For starters – your choice of cooking oil depends on availability.  In many cultures this is not very difficult because there are only a few oils available.  However, this changes when we talk about countries where there is a myriad of oils available, like in the U.S.   So many of you may be wondering how to choose among all these oils and how does eastern thinking and western science help me do this. 

Let’s address which scientific facts are important to understand when choosing cooking oils and then what ayurvedic principles will help you personalize what oils you choose to work with.

Inside this blog post you will learn:  

1. Why the composition of the oil is important when choosing the right oil for cooking.
2. Why the smoking point of oil is important.
3. The difference between refined oil and unrefined oil and when to use them.
4. That being aware of you personal taste preference is important in your choice of oils.
5. How your personal constitution from the eastern perspective will help you determine what oil is best for you to use.
6. How to customize your cooking oils.

Okay so let’s start with the first point. 

1. Why the composition of fats and oils is important.

Just so we are all talking about the same thing – when I refer to oils I am speaking of a liquid at room temperature and fats as solid at room temperature.  The exception to this is coconut and palm oil that are really solids at room temperature but are referred to as oils.  Rather confusing I know but that’s the way it is at the moment.

When we talk about the composition of an oil or fat we are essentially talking about the quantity of saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated fatty acids that it contains.  See post for Mediterranean style diet.

Fats that are high in saturated fatty acids such as butter, lard, and suet create wonderfully crisp fried foods.  The good side of this is that saturated fats are less affected by heat and light but, the bad side is they have lower smoking points – more about that below – and they are not considered very healthy by the medical community.

The polyunsaturated fatty acids are very much affected by heat and light, producing not so healthy products of spoilage.  However the good side is that polyunsaturated oils have higher smoking points.

The monounsaturated fatty acids are more stable than the polyunsaturated acids and are considered to be healthy fats by the medical community so keep this in mind as you start to customize.

2. What is the smoke point and why should I consider it when cooking with oils?

The smoking point of oil is the temperature at which the oil begins to break down.  At this point the oil or fat produces a bluish smoke, smells acrid, and imparts an unpleasant flavor to foods. The higher the smoke point, the better suited a fat or oil is for frying. Reusing a fat and exposing it to air reduces its smoke point.  See some of the Smoke points  of various oils.

3. The difference between a refined oil and an unrefined oil and how that ties in with smoke point.

During the process of frying, when oils and fats are heated to high temperatures they are also exposed to the air.  The combination of high heat and oxygen produces products that are not healthy.  These unhealthy chemicals can remain in the oil and become absorbed by the food you cook and eat. 

Oils that are left in their natural state (unrefined) do not hold up well under high heat and will produce these unhealthy products.   Refined oils, oils that have had impurities filtered out, can stand a much higher heat on the stove without producing those unhealthy products.

Bottom line:  it is best to use refined oils for cooking especially if you are deep frying, stir-frying, wok cooking or any other cooking that you do at high heat or for long periods of time.  Refined oils are more expensive and are best suited to those fine tasty salads and sauces that require subtle flavors.

4. The taste of an oil is a personal preference

Most refined oils will be neutral in taste.  Refining the oil has removed most of the taste.  For making sauces, or salad dressings you may want to consider using oils that are more delicate and have a definite taste.  These include walnut oil, hazel nut oil, unrefined olive oil and unrefined sesame oil to name a few.

5. According to Ayurvedic principles the entire cosmos is an interplay of the energies of the five elements: space or ether, air, fire, water, earth.

In the Ayurvedic way of thinking human beings can be classified according to the predominant elements that they contain.  There are 3 basic constitution types: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha.  These constitution types are known collectively as doshas.  If you don’t already know your dosha take the dosha test.

6. Customizing your oils.   Here is a general scheme of the oils that are good and not so good depending on your body type.

