Is This Oil the Worst Possible Oil You Can Eat?

Posted by Alcyone _Featured_, Food Sunday, January 27th, 2013

Soybean Oil: One of the Most Harmful Ingredients in Processed Foods

 

By Dr. Mercola

Processed food is perhaps the most damaging aspect of most people’s diet, contributing to poor health and chronic disease. One of the primary culprits is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), the dangers of which I touch on in virtually every article on diet I write.

The second culprit is partially hydrogenated soybean oil.

These two ingredients, either alone or in combination, can be found in virtually all processed foods and one can make a compelling argument that the reliance on these two foods is a primary contributing factor for most of the degenerative diseases attacking Americans today.

Part of the problem with partially hydrogenated soybean oil is the trans fat it contains. The other part relates to the health hazards of soy itself. And an added hazard factor is the fact that the majority of both corn and soybeans are genetically engineered.

As the negative health effects from trans fats have been identified and recognized, the agricultural- and food industry have scrambled to come up with new alternatives.

Partially hydrogenated soybean oil has been identified as the main culprit, and for good reason. Unfortunately, saturated fats are still mistakenly considered unhealthy by many health “experts,” so rather than embracing truly healthful tropical fats like coconut oil, which is mostly grown outside the US. The food industry has instead turned to domestic US alternatives offered by companies like Monsanto, which has developed modified soybeans that don’t require hydrogenation.

Why Hydrogenate?

Americans consume more than 28 billion pounds of edible oils annually, and soybean oil accounts for about 65 percent of it. About half of it is hydrogenated, as soybean oil is too unstable otherwise to be used in food manufacturing. One of the primary reasons for hydrogenating oil is to prolong its shelf life. Raw butter, for example, is likely to go rancid far quicker than margarine.

The process also makes the oil more stable and raises its melting point, which allows it to be used in various types of food processing that uses high temperatures.

Hydrogenated oil¹ is made by forcing hydrogen gas into the oil at high pressure. Virtually any oil can be hydrogenated. Margarine is a good example, in which nearly half of the fat content is trans fat. The process that creates partially hydrogenated oil alters the chemical composition of essential fatty acids, such as reducing or removing linolenic acid, a highly reactive triunsaturated fatty acid, transforming it into the far less reactive linoleic acid, thereby greatly preventing oxidative rancidity when used in cooking.

In the late 1990’s, researchers began realizing this chemical alteration might actually have adverse health effects. Since then, scientists have verified this to the point of no dispute.

Beware that there’s a difference between “fully hydrogenated” and “partially hydrogenated” oils. Whereas partially hydrogenated oil contains trans fat, fully hydrogenated oil does not, as taking the hydrogenation process “all the way” continues the molecular transformation of the fatty acids from trans fat into saturated fatty acids. Fully hydrogenated soybean oil is still not a healthy choice however, for reasons I’ll explain below. The following slide presentation explains the technical aspects relating to the hydrogenation process.

 

This slideshow is a Flash-based video and may not be viewable on mobile devices.

The Health Hazards of Trans Fats Found in Partially Hydrogenated Oil

The completely unnatural man-made fats created through the partial hydrogenation process cause dysfunction and chaos in your body on a cellular level, and studies have linked trans-fats to:

As usual, it took many years before conventional health recommendations caught up and began warning about the use of trans fats. Not surprisingly, as soon as the FDA required food manufacturers to list trans fat content on the label — which took effect on January 1, 2006 — the industry began searching for viable alternatives to appeal to consumers who increasingly began looking for the “No Trans Fat” designation. It didn’t take long before Monsanto had tinkered forth a genetically engineered soybean that is low in linolenic acid, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Beware that some food manufacturers have opted to simply fool buyers — a tactic allowed by the FDA as any product containing up to half a gram of trans fat per serving can still legally claim to have zero trans fat². The trick is to reduce the serving size to bring it below this threshold. At times, this will result in unreasonably tiny serving sizes, so any time you check a label and a serving is something like 10 chips or one cookie, it probably contains trans fats.

The Health Hazards of Soybeans

Besides the health hazards related to the trans fats created by the partial hydrogenation process, soybean oil is, in and of itself, NOT a healthy oil. Add to that the fact that the majority of soy grown in the US is genetically engineered, which may have additional health consequences. When taken together, partially hydrogenated GE soybean oil becomes one of the absolute worst types of oils you can consume.

 

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