| FAQ-Fats and Oils |
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Fats and OilsQ. I have heard that I should not take flax oil. Please clarify. A. Flax oil is fine if it is a good quality and in small amounts (see our Shopping Guide for recommended brands). People are taking too much flax oil--about 1/2 tsp per day is all you need. Remember to always store flax oil in the refrigerator. Q. Can I use coconut oil for deep frying? A. We don't recommend coconut oil for deep frying--it does not have a high enough smoke point and breaks down at high temperature. We recommend tallow or lard for deep frying. Q. Mary Enig in The Skinny on Fats writes that polyunsaturated oils should never be heated or used in cooking. These oils are contained in healthy foods such as wild salmon. Should these foods, therefore, not be cooked? A. It is when the oils are removed from the foods that they become dangerous to cook in. Inside the food they are protected. It is fine to cook foods containing polyunsaturates as long as you don't cook at too high a temperature or burn them. Q. When organic butter is clarified as when one makes ghee, does this alter the vitamins or destroy the X-factor? A. No, these vitamins are very heat stable. Only the Wulzen factor is lost. But try to make clarified butter using the lowest possible temperature. Q. Do you think Udo Eramsus' book, Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill, is a good reference? A. The best book on fats and oils is Mary Enig's, Know Your Fats, which can be purchased by calling her office at (301) 680-8600. Udo's book is full of mistakes. Click here to read our review of it. Q. Why do we see such emphasis on oleic acids, as in the Zone diet? A. See "The Great Con-ola', on our website; this is a quote from it: "Let's start with some history. The time period is the mid-1980s and the food industry has a problem. In collusion with the American Heart Association, numerous government agencies and departments of nutrition at major universities, the industry had been promoting polyunsaturated oils as a heart-healthy alternative to "artery-clogging" saturated fats. Unfortunately, it had become increasingly clear that polyunsaturated oils, particularly corn oil and soybean oil, cause numerous health problems, including and especially cancer.1 The industry was in a bind. It could not continue using large amounts of liquid polyunsaturated oils and make health claims about them in the face of mounting evidence of their dangers. Nor could manufacturers return to using traditional healthy saturates—butter, lard, tallow, palm oil and coconut oil—without causing an uproar. Besides, these fats cost too much for the cut-throat profit margins in the industry. The solution was to embrace the use of monounsaturated oils, such as olive oil. Studies had shown that olive oil has a "better" effect than polyunsaturated oils on cholesterol levels and other blood parameters. Besides, Ancel Keys and other promoters of the diet-heart idea had popularized the notion that the Mediterranean diet—rich in olive oil and conjuring up images of a carefree existence on sun-drenched islands—protected against heart disease and ensured a long and healthy life. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) sponsored the First Colloquium on Monounsaturates in Philadelphia. The meeting was chaired by Scott Grundy, a prolific writer and apologist for the notion that cholesterol and animal fats cause heart disease. Representatives from the edible oil industry, including Unilever, were in attendance. The Second Colloquium on Monounsaturates took place in Bethesda, Maryland, early in 1987. Dr. Grundy was joined by Claude Lenfant, head of the NHLBI, and speakers included Fred Mattson, who had spent many years at Proctor and Gamble, and the Dutch scientist Martign Katan, who would later publish research on the problems with trans fatty acids. It was at this time that articles extolling the virtues of olive oil began to appear in the popular press. Promotion of olive oil, which had a long history of use, seemed more scientifically sound to the health-conscious consumer than the promotion of corn and soy oil, which could only be extracted with modern stainless steel presses. The problem for the industry was that there was not enough olive oil in the world to meet its needs. And, like butter and other traditional fats, olive oil was too expensive to use in most processed foods. The industry needed a less expensive monounsaturated oil. Rapeseed oil was a monounsaturated oil that had been used extensively in many parts of the world, notably in China, Japan and India. It contains almost 60 percent monounsaturated fatty acids (compared to about 70 percent in olive oil). Unfortunately, about two-thirds of the mono-unsaturated fatty acids in rapeseed oil are erucic acid, a 22-carbon monounsaturated fatty acid that had been associated with Keshan's disease, characterized by fibrotic lesions of the heart. In the late 1970s, using a technique of genetic manipulation involving seed splitting,2 Canadian plant breeders came up with a variety of rapeseed that produced a monounsaturated oil low in 22-carbon erucic acid and high in 18-carbon oleic acid. The new oil referred to as LEAR oil, for Low Erucic Acid Rapeseed, was slow to catch on in the US. In 1986, Cargill announced the sale of LEAR oil seed to US farmers and provided LEAR oil processing at its Riverside, North Dakota plant but prices dropped and farmers took a hit."3 See also Mary Enig's Know Your Fats column, "Some Typical Questions and Misconceptions about Fats and Oils." Q: Do you recommend hemp oil or grape seed oil? A: We do not recommend either of these oils. Hemp seed oil contains cannabanoids that have caused people consuming the oil to flunk their urine tests for drugs; and both hemp oil and grape seed oil are high in omega-6 fatty acids--we already have too much of these in our diets. Q: Is it true that coconut is counter indicated for people whose renal function is failing to a larger percent? If so, is this the only case where coconut is counter indicated? Q. My understanding is that cod liver il is primarily a source of A and D, not omega-3s (though I think it is a source of omega-3, my understanding is that it's not necessarily a great source of omega-3s). If I wanted to supplement specifically omega-3s, what would you recommend?
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