 

Oil Guidelines Based on Dosha Type

Vata		Pitta		Kapha
No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Flaxseed	Sesame	Almond	Sunflower	Avocado	All Oils in small amounts
	Ghee	Apricot	Ghee	Apricot	Almond
	Olive	Corn	Canola	Olive	Corn
	Most other Oils	Safflower	Olive	Safflower	Sunflower
		Sesame	Soy	Sesame	Sesame (External use only)
			Flaxseed	Soy	Canola
			Walnut	Walnut	Ghee
			Coconut & Avocado (external use only)		Almond

Set up your kitchen with several oils to fit your lifestyle and how you cook.  For example if you are a Vata person you may want to use an unrefined olive oil for dishes that don’t require high heat but that you want to have the taste of the olive oil.  For high heat cooking you can choose among the refined oils that have a high smoking point.  Keep in mind the composition of the oils and try to balance the saturated and unsaturated ones.  With a little effort you can customize your kitchen with oils that suit your constitution, your cooking preferences and are healthy.

This article piqued my curiosity and some questions came to mind.  I know that the food manufacturers are searching for ways to lessen or remove the Trans fats but just how are they doing this?  What are they substituting for the Trans fats and is it any safer?  And how did the researchers measure the Trans fats in the 83 foods they choose to investigate?  So I had to investigate further into this.  I went to the primary source – the New England Journal of Medicine. 

The original article from which the newspaper article was take is titled  Food Reformulations to Reduce Trans Fatty Acids.  It is online as a full text article   http://content.nejm.org/cgi/reprint/362/21/2037.pdf.

Summary of original article

• 83 reformulated products (58 supermarket foods and 25 restaurant foods) were analyzed.
• Assessment was based on information from consumer magazines, health newsletters, a nonprofit organization database, and the USDA food composition databases.
• Results indicated that the average content of saturated fat in supermarket foods increased and decreased slightly after being reformulated to decrease the Trans fat.

 What is not addressed 

• What are the Trans fats being replaced with?
• Some of the products show a decrease in saturated fat after reformulation.  What is replacing these saturated fats?
• If the level of Trans fats was not actually measured in the laboratory and partially hydrogenated oils are used in the reformulation can we assume 0.4 g of Trans fat per serving? 

What are the possible substitutes for Trans fat?

• Formulating new breeds of oil.  High-oleic canola can withstand repeated heating in a deep-fat fryer without compromising taste. But it is in short supply and expensive.  Another example – taking domestic liquid oils, such as soybean oil, and blending  them with fully hydrogenated soybean or cottonseed oils.
• Substituting Palm oil for partially hydrogenated fats. 
• Unig Intersterified fats.  Interesterification is the process of rearranging the fatty acids in a fat or oil.  The interesterification process results in  solid fat  at room temperatures while lowering the melting point of the fat, making it useful for baking.

Are these substitutes safer and healthier for us.  Interestingly, it appears that changing or re-arranging the molecules of fats or a combination of fats during the interesterification process may affect how the fats are metabolized in the human body.  More to come on this.

There are no legal or scientific definitions of tropical oils. From my own research I found that tropical oil was a term created by the American Soybean Association (ASA) as part of a public relations campaign against the producers of palm oil.  The term is now in common use and refers to palm, palm kernel, and coconut oils.

 I searched the guidelines put forth by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the American Heart Association, the American Dietetic Association and the American Diabetes Association.  The tropical oils, if listed, are found on tables of those fats to avoid.  This is based on the fact that they are all highly saturated fats and saturated fats are associated with health concerns, not least of which is heart disease. The content of these guidelines trickles down to most other websites and blogs that talk about diet and nutrition, and so the tropical fats have come to have a very bad reputation.  My western mindset understands the scientific facts as they are known today but my eastern sensibility cannot fully accept that tropical oils are unhealthy and should not be in my diet.  The tropical oils have been used for thousands of years in traditional cooking and are still very much a part of many traditional societies that not only use the oils for cooking but also as a national economic resource. 

