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything—and Endangered the World.

Comment

I cannot find convincing data that seed oils are any worse for health than any other high-calorie food, and the evidence for their benefits as compared to animal fats seems strong and consistent.  Getting them out of the food supply could help reduce calorie intake, but only if they are not replaced by other fats. Using seed oils is healthier than using more saturated fats.

But all of this has to be understood in the context of calories and everything else in the diet.  Seed oils on salads make a lot of sense.

If you are still worried, there is always olive oil.  Olives are a fruit, not a seed.

If you still have fruitcake left over from Christmas, you are undoubtedly wondering why it is still around and whether it is still edible.

Fortunately, we have Scientific American to thank for shedding light on this pressing issue.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, these seemingly indestructible pastries typically stay fresh for six months in the pantry and up to a year when refrigerated. But anecdotally we know that they can last for decades; some of the oldest have been preserved for more than a century. In 2017 a then 106-year-old fruitcake left behind by members of a 1910 Antarctic expedition was unearthed from one of the continent’s first buildings. And in 2019 the Detroit News reported that a Michigan family treasured a then 141-year-old fruitcake as an heirloom. And you could theoretically still eat these century-old cakes without harm—if you can get past the nauseating, rancid smell.

The reasons for fruitcake’s indestructability are because it is made with:

• Alcohol,
• Dried fruit
• Sugar
• Not much liquid

Bacteria are killed by alcohol and do not reproduce well under conditions of high sugar, low water, and low oxygen (high cake density)—dryness, in a word.

So if yours is still around, you can eat it as long as it smells OK.  If it starts smelling  bad, it’s because the fats are getting rnncid.

Aren’t you glad I asked?

Palm oil is on my mind these days because I just did a blurb for a forthcoming book, Jocelyn Zuckerman’s Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything—and Endangered the World, which I will say more about when it is published in May.

Palm oil raises so many issues that it’s hard to know where to begin: unhealthy degree of fat saturation, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, child labor, labor exploitation, adulteration, and criminal behavior, with everyone who consumes products made with palm oil complicit in these problems.

Reporters for AP News have done some investigating.  Their most recent report talks about the links between child labor and Girl Scout Cookies. 

Olivia Chaffin, a Girl Scout in rural Tennessee, was a top cookie seller in her troop when she first heard rainforests were being destroyed to make way for ever-expanding palm oil plantations. On one of those plantations a continent away, 10-year-old Ima helped harvest the fruit that makes its way into a dizzying array of products sold by leading Western food and cosmetics brands….The AP’s investigation into child labor is part of a broader in-depth look at the industry that also exposed rape, forced labor, trafficking and slavery. Reporters crisscrossed Malaysia and Indonesia, speaking to more than 130 current and former workers – some two dozen of them child laborers – at nearly 25 companies…The AP found children working on plantations and corroborated accounts of abuse, whenever possible, by reviewing police reports and legal documents. Reporters also interviewed more than 100 activists, teachers, union leaders, government officials, researchers, lawyers and clergy, including some who helped victims of trafficking or sexual assault.

The AP also reports that abuses of labor in the palm oil industry are linked to world’s top brands and banks.

An Associated Press investigation found many like Jum in Malaysia and neighboring Indonesia – an invisible workforce consisting of millions of laborers from some of the poorest corners of Asia, many of them enduring various forms of exploitation, with the most serious abuses including child labor, outright slavery and allegations of rape. Together, the two countries produce about 85% of the world’s estimated $65 billion palm oil supply…The AP used the most recently published data from producers, traders and buyers of the world’s most-consumed vegetable oil, as well as U.S. Customs records, to link the laborers’ palm oil and its derivatives from the mills that process it to the supply chains of top Western companies like the makers of Oreo cookies, Lysol cleaners and Hershey’s chocolate treats.

Cargill, which is involved in this industry, has responded to the AP report; it denies the charges.

Cargill does not tolerate the use of human trafficking, forced labor or child labor in our operations or supply chains. We expect all Cargill employees and our suppliers to adhere to our formal Commitment to Human Rights, which we enhanced in 2019 to detail the principles we embed into our policies and systems to protect human rights around the world. This Commitment applies to our workplace, communities in which we operate, and supply chains….Our efforts on the ground in our palm supply chain in Malaysia, Indonesia, Guatemala and globally focus on health and safety, responsible recruitment, and transparent contract and pay practices to protect and empower our workers, especially women who depend on their work in palm oil to earn a living and support their families.

As for deforestation, the industry argues for shared responsibility: Palm oil: Why shared responsibility is needed to cement sustainability improvements:  There is a disconnect between the reputation and reality of palm oil. Popular media paint palm oil as a primary driver of deforestation…. Read more

All of this suggests: Turbulent times ahead? Malaysia palm oil faces uncertain 2021 with price, production and policy challengesThe palm oil industry in Malaysia needs to prepare itself for an uncertain year ahead with expected price volatility, production decrease and policy changes in the west, with the government attempting to shift to more value-added products in hopes of providing a boost…. Read more

One of the great ironies of all this is that palm oil, which is highly saturated (and, therefore, raises the risk of heart disease), has been promoted and used by the processed food industry as a replacement for trans fats, now mostly gone from the market since required to be listed on Nutrition Facts labels.

