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Refined seed oils are synthetic chemicals that just happen to use seeds as a feedstock in a relatively novel chemical reaction. Yes one can quibble that cookin
by User23 6y ago
Refined seed oils are synthetic chemicals that just happen to use seeds as a feedstock in a relatively novel chemical reaction.
Yes one can quibble that cooking is a chemical reaction, but it’s one that is both simple and that we’re long since evolved to tolerate.
I stick to mechanically produced vegetable oils and animal fats. It’s not only healthier but it tastes better too.
However, a healthy diet depends a great deal on your race. A traditional Inuit diet is observably healthy for Inuit persons, but probably best avoided by people like me. However there are no humans that are evolved to eat seed oils.
- yknuri 6y agoWhere does one find mechanically produced vegetable oils? I'm piqued, thanks in advance.
- klyrs 6y agoOlive oil is the most obvious one
- i_haz_rabies 6y agoBig mechanical squishers squishing olives.
- jackyinger 6y agoLook for “expeller pressed” on seed oils (canola, etc). Now I see why they’re advertising the method of extraction...
- macNchz 6y ago> However there are no humans that are evolved to eat seed oils. I am cautious about these sorts of issues and typically buy the least processed oils (and foods in general) that I can find, however it is my understanding that humans around the world have been producing and eating (mechanically expressed) sesame seed oil for thousands of years. I can't say whether that has any impact on whether people are "evolved to eat it", but it's certainly not something new: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02859136 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02859136
- User23 6y agoYou’re right. I consider chemically extracted the default, but I should have been explicit that I didn’t mean mechanically expressed seed oils.
- souprock 6y agoThere isn't any "chemically extracted" seed oil, at least not with a chemical reaction. The use of a chemical reaction is indicated by "interesterified" or "hydrogenated". That isn't used for extraction; it alters the melting points. The use of solvents to extract oils isn't a chemical reaction. It's not really different from using CO2 to extract caffeine from coffee, using water to extract tea from tea leaves, or using alcohol to extract vanilla flavor from vanilla beans. The common solvent for oil extraction is hexane, which is removed by boiling it off with a vacuum and/or heat. The solvent-extracted oil will have unmodified molecules. The proportions of the various molecules may differ because the ease with which they are extracted will depend on the processing conditions. You get different proportions of molecules in the mix if you change the temperature, pressure, time, or solvent. For some use cases you might prefer one mix or another. You could get a different viscosity, melting point, or smoke point.
- JTbane 6y agoMaybe I'm being pedantic, but most of the stuff done to refined oils are physical processes, not chemical
- yumraj 6y ago> I stick to mechanically produced vegetable oils and animal fats. Can you give examples of what you use?