Toxic Refined Vegetable Oils

Research on refined vegetable oils came about , oddly enough, after shopping for some healthy crackers. I checked out  Premium Plus Crackers which  contained Soybean Oil with TBHQ, which is an anti-oxidant, a highly effective preservative for unsaturated vegetable oils.

There are many different kinds of commercially refined vegetable based oils, including canola or rapeseed oil, soybean oil, canola oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, and peanut oil. The generic cooking term "vegetable oil" refers to a blend of a variety of oils often based on palm, corn, soybean or sunflower oils.

Refined cooking oils are made by highly intensive mechanical and chemical processes to extract the oil from the seeds. This process removes the natural nutrients from the seeds and creates a final product which oxidizes easily. The oxidation factor makes these oils more likely to break down into cancer causing free radicals within the body. Not good news for diabetics or anyone else!

In addition, many refined vegetable oils are also hydrogenated. This hydrogenation process makes them solid at room temperature so they can be sold as margarine and shortening. This hydrogenation process further damages the fatty acids in the oils, creating trans fatty acids, which are particularly dangerous to human health.

The consumption of vegetable oils created through chemical extraction processes is linked to widespread inflammation within the body, elevated blood triglycerides, and an impaired insulin response. These oils have been linked to diabetes, cancer and heart disease in multiple studies.

The Process of Extracting Vegetable Oil

The process of extracting vegetable oil from oil seeds is not for the squeamish. Take a look at the steps and decide for yourself if this is a "food" you want to consume.

Oil seeds such as soybean, rapeseed, cotton, sunflower are gathered. Most of these seeds are from plants that have been genetically engineered to resist the huge amounts of pesticides applied to them.

The seeds are husked and cleaned of dirt and dust, then crushed.  The crushed seeds are then heated to temperatures between 110 degrees and 180 degrees in a steam bath to start the oil extraction process.  The seeds are put through a high volume press which uses high heat and friction to press the oil from the seed pulp. The seed pulp and oil are then put through a hexane solvent bath and steamed again to squeeze out more oil.

Hexane is produced by the refining of crude petroleum oil.  It is a mild anesthetic.  Inhalation of high concentrations produces first a state of mild euphoria, followed by sleepiness with headaches and nausea.

Now the seed/oil mixture is put through a centrifuge and phosphate is added to begin the separation of the oil and seed residues.  After solvent extraction, the crude oil is separated and the solvent is evaporated and recovered. The seed pulp residues are conditioned and reprocessed to make by-products such as animal feed.