Bayesian Investor Blog

Ramblings of a somewhat libertarian stock market speculator

Trans-fats in commonly sold plant oils

Posted by Peter on January 20, 2011
Posted in: Health. Tagged: diet.

There seem to be serious risks in some food oils that are commonly considered healthy. This report says:

hexane processing strips the remaining nutrients from the oil, and turns a significant quantity of polyunsaturated fats into inflammatory, artery-clogging trans fats!

Hexane processing is apparently common for Canola oil, soybean oil, and other plant-based oils (but not olive oil). Trans-fat levels have been measured at 0.56 to 4.2 percent in commercial oils.

Since FDA-regulated labels are only accurate to about 0.5 grams, and oils are often labeled for 14g serving sizes, a 1 or 2 percent trans-fat content would apparently show up as zero. I suspect those levels are more harmful than most additives that the FDA has banned from foods.

The bottled Canola oil I buy from Trader Joe’s says it’s expeller pressed – no solvents used, so I’m still guessing it’s healthy, but I’ll try harder to avoid processed foods containing plant oils. (There a lot of misleading arguments against Canola oil that should be ignored).

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