Palm Oil...NOT a Good Substitute For Trans Fats

If you read my blog, you know that I am big on reading labels, especially ingredients of the food you put into your mouth. I believe in real BUTTER, extra Virgin cold pressed olive oil, organic cold pressed flax seed oil and avoiding as much is as humanly possible trans fats and hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils.

Soon I am going to order a product called Panaseeda (5) oil blend on line. 

Go back and read my article about how manufacturer's can put -0- trans fats on their label even when they full well know that they can still legally have 49%  trans fats in whatever is determined to be a single serving of that product. Sort of validates the old adage, "Figures don't lie, but liars figure".

All they need to do is play around with the math on what constitutes a single serving size and get away with listing ZERO TRANS FATS, full well knowing that each single serving size or portion can contain up to 49% trans fats. When I went to school 49% of anything lack 1% of equaling HALF. Apparently that is the old math.

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. II Corinthians 5:1 KJV

In any event what about "Palm Oil" which appears on LOTS of ingredient labels?

Let's take a look:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090502084827.htm

EXCERPT:

Palm Oil Not A Healthy Substitute For Trans Fats, Study Finds

Date:

May 11, 2009

Source:

USDA/Agricultural Research Service

Summary:

Manufacturers are now required to state on food labels the amount of trans fatty acids, also called hydrogenated fats, in packaged foods. Both trans fatty acids and saturated fatty acids are associated with elevated heart disease risk factors. Now, new research questions whether palm oil, whose functional characteristics are similar to trans fats, would be a good substitute for partially hydrogenated fat.

Now, authors of an Agricultural Research Service (ARS)-supported study have addressed the question of whether palm oil, whose functional characteristics are similar to trans fats, would be a good substitute for partially hydrogenated fat.

Trans fatty acids (trans fats) are created during a hardening process called hydrogenation, which serves to make oils suitable for use in products that require solid fats, such as baked goods and breakfast bars. The clinical trial was designed to compare—on heart disease risk—the effect of four different oils as they are commonly consumed.

Lead scientist Alice H. Lichtenstein and colleagues conducted the study. She is with the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Mass.

Fifteen adults, both male and female, volunteered for the study. Their levels of LDL "bad" cholesterol were moderately high at 130 milligrams per deciliter of blood or above, and all were aged 50 or older. They each consumed each of four 35-day experimental diets. The fats tested were partially hydrogenated soybean oil (moderately high in trans fat), palm oil (high in saturated fat), canola oil (high in monounsaturated fat), and soybean oil (high in polyunsaturated fat).

The findings suggest that consuming either of the diets enriched with equivalent high amounts of palm oil or partially hydrogenated soybean oil would result in similar unfavorable levels of LDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein B (a protein, attached to fat particles, that carries bad cholesterol throughout the bloodstream). That's when compared to consuming either of the diets enriched with canola and soybean oils high in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, respectively.

The results suggest that palm oil would not be a good substitute for trans fats by the food industry, the authors wrote.