The raison d'etre of this website is to provide you with hard scientific information which may help you make informed decisions in your quest for health (so far I have blogged concise summaries of over 1,500 scientific studies and have had three books published).

My research is mainly focused on the effects of cholesterol, saturated fat and statin drugs on health. If you know anyone who is worried about their cholesterol levels and heart disease, or has been told to take statin drugs you could send them a link to this website, and to my statin or cholesterol or heart disease books.

David Evans

Independent Health Researcher
Showing posts with label Food Processing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food Processing. Show all posts

Wednesday, 24 November 2010

Fully hydrogenated vegetable oils = No trans fat... but still no good!

Just because a product contains no trans fat does not mean that it is healthy. There could well be other, equally or more harmful substances in it.

E.G  Peanut butter may be manufactured with fully hydrogenated vegetable oil, then it is true that it does not contain any trans fat as trans fats are found only in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, not in fully hydrogenated vegetable oils. However, no trans fat does not automatically mean not harmful to health.

What is hydrogenation?

To understand this, we need to know what the process of hydrogenation is all about.

Hydrogenation is a process of adding hydrogen to oil, in order to turn liquid oils (mono or polyunsatured fats) into solids (saturated fats).

In liquid oils, the molecules are bent. They cannot be packed closely together and that is why the oil is soft, or liquid.

In partially hydrogenated oils, the oil molecules become more or less straight, but with a slight kink. They pack more closely together and the oil becomes semi-solid.

However, the oil molecules have been twisted “out of shape” as they are no longer shaped like the original, bent molecules. This makes them extremely harmful to health. And such twisted oil molecules are called trans fats.

In fully hydrogenated oils, the oil molecules have all been broken up at the point where they previously bent or had a kink. Now the molecules are all straight. They pack very closely together.

This oil is now hard and completely saturated. It no longer contains twisted, "out of shape" molecules. It now contains no trans fat.

Still no good!

However, it does not mean that the oil has suddenly become healthy again.

This fully hydrogenated fat is now very hard and not edible. It can be consumed only when it is mixed with liquid oils (in this case, oils naturally found in peanuts) to form a semi-solid grease.

It is true that the oil now has no trans fat, but this does not cancel out the fact that it had gone through a highly unnatural hydrogenation process involving high heat, high pressure and the use of toxic substances, such as nickel, as catalysts.

To begin with, hydrogenated fats are typically manufactured from cheap, poor quality oils – including toxic oils like cottonseed which are not suitable for human consumption,

Moreover, such oils had already turned rancid – because they had been extracted from oil seeds using high heat.

High heat – as well as exposure to light and oxygen – makes oils rancid. This is why oils were traditionally stored in dark bottles, in cool places.

Modern commercial oils are sold in see-through plastic bottles because they had already turned rancid and gone through deodorisation and other processes to mask the rancidity.

Rancid oils are very toxic. They are as harmful as trans fats, or possibly even more harmful.

Even though they may contain no trans fat, such oils contain lots of free radicals, which can cause serious damage to body cells. Some scientists believe that, apart from trans fats, rancid oils are another major cause of heart disease, cancer and other degenerative diseases.

Grey, smelly grease

After the hydrogenation process, the resulting margarine / vegetable shortening is grey and smelly. It has to be bleached, deodorised, artificially coloured and artificially flavoured before humans would consume them.

Rats and cockroaches would still avoid this stuff, yet many health authorities, nutrionists and other health experts encourage consumers to take soft margarine simply on the basis that they contain lower levels of trans fat.

This is taking a very narrow and ill-informed viewpoint. Just because a product has low or no trans fat does not mean that it is healthy.

To know whether or not a product is healthy, we need to know what ingredients they are made from, how they are made, and so on.

This article can be accessed at: http://www.stop-trans-fat.com/no-trans-fat.html

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AMAZON USA Know Your Fats : The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol

Tuesday, 14 September 2010

Large losses of vitamins and trace elements result from the processing and preservation of foods

Published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition May 1971 pp 562-573

Losses of vitamins and trace elements resulting from processing and preservation of foods
Henry A Schroeder

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/24/5/562.pdf

Mean losses of vitamin B6 amounting to 36.7% and 44.6% occurred in frozen vegetables and 57.1 to 77.4% in canned vegetables.

Losses in canned fish, seafood, meats, and poultry amounted to 42.6% and 48.9%.

Mean losses of pantothenic acid due to freezing of vegetables were 36.8 to 57.1 %, and due to canning, 46.1 to 77.8%.

Losses in canned meat, fish, and dairy products were less.

Processed and refined grains lost 51.1 to 93.8 % of the vitamin B6 and 37.0 to 74.1% of the pantothenic acid in the whole product.

Processed meats lost one-half to threequarters of both vitamins.

Seven vitamins were lost during the refining of flour to the extent of 50 to 86.3 %. Biotin and folacin were also usually reduced in refined cereals, white bread, and canned vegetables.

Thirteen minerals were depleted from wheat by the refining of flour, with negligible loss of energy. Bulk minerals were lost to the extent of 60.0 to 84.7 %, and trace metals of 40.0 to 88.5 % .

Large losses of magnesium and most trace metals apparently resulted from the refining or partitioning of foods into two or more fractions. Refined sugar was especially low in trace elements

The author concludes: "From these data, it is apparent that Amencan diets may be marginal in respect to adequate intakes of several micronutrients essential for optimal function".

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Wednesday, 28 April 2010

Modern farming methods have caused a severe depletion of minerals in our food

Published in Nutrition and health 2003, vol. 17, no2, pp. 85-115

A study on the mineral depletion of the foods available to us as a nation over the period 1940 to 1991
THOMAS David (1) ;
(1) Mineral Resources International (UK) Limited Silverdale, Lower Road, Forest Row, East Sussex, RH18 SHE, ROYAUME-UNI

This paper can be accessed at: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15233855

During the last few decades mineral levels have fallen in foods during a period of intensive chemical farming.

Thomas discovered that between 1940 and 1991 vegetables had lost 24% of their magnesium, 46% of their calcium, 27% of their iron and 76% of their copper.

Fruit is lower by 16% in magnesium & calcium, 27% in zinc, 24% in iron, 20% in copper.

In meat, iron content fell by 54% and copper by 24%.

So modern farming methods have caused a severe depletion of minerals in our food.

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