Eden's View on Commonplace Vegetable Oils

When cooking, I almost exclusively use olive oil, coconut oil and butter for my fats. Many students ask why I don’t use the widespread vegetable oils (i.e. canola) that have become staples in the “healthy” eating regimen.

Since the unabridged answer is long and a little scientific, I usually respond with a combination of “I want the fats and nutrients from olive oil, coconut oil and butter” and “The way the vegetable oils are made isn’t the best of processes.”

Like most food items, the worth of these oils is determined by how they are made. And, unfortunately, like most food items, the oils are made poorly and cheaply, resulting in a product with little (if any) nutritional and health benefits.

Coincidentally, this month’s issue of EDENEWS from Eden Foods expertly addresses this topic. It gets to the heart of the vegetable oil issue and explains why the commonplace, industrially-made versions of these oils—seen by many in the health profession as the option—should be avoided.

Click here to read the entire article, but here’s the meat of it:

The truth frequently is not pretty; nevertheless, we offer the following: Commercial or refined vegetable oils are made by crushing seed to extract oil generating high temperatures under great pressure. The crushed seed meal is treated with toxic hexane or other petroleum solvents to gain further extraction. The oil is again heated well beyond the smoke point to drive off most of the solvents. This stuff cannot taste or smell very good at this point, so they treat the oil with caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) to reduce acidity and remove burnt free fatty acids and proteins. This also destroys beneficial antioxidants like the natural preservative vitamin E which is replaced with synthetic preservatives. Next, the oil is heated again, centrifuged, bleached, and sulfuric or hydrochloric acid treated to ‘wash’ it, then micro-filtered removing everything except fat, including color. Deodorizing and de-foaming chemicals and high temperature steam further destroy nutrients. The end product is shelf-stable with a high smoke point, but severely depleted nutritional content except fat, and, at best, dubious value.