 Let’s look at the quality of tropical oils from three vantage points: 

1. Their content of saturated fat along with how much polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat is in each oil
2. Their fatty acid profile
3. Any other benefits they may have

Saturated, Monounsaturated and Polyunsaturated Fats in Tropical Oils

The main concern then for the tropical oils, when considered from a nutritional perspective, has to do with the amount of saturated fat that they contain.  Diets high in saturated fat have been linked to chronic disease, specifically, coronary heart disease

Here in this chart we can see that, indeed the tropical oils are highly saturated.  Palm oil though, does contain quite a bit of unsaturated fat along with the saturated fat.  Also, note how similar the palm kernel oil and coconut oil are to each other.  So yes, if we base our total argument on how much saturated fat there is, then the tropical oils are not very healthy.  But I believe there is more to this story then what appears on the surface and that brings me to the second of our vantage points listed above: what is the fatty acid profile for each of these oils.

Ambiguity about Fats versus Fatty Acids

If ever there was a glaring error in the talk on fats, the confusion over fats versus fatty acids is a mistake. Historically, the terms “saturated fats” and “saturated fatty acids” have been used interchangeably and that practice continues today.   But palm oil, coconut oil, and palm kernel oil (as do all fats and oils) do not contain just a group of saturated fats; rather they represent saturated fats rich in certain saturated fatty acids.  Let’s then dig down another level in our composition of these oils and recreate our chart above.

The Fatty Acids in Tropical Oils

The palm kernel oil (blue bar) and coconut oil (green bar) are both rich in Lauric and Myristic fatty acids.  Note the “0” in 12:0 and 14:0.  The 12 and 14 numbers represent the number of carbons and the 0 indicates that these fatty acids are saturated.

 Palm oil (red bar) is rich in Palmitic oil and oleic oils.  These fatty acids have more carbons; oleic is unsaturated with 18:1.  The fact that the tropical oils contain these fatty acids begs the question – do these specific fatty acids make any difference to our assessment about the quality of the tropical oils?

• Myristic and to a lesser extent Lauric acid raise total cholesterol levels but they also are reported to raise HDL as well (HDL is the good cholesterol).  The literature however, is not consistent on how much they raise cholesterol levels.
• Lauric fatty acid has also been recognized for its antiviral and antibacterial functions; and is reported to be effective against the formation of dental caries and plaque.
• Palmitic fatty acid does not increase cholesterol levels as much as Lauric and Myristic; some studies indicate that it does not raise levels at all.
• Palmitic acid is used in commercial baking because Palmitic acid leads to desirable characteristics in food.
• Saturated fatty acids provide oxidative stability (i.e. retards spoilage) to Tropical oils.

 Beyond the Fats and Fatty Acids

The tropical oils are not just about saturated fats.  They also contain other healthy nutrients that we should consider before we judge these oils too harshly.  The table here shows some of those nutrients.

• Palm oil and Palm Kernel oil both contain vitamin E compounds that are potent antioxidants. Antioxidants are agents that help retard spoilage and degradation of fats.  This is especially important in situations where oil is reused for frying, as in commercial operations and in poor areas of the world.
• Crude palm oil is one of the richest known sources of carotenoids (precursor of vitamin A). The carotenoids are destroyed during conventional refining but a refined palm oil is available which retains in excess of 80 percent of the carotenoids.
• Phytosterols (also called plant sterols) are a group of chemicals that naturally occur in plants.  Phytosterols help lower cholesterol by reducing the amount of   cholesterol that is absorbed from the intestines into the blood.

East Meets West

In the latest Yoga⁺ Journal (Summer 2010) there is a provocative article by Dr Timothy McCall that addresses the benefits and differences between a holistic approach (eastern) to health and a reductionist approach (western).  The reductionist model narrows investigations down to one or two elements to study while the holistic model recognizes that all aspects of an individual are interconnected and that working on one aspect improves the function of all.  Dr McCall was talking about holistic versus conventional medicine but this concept also relates to my discussion of tropical fats. By targeting just their content of saturated fat the tropical oils are advertised as being unhealthy.   But a more total picture emerges by inspecting these oils from more of a holistic approach. Then these oils exhibit positive nutritional aspects as well as advantageous functional and economic features for many African and Asian countries.

