I noticed that almost all types of cooking oil (vegetable oil, olive oil, peanut oil, etc) contain some saturated fat. Since saturated fat is known to be a contributor to heart disease, then could you simply remove the saturated fats from the oil to make it healthier?
I’ll chime in what comes to mind, since people don’t really talk about the technicality here. I’m not sure how much is common knowledge and how much is more specific information but just some thoughts.
One of the first things that you should keep in mind is that “saturated fat” is not a very specific description. It is a colloquial term for saturated fatty acids. In (cooking) oil, these are predominantly found in a form called triglycerides. This is a glycerine backbone with three fatty acids that are connected via a covalent bond. So it is a molecule, not some loose attachment. (There are free fatty acids, but they are usually removed in raffination, since they are bad for quality. There is even a specific value that measures the content of these free fatty acids in oil, the higher, the worse the quality.) A triglyceride therefore looks somewhat like ‘-,-’ with the vertical lines being the acids and the - being the backbone. Depending on the acids, the molecule takes .ore or less funky stereo shapes.
There are many different saturated fatty acids, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated fatty acids. They come in different lengths with the “unsaturation” at different places. If you take a specific oil - i.e. peanut oil - and look up its content you will find percentage ranges of different fatty acid or triglyceride contents. Because every batch of every oil is a new mixture with different contents of fatty acids and also, and especially, different triglycerides. A lot of it is stochastic, but there is some logic in that. For example, the middle position tends to be an unsaturated fatty acid, the outer ones saturated. Or sat-unsat-unsat, if you really go for it. Yes, there are triglycerides containing only saturated fatty acids. (MCT are actually quite popular for different reasons.) But mostly it is a mix. I’m not even sure if there are triple polyunsaturated fatty acid triglycerides, I think these are rare in natural oils.
Now, to remove all the saturated fatty acids, you would have to do harsh chemical treatment on all the triglycerides and actually split the molecule. You can do this, among other methods, by making soap, or making fatty acid methyl esters. Then you can remove all the saturated fatty acids. And then you can use the others to rebuild the bond with the glycerine. (You can, in theory, also make specific combinations of fatty acids in triglycerides. But we are talking about lab grade stuff here.)
Most people who want a healthy oil would not want this kind of harsh chemical treatment of their oil (think virgin olive oil). But apart from that: a triglyceride made solely of (poly)unsaturated fatty acids, let alone an oil made of these, would be not very stable or usable. Apart from maybe unfreezing small amounts and then using it in a salad you would hardly have any use for it. I also cannot, for the love of God, imagine the taste. The type of fatty acid and its position in the molecule largely determines the physical behavior of oils and are not just contributing, but basically creating quality aspects such as mouth feel, lightness, melting point or crystallization. Your best bet would be to make a supplement with that, not to use it as an actual ingredient in food.
no thanks, I prefer unrefined oils
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To summarize:
Trans fat is the bad one and is even banned in many countries including the USA. It is formed as a byproduct when making many processed and fast foods.
You should get less than 2% of your fat calories from trans fat - preferably you should avoid them at all costs.
Saturated fat isn’t as bad as trans but it’s still not beneficial, the jury may still be out on exactly how bad it is, but it’s not healthy so it should be limited.
You should get less than 10% of your fat calