Vaults - The Awful Truth about “Healthy Oils!”

Most “healthy oils” are flat out bad news for your health.

The majority of these “heart healthy” oils became popular as cheap fat substitutes in the early days of the war on fat. However, decades later we know better. We know that real butter is a much healthier “food product” than its substitute margarine. So, are any of these “heart healthy” vegetable oils actually heart healthy? Or, are they just “completely refined artificially produced” products? In other words, “crap!”

Whole foods vs. processed crap

When people ask me “what should I eat” I tell them to keep it simple: eat whole foods. Whole foods are foods that are either unprocessed or minimally processed before consumption. Therefore, if something has to undergo five or more stages in processing before you eat it, chances are it has little to no nutritional value.

Whole foods, on the other hand, are things that you can dig up out of the ground, pick from a tree, or catch by land, air or sea. Foods like rice and wheat must undergo minimal processing to remove the rice hull or to grind the wheat into flour. Anything beyond this minimal processing is no longer considered a whole food.

In the case of rice, if you keep running the brown rice through the huller machines to remove the outer bran layers, then through a polishing machine to make it smooth, and then coat the rice grains with glucose to make it look and taste better, this gives you white rice. White rice is not a whole food.

How most vegetable oils are made

The problem with most vegetable oils is that they are too highly processed. Let’s use “healthy” canola oil as an example.

First, you start with the rapeseed, which usually contains a deadly amount of erucic acid. To get around this, a genetically modified version of the rapeseed plant is grown to produce canola oil, which is then treated with several pesticides.

Next, the rapeseeds are heated at high temperatures before crushed. They are then processed with a hexane solvent to extract the oil. The oil is then further refined using acids to remove any gums or unwanted fats. It is then processed some more with chemicals to remove the color. And processed yet again, with more chemicals to remove the nasty odors from all the processing.

But wait, there’s more!

You can take this highly processed oil and hydrogenate it to make it solid, by changing it’s chemical structure, and you end up with margarine or some other fake butter substitute.

Keep in mind that this is just one out of a dozen reasons why most “healthy oils” are extremely bad for your health. I don’t even have time right now to get into the polyunsaturated fat issue, the ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 issue, nor the issue with all the various additives, pesticides, and chemicals involved in the processing of these so called “healthy oils.”

The good, the bad, and the ugly

So, which oils are the best for you to use? Well, remember my definition of whole foods (foods that are either unprocessed or minimally processed before consumption).

My personal favorite is organic, cold-pressed, extra virgin olive oil. This process involves crushing the olives to extract the oil via a mechanical process, instead of using chemicals and solvents.

Coconut oil is okay if you can find the real unrefined, cold-pressed oil. The problem is that most of the commercial varieties are no better than other highly refined vegetable oils.

So, I hope you’re smelling what I’m cooking here. The best oils to use, if you must use oil, should be cold-pressed, extra virgin oil. The cold-press process does not degrade the nature of the oil like high heat does. And extra virgin oils are the first pressed oils, which means they are minimally processed.

The stuff to avoid:

Avoid all the highly processed oils like canola oil, soybean oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, peanut oil, olive oil, “vegetable” oil, margarine and all the fake butter substitutes.

The bottom line

Keep in mind that extra virgin olive oil and all other oils are not whole foods. They are all processed, low-nutrient, food products and should be treated as such. Whole food sources of fats such as nuts, seeds and avocados are absorbed much slower into the body and provide more nutrients.

So, if you must use oils, use them sparingly, especially if you’re recovering from health issues or trying to lose weight. However, a healthier habit to develop is to learn to cook without oil sometimes. Also, try replacing the oil in your salad dressing with vinegar, fruit, nuts, seeds and avocado.