 I often hear the frustration of many individuals who view nutrition information as a moving target; what the nutrition experts expound as true one day is overturned the next. As western science targets one or two ideas to research we learn about pieces of the whole, much like having lots of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that we move around trying to fit together to make a whole picture.  Learning how each and every element operates in humans is even more confounded by the fact that human beings are complicated organisms and how we behave, think, function in society, must all be taken into consideration. This exposing of the whole picture via one or two elements at a time is a very long and tedious process. One fact learned may be overturned when the next fact is studied and more is uncovered.

 Saturated fats are reported to be unhealthy based on research that we have conducted to this point in time.  That makes the tropical oils look bad. Take a holistic approach and there is a different picture that emerges.   Some of the fats in the tropical oils have been shown to raise cholesterol; others do not, and some are even neutral (Palmitic).  In addition, there are other nutrients such as vitamin E, A, K that are components of these tropical oils.  There is no pure Yin or pure Yang.  The truth is somewhere between the two.

So consider

Both Lauric acid and Myristic acid are present naturally in human and cow’s milk.  If saturated fatty acids were of no value or were harmful to humans, evolution would probably not have established within the mammary gland the means to produce them as source of nourishment for offspring.

 The mortality rate from CHD is very low in the traditional Mediterranean populations that use olive oil (a major source of oleic acid) as the primary source of fat.  Palm oil also contains a significant amount of oleic acid.  See the chart above.

 Tropical Oils may be a good substitute for Trans fats.  In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration (U.S.) called for mandatory labeling of Trans fatty acids. Now the food industry is scrambling to find alternatives.  Various options are being considered, including the use of naturally occurring saturated fats and oils to provide a more natural source of saturated fatty acids that are needed for products requiring a certain amount of solid fat content. Palm oil is most suitable here as it is 50 percent saturated.

 The impact of tropical oils on nutrition in the developing countries is not to be taken lightly. In some areas of the world (Africa and Asia), there are specific nutritional problems such as low levels of vitamin A.  From a nutritional perspective, it is noteworthy and of public health significance that crude palm oil serves as inexpensive cooking oil in areas of the world where vitamin A deficiency is endemic.  Several reports have shown that red palm oil can be used as an effective medium for delivering Vitamin A without the need for resorting to synthetic Vitamin A.

 Many studies done on Myristic, Lauric and Palmitic fatty acids utilized dairy products and then extrapolated those results to the tropical oils that are all plant derived.  Fatty acids found in plants such as palm or coconut may not act the same as those found in dairy products.

 The impact of tropical oils on diets in the U.S. is minimal. Palm oil exports to the United States constitute only 3% of the world market for palm oil, and a substantial portion of that goes to uses other than food. 

Adverse publicity has caused many countries to question the safety of palm oil, which is the number-one oil of international trade and is second in production in the world. 

 Compelling evidence now indicates that there is greater importance as to the types of fat rather than the total amount of fat with respect to risk of CHD.  However, the optimal mixture of different fatty acids remains unsettled.  In the meantime, we can combine soybean oil, palm oil, and canola oil or palm oil, olive oil and safflower oil to give equal balances of the saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats. 

Finally

A healthy diet lifestyle plan should be adequate, balanced, moderate, and contain a variety of foods. 

• Adequate in that it contains enough of the nutrients that we need.
• Balanced in that there is not too much or too little of any one nutrient including caloric balance meaning that we do not include too many high calorie foods that leads to obesity, or the opposite – not having enough calories
• Moderate in that we do not overeat or under-eat.
• Variety in that including many types of foods in our diet plan will ensure that we are getting everything that we need.

 This is a tall order and personal flexibility and readiness to learn with an open mind is required.  But following these guidelines is a holistic approach to eating healthy and includes modifying our eating plans as we learn more about the science behind it all.

So now you decide if the tropical oils deserve their bad reputation.

Next time we will complete our trilogy on fats by looking at what fats and oils are best for cooking purposes.

