Vegetable Oil: The Silent Killer
We had lunch at the snack bar at the pool yesterday. It struck me how impossible it is to avoid the bad fats that cause cancer and heart disease.
Here’s what was on the menu:
Burgers (cooked in corn/soybean oil)
French fries (cooked in corn/soybean oil)
Salads (with salad dressing made from soybean oil)
Tunafish (with mayonnaise made from soybean oil)
Chicken salad (with mayonnaise made from soybean oil)
They also had a whole array of danishes and moon pies and cookies — all made with partially hydrogenated vegetable (soybean and cottonseed) oil.
I ordered a ham and swiss sandwich on rye, with just mustard. No idea what was in the bread. It came with a side of coleslaw (made with mayonnaise made from soybean oil).
Is it any wonder that cancer and heart disease are our top two killers?
While I think it’s great that California just passed the ban on trans fats, it’s not enough. Avoiding partially hydrogenated vegetable oils is important, if we want to be healthy and avoid disease, we must also avoid soybean, canola, cottonseed, and corn oils.
According to lipid expert, Mary Enig:
The following new-fangled fats can cause cancer, heart disease, immune system dysfunction, sterility, learning disabilities, growth problems and osteoporosis:
All hydrogenated oils
Soy, corn and safflower oils
Cottonseed oil
Canola oil
All fats heated to very high temperatures in processing and frying
Source: Know Your Fats
So what fats should we be eating?
The following nutrient-rich traditional fats have nourished healthy population groups for thousands of years:
Butter
Beef and lamb tallow
Lard
Chicken, goose and duck fat
Coconut, palm and sesame oils
Cold pressed olive oil
Cold pressed flax oil
Marine (fish) oils
Source: Know Your Fats
The thing is, people need fat to function. But we have all been conditioned to believe that saturated animal fats (like butter, cream, whole milk, eggs, tropical oils, lard, and fatty cuts of beef, pork, and chicken) are bad for us. Problem is, when we avoid those fats, we still crave fat. So what do we reach for? Potato chips, french fries, and the like.
And restaurants and processed food companies use fats like soybean oil and cottonseed oil because they are a lot cheaper than good fats like butter and coconut oil. It’s in their interest to have us believe that the better, more expensive fats are bad for us.
They make money and we get cancer and heart disease.
If you question whether these “newfangled fats” are really at fault for the increase in heart disease, there’s an excellent article you might want to check out on the WAPF site, “The Oiling of America”.
Here’s an excerpt:
While turn-of-the-century mortality statistics are unreliable, they consistently indicate that heart disease caused no more than ten percent of all deaths, considerably less than infectious diseases such as pneumonia and tuberculosis. By 1950, coronary heart disease, or CHD, was the leading source of mortality in the United States, causing more than 30% of all deaths. The greatest increase came under the rubric of myocardial infarction (MI)—a massive blood clot leading to obstruction of a coronary artery and consequent death to the heart muscle. MI was almost nonexistent in 1910 and caused no more than three thousand deaths per year in 1930. By 1960, there were at least 500,000 MI deaths per year in the US.
Consumption of butter had bottomed out at about 5 grams per person per day, down from almost 18 at the turn of the century. Use of lard and tallow had been reduced by two-thirds. Margarine consumption had jumped from less than 2 grams per person per day in 1909 to about 11 in 1960. Since then consumption figures had changed little, remaining at about 11 grams per person per day—perhaps because knowledge of margarine’s dangers had been slowly seeping out to the public. However, most of the trans fats in the current American diet come not from margarine but from shortening used in fried and fabricated foods. American shortening consumption of 10 grams per person per day held steady until the 1960′s, although the content of that shortening had changed from mostly lard, tallow and coconut oil—all natural fats—to partially hydrogenated soybean oil. Then shortening consumption shot up and by 1993 had tripled to over 30 grams per person per day.
But the most dramatic overall change in the American diet was the huge increase in the consumption of liquid vegetable oils, from slightly less than 2 grams per person per day in 1909 to over 30 in 1993—a fifteen fold increase.
Source: The Oiling of America by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon
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30/07/2008 at 5:17 pm Permalink
That’s serious! Thanks for the information, Ann Marie. I am wondering what oil you would use when making brownies or a cake mix (stay with me, you are probably rolling your eyes) that calls for vegetable oil. I use eggs from grass fed hens, but I use canola oil. If you can give me another suggestion, I will try to change!
