Most of the health problems that we blame on fats are caused by the way the fats are processed. Processing removes all the goodness from the fats – vitamins, protein, fiber, minerals, pytonutrients and many other useful chemical components.
Oils are refined and deodorized. This makes oils look good and smell good. This is important for the sales appeal for the product. It does not matter if the oils loose all the goodness. The oils that we find in the supermarket shelves are heavily processed. The processed oils are from safflower, sunflower, corn, soy, sesame, canola, peanut etc.
First the oil undergoes a degumming process. The process removes lecithin, complex carbohydrates, chlorophyll, calcium, magnesium, iron and copper. Next the oil undergoes a refining process in which extremely corrosive chemicals such as caustic soda, sodium hydroxide and sodium carbonate are used. This process removes fatty acids and minerals from the oil. The oil is then bleached using Fuller's earth. This process removes chlorophyll and beta carotene from the oil. Finally the oil is deodorized using steam under pressure. This process removes aromatic oils and free fatty acids. This process also removes the pungent odour and unpleasant taste that were not present in the natural oil but were introduced during the tortuous process of refining.
All this processes are merely to create sales appeal on the shelves of the supermarkets. We wonder why so much expense and effort is put to render the oil not desirable for human consumption.
Scientist made a demon out of the saturated fat. So they came up with a solution by partially hydrogenating the oil. This was proclaimed to be unsaturated fat and therefore good. It was cheap. It could be substituted for butter. So it won the mass appeal. People went crazy about it. Later it was found that the hydrogenated fats were not really unsaturated fats but trans-fats which was more harmful than the saturated fat which it was meant to replace. When these facts came to light people dropped hydrogenated fat like a hot potato. No one buys it anymore. We do not find them in the supermarkets. Their saga is over. Trans-fats were partially hydrogenated. If they were fully hydrogenated they would not be as harmful. Full hydrogenation was expensive so no one undertook it.
Before my time, they extracted oil by crushing the seeds between two wooden objects. The machine was powered by bulls. I still remember the red color of sesame oil extracted by this machine. The oil was full of aroma and you could smell it from far away. People who consumed this were healthy and lived longer. Even in those days there were two types of oil - refined and unrefined. The refined oil was produced from seeds without the skin. And the unrefined oil was produced from the whole seeds. The unrefined oil was more pungent than the refined oil.
Another bane of the fats is from our own folly of deep frying in high heat (above 160 degrees C). The oil subjected to high heat causes cancer and hardening of the arteries. It also contains many toxic substances that are even more toxic than trans-fatty acid.
The excess hard fats are stored as fat deposits in our body. But if we exercised enough we could use a lot of hard fats as energy. We will then remain healthy.
Oils are refined and deodorized. This makes oils look good and smell good. This is important for the sales appeal for the product. It does not matter if the oils loose all the goodness. The oils that we find in the supermarket shelves are heavily processed. The processed oils are from safflower, sunflower, corn, soy, sesame, canola, peanut etc.
First the oil undergoes a degumming process. The process removes lecithin, complex carbohydrates, chlorophyll, calcium, magnesium, iron and copper. Next the oil undergoes a refining process in which extremely corrosive chemicals such as caustic soda, sodium hydroxide and sodium carbonate are used. This process removes fatty acids and minerals from the oil. The oil is then bleached using Fuller's earth. This process removes chlorophyll and beta carotene from the oil. Finally the oil is deodorized using steam under pressure. This process removes aromatic oils and free fatty acids. This process also removes the pungent odour and unpleasant taste that were not present in the natural oil but were introduced during the tortuous process of refining.
All this processes are merely to create sales appeal on the shelves of the supermarkets. We wonder why so much expense and effort is put to render the oil not desirable for human consumption.
Scientist made a demon out of the saturated fat. So they came up with a solution by partially hydrogenating the oil. This was proclaimed to be unsaturated fat and therefore good. It was cheap. It could be substituted for butter. So it won the mass appeal. People went crazy about it. Later it was found that the hydrogenated fats were not really unsaturated fats but trans-fats which was more harmful than the saturated fat which it was meant to replace. When these facts came to light people dropped hydrogenated fat like a hot potato. No one buys it anymore. We do not find them in the supermarkets. Their saga is over. Trans-fats were partially hydrogenated. If they were fully hydrogenated they would not be as harmful. Full hydrogenation was expensive so no one undertook it.
Before my time, they extracted oil by crushing the seeds between two wooden objects. The machine was powered by bulls. I still remember the red color of sesame oil extracted by this machine. The oil was full of aroma and you could smell it from far away. People who consumed this were healthy and lived longer. Even in those days there were two types of oil - refined and unrefined. The refined oil was produced from seeds without the skin. And the unrefined oil was produced from the whole seeds. The unrefined oil was more pungent than the refined oil.
Another bane of the fats is from our own folly of deep frying in high heat (above 160 degrees C). The oil subjected to high heat causes cancer and hardening of the arteries. It also contains many toxic substances that are even more toxic than trans-fatty acid.
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| Deep frying |
The excess hard fats are stored as fat deposits in our body. But if we exercised enough we could use a lot of hard fats as energy. We will then remain healthy.
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