One Sunday morning I was roaming around the local farmer’s market chatting with various vendors.  One vendor who was selling his breads and pastries asked me several questions about Trans fats:

 1.   How can the label on Crisco shortening say that there is no Trans fat in their product yet at the same time declares that there are partially hydrogenated fats? 

 2.   If Crisco shortening contains only oils how can it be solid at room temperature?

Crisco Ingredient List

 “SOYBEAN OIL, FULLY HYDROGENATED PALM OIL, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED PALM AND SOYBEAN OILS, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, TBHQ AND CITRIC ACID (ANTIOXIDANTS)”. 

High Level Overview of Listed Ingredients

Soybean oil and palm oil are oils that supply calories and they can have some Trans fat depending how they are processed.

Monoglycerides and diglycerides are also considered fats structurally.  They are not distributed widely in nature and are usually listed no higher than fourth on a food label. This means that they are added in such small amounts that they contribute little to calories in the diet.  Mono- and diglycerides are added to foods to make bakery products taste smooth and to prevent the oil from separating out in foods such as peanut butter.  They will not be the culprits in producing Trans fats.

TBHQ and Citric Acid are antioxidants that are added to retard spoilage thus increasing the shelf life of the product.  These antioxidants will not produce Trans fats.

So that leaves us with investigating the soybean and palm oil – the only oils that could possibly contain Trans fat.

Palm Oil and Soybean Oil

Palm Oil is naturally more saturated than most oils (See the chart below).  It can withstand high heat without breaking down.  Don’t mistake palm oil with palm kernel oil though.  They both come from the fruit of the palm tree but palm oil is found in the fleshy portion of the fruit, whereas palm kernel oil is found in the kernel or the seed of the fruit.  Palm oil is 50% saturated fat and 50% unsaturated fat; palm kernel oil is approximately 82% saturated fat and 18% unsaturated. They also have different compositions of fatty acids (fatty acids make up fats and oils). Both palm oil and palm kernel oil are semi-solid at room temperature. 

Liquid soybean oil is low in saturated fat, contains no Trans fat, and is high in poly- and monounsaturated fats.

Facts about Fats, Oils and Trans fats

Fact 1: Oils and Fats are triglycerides; all triglycerides are made up of fatty acids.  The fatty acids can be saturated, polyunsaturated or monounsaturated.

Fact 2:  Oils contain more unsaturated fat in general and fats contain more saturated fat. There are exceptions; tropical Oils (Palm, Palm Kernel, and Coconut) are highly saturated oils.  The more unsaturated fat the more liquid it is.  The opposite is also true; the more saturated fat the more solid.

Fact 3: Unsaturated fats are considered healthier than saturated fats. Of the unsaturated fats the monounsaturates are considered the healthiest.

Fact 4:  Oils spoil more quickly than fats that are solid, and oils aren’t always good for baking.  Fats have a longer shelf life and they work better in many products especially baked ones.

Fact 5:  An oil that is liquid can be made into a solid by the process of hydrogenation (adding hydrogen).  Only unsaturated fats can be hydrogenated. Hydrogenation can either be partial or full.  Only partial hydrogenation produces Trans fats. 

Fact 6:  Zero “O” Trans fat does not actually mean that the product does not contain any Trans fat at all.

Apply the facts to Crisco

Crisco has taken vegetable oils and changed them to solids by hydrogenation.  The product is then diluted with soybean oil to give it just the right amount of solidness or softness.  The product is composed of 100% vegetable oil.  There is little Trans fat because not very much partial hydrogenation is required.  The palm oil is already semi-solid even without hydrogenation.  The Trans fat produced has to be below 0.5 grams per serving because that is the tolerance level that is allowed by regulation.  So even though some Trans fat is produced, if it is under the tolerable limit of 0.5 grams/serving the product label can indicate no Trans fat.