30/07/2008 at 5:21 pm Permalink
LOL you are so darn cute!
You know I haven’t made brownies or cake from a mix in a long time (I used to always use canola oil, too). I was thinking you could try butter or coconut oil.
Maybe someone will comment and have an idea.
30/07/2008 at 7:18 pm Permalink
A neutral tasting olive oil or sesame oil, perhaps? But hopefully you are not using a regular supermarket cake mix. They are full of awful things anyway.
30/07/2008 at 8:30 pm Permalink
Thanks for the post, I totally agree with what you wrote (except for the law banning trans fats, but that’s a different story). It is darn near impossible to avoid those fats in conventional foods.
We eat good 90% of the time at home, so the few times we do eat out, I grin and bear it and order the safest thing on the menu.
As for baking, use Coconut Oil, it will give it a great coconutty undertone that’s to die for. Take the extra time and make a home-made cake or brownies, they are so worth it!
We only make cakes or brownies for birthdays or holidays. My 3rd son will be 3 soon, he’s requested a cake hahaha! I will be doing a little baking tomorrow.
31/07/2008 at 8:20 am Permalink
I’ve been meaning to bookmark your blog for a while; don’t remember how I found it, but I finally linked to it on mine. I’m going to start talking about food soon, but you’re doing a great job! This post is awesome!
For baked goods, all those recipes used to say “butter.” Vegetable oil was invented & became the cheaper alternative for which a health market was created – “It’s not animal based; it must be healthier!”
I was so relieved when I learned I could give it up – it always seemed a little nasty, but I ignored that b/c “they” said it was good for me. Sticky, nasty, rancid goo. Bleh!
31/07/2008 at 10:04 am Permalink
I bake with a wonderful Blood Orange cold processed olive oil from Stella Cadente in northern California (a client of mine). I also have a customer who uses it mixed with honey and slightly warmed on his waffles and toast, as his cardiologist has forbidden butter. Real food for real people, I say, let’s put those food scientists out of business! I am the Slow Food leader in Mendocino County, and we are working hard to get real foods back in people’s diets.
31/07/2008 at 2:46 pm Permalink
Hi, you guys!
Love Your Mother and NorCal Foodie, thanks for commenting!
I’m so excited to read both of your blogs — right up my alley!
I will add you to my blog roll.
Ann Marie
31/07/2008 at 2:55 pm Permalink
Fighting Windmills,
Here’s a recipe for brownies:
http://www.hipmama.com/node/34345
I have not tried making NT (Nourishing Traditions) brownies yet but when I do, I’ll post my results.
In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about it and I think the coconut oil is a good idea. I got some expeller pressed coconut oil from Wilderness Family Naturals that has no coconut smell or taste. I bet that would be a great substitution.
http://www.wildernessfamilynaturals.com/expeller-pressed-coconut-oil.htm
01/08/2008 at 6:46 am Permalink
Thank you!
01/08/2008 at 12:20 pm Permalink
For brownies I generally use melted butter, but I’ve also used melted coconut oil with great results. I usually use butter because it’s easier to measure!
02/08/2008 at 6:32 am Permalink
Thank you – another great post –
Well I always bake with real organic butter- don´t like the flavour from oil at all in cakes. :X
Sometimes I use ghee ( clarified butter)
what is great is that it is 100 % butter oil – so it is easy to substitute for oil.- while butter is just 80 % fat, rest is water and milky solids.
I use the ghee a lot when I bake for my friend who can´t tolerate milk- but ghee is fine with her- since there is no milky stuff left.
14/08/2008 at 6:15 am Permalink
If I understand this correctly, you are saying to it’s better for me to eat butter and lard than margarine and veg oil. If that’s the case, then I have to say, I love you. You are my favorite person for today and possibly the month. Thanks for all the great information with sources!
12/08/2009 at 1:53 pm Permalink
Hi, we’re a big fan of Weston Price and traditional foods. I use butter or Macadamia nut oil (monounsaturated oil) for baking sweet foods, butter or beef/pork dripping (home-made) for savory baking including potato wedges done in the oven.
When I was pregnant, and had a blood test, my lipid & cholesterol numbers were so good that the GP commented that I must eat no animal products. I told him that that is all we eat, and in large quantities too. Margarine and processed vegetable oils do not exist in this house.