Can palm oil be produced fairly and sustainably?  The answer depends on whom you ask.  The Independent has a quick overview of the controversies.

A low-fat spread with added plant sterols and fish omega-3 fatty acids lowers serum triglyceride and LDL-cholesterol concentrations in individuals with modest hypercholesterolaemia and hypertriglyceridaemia.  Blom AM, et al.  European Journal of Nutrition.  2019;58(4):1615–1624.

Purpose: “to investigate the triglyceride (TG) and LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) lowering effects of a spread [i.e., margarine] with added plant sterols (PS) and fish oil as compared to a placebo spread.”

Conclusions: “Four-week consumption of the intervention spread led to significant and clinically relevant decreases in serum TG, LDL-C and other blood lipid concentrations.”

Funder: The study was funded by Unilever BCS Research and Development Vlaardingen, the Netherlands.

Conflicts of interest: of the authors, four are employed by Unilever.

Comment: Unilever makes margarines with plant sterols and fish oils.  You might buy them if they control blood lipid risk factors for heart disease.  This is in-house company research aimed at proving the benefits of a Unilever product, which is what so many other companies do.

But Unilever was one of the few Big Food companies that sponsored basic research (and maybe it still does?).  As I describe in my book, Unsavory Truth, Unilever was the sponsor of the basic research that demonstrated the harmful effects of trans-fat on disease risk.

I’ve long argued that the most intellectually challenging issue in the field of nutrition is finding out what people eat.

Here’s what it takes:  Using DNA technology, investigators examined the stomach contents of the “Iceman,” a man who died 5300 years ago but was frozen in the Alps until his body was discovered some years ago.

The result: “a remarkably high proportion of fat in his diet, supplemented with fresh or dried wild meat, cereals, and traces of toxic bracken.”

A recent radiological re-examination of the Iceman, a 5,300-year-old European natural ice mummy, identified his completely filled stomach (Figure 1A) [2]…Previous isotopic analysis (¹⁵N/¹⁴N) of the Iceman’s hair suggested first a vegetarian lifestyle [12, 13] which was later, after careful re-examination of the data, changed to a omnivorous diet [14]. Further analyses of lower intestinal tract samples of the Iceman confirmed that he was omnivorous, with a diet consisting of both wild animal and plant material. Among the plant remains, there were cereals, pollen grains of hop-hornbeam, and fragments of bracken and mosses [14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]… In summary, the Iceman’s last meal was a well-balanced mix of carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids, perfectly adjusted to the energetic requirements of his high-altitude trekking.

Nearly half (46%) of the bulk stomach contents consisted of animal fat, much of it saturated.  This, apparently, had consequences:

computed tomography scans of the Iceman showed major calcifications in arteria and the aorta indicating an already advanced atherosclerotic disease state [33].

Fascinating, no?  Now if we could do this kind of analysis on a population basis, think of the questions we could finally answer!

The World Health Organization is about to publish a report on how the palm oil industry is promoting obesity and chronic disease as well as environmental degradation as integral parts of its business model.

The draft report gets right to the point.

We highlight the industry’s mutually profitable relationship with the processed food industry and its impact on human and planetary health, including detrimental cultivation practices that are linked to respiratory illnesses, deforestation, loss of biodiversity and pollution. This analysis illustrates many parallels to the contested nature of practices adopted by the alcohol and tobacco industries.

The research behind the report supports the analytical framework for examining industry’s effects on health.

The report documents how the palm oil industry, working with the food industry, acts to maximize profits at the expense of health and the environment, through marketing, supply chain management, lobbying, and corporate “citizenship.”

The report calls for

• More research on the effects of palm oil on health
• Actions to mitigate industry influences to protect producers and sellers from needed regulations
• Use of the Sustainable Development Goals to aid these actions

You don’t get why palm oil raises health and environmental concerns?  Read this.  Now.

The endless arguments about dietary fats and dietary fat versus carbohydrate make no sense to me, because we mostly eat these as components of food, and foods as components of diets of massive complexity.

But scientists do like to debate such issues so it comes as a breath of fresh air to read a consensus statement from people who do not necessarily agree about such issues.

Looks good to me.  I’m glad they did this.

As I discuss in my latest book, Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat, food industry funding of nutrition research produces highly predictable results and, therefore, is not good for science, public health, or trust.

Industry-funded studies are easily recognizable by their titles.  When I see a title like this one, I immediately wonder why anyone would do a study to example this particular question.  And then I look to see who funded it.

Title: Corn Oil Lowers Plasma Cholesterol Compared with Coconut Oil in Adults with Above-Desirable Levels of Cholesterol in a Randomized Crossover Trial. J Nutr 2018 148(10):1556-63.

Conclusion: “When incorporated into the habitual diet, consumption of foods providing ∼54 g of corn oil/d produced a more favorable plasma lipid profile than did coconut oil in adults with elevated cholesterol.”

Sponsor: “Supported by ACH Food Companies, Inc., Oakbrook Terrace, IL,” and all of the authors either received research funding from ACH Food Companies, Inc., or are employees of that company.

Comment: So what is this about?  ACH is the maker of Mazola oil, which must be losing market share to coconut oil.

Which oil is better for you and does it really matter?

I sure would like some independent researchers to weigh in on this.