The good, the bad and the ugly

At one time there was a reason to hydrogenate oils.  Butter was expensive; vegetable oils were plentiful and cheap.  Hydrogenation had been discovered at the end of the 1800’s.  The tool (hydrogenation) was put to use by Crisco in 1911 to produce a vegetable shortening that set the stage for further investigations into hydrogenation of different oils.  When butter was rationed during WWII margarine (from hydrogenation of vegetable oils) became very popular and it was thought to be very healthy.  Other food products containing hydrogenated fats began to increase in numbers.  See the list below.

The bad began to happen in the 1990’s when research began indicating that Trans fats had some serious health risks.  There were some suggestions earlier that Trans fats were a problem especially in causing heart disease.  In the early 2000’s there was a mounting push for regulations to set a limit as to how much Trans fat could be in food.

Guidelines were set.   The American Heart Association  recommended that Trans fat intake be kept to less than 1 percent of total calories. For example, if you need 2,000 calories a day, you should consume less than 2 grams of Trans fat.  The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) also recommend that Trans fats be limited to less than 1% of overall energy intake

Debate starts.  Critics say that the 0.5 gram per serving threshold is too high to refer to a food as free of Trans fat. This is because a person eating many servings of a product, or eating multiple products over the course of the day may still consume a significant amount of Trans fat.

The ugly:  Debate escalated and continues: Some experts say that all the focus on Trans fats takes away from the real focus of eating too much fat overall, especially given the overwhelming incidence of obesity   Saturated fat and too much total fat the experts say, is the real culprit.  In the meantime our food supply continues to have some Trans fats.  And the research continues to highlight the negative health effects of Trans fats.

Other experts are concerned that the addition of partially hydrogenated palm oil may not be an acceptable alternative.  Palm oil itself has been accused of being a risk for heart disease.

Where the Trans fats are found

• Spreads. Especially hard margarine..
• Packaged foods, especially cake and pancake mixes.
• Instant soups and noodle kits.
• Fast foods such as French fries and fried chicken.
• Frozen food. Pies, waffles, pizzas and breaded fish.
• Baked goods. Doughnuts, muffins, cakes, etc.
• Crackers. Shortening provides the crispy texture.
• Breakfast cereal and energy bars.
• Cookies and candy.
• Toppings and dips. Non-dairy creamers, whipped toppings, gravy mixes and salad dressing.

East meet West in the Trans Fat Muddle

Consider your individual needs and preferences:  The western scientific investigative approach is responsible for helping to build a sustainable, healthy, and safe food supply for our society.  Individually we need to understand what is healthy and what might be suspect.  Only then can we be responsible for what we, as individuals choose to eat.  This is the eastern approach.

Consider our history as a species as well as our future.  Many of the fats and oils (including olive oil, coconut and palm oils) that are used for cooking or sautéing and that will withstand fairly high temperatures are those that have been in use for thousands of years.   Shouldn’t we stop to consider how these natural products have evolved along with the human species to be able to be used effectively by our physiological processes?

Know that there are forces beyond the purely scientific ones that drive what we eat and what our food contains.   Politics of the world market (both east and west) determine what fats and oils are consumed in greatest quantity and consequently which ones will show up in the ingredients list of processed food.   Right now palm oil and soybean oil are number one and two in consumption.    

Consider the change in food choices over the years.  What drives those changes and what are in the foods that now go into what we daily eat?  

Try to find natural alternatives to products that contain Trans fats. For example, try mixing butter with canola or olive oil.  This gives a less saturated fat and has no Trans fat. Another example – blend sesame oil, coconut oil and olive oil to give an oil that naturally contains special heat-activated antioxidants and is at the same time a very stable cooking oil.

Look somewhere between the pure Yin and the pure Yang.  Fats are not all bad or all good.  Fats and oils are a natural component of our diet and need to be used and consumed appropriately and respectfully.  Fat is a major source of energy for the body and aids in the absorption of vitamins A, D, E, and K.  Fats and oils provide taste, consistency, and stability and help you feel full.   Eliminating them from the diet is not the best path.  Choosing among the variety that is available is the best way to ensure balance. 

Next Post:  Let’s talk about those tropical oils.  What’s good and what’s bad.  It may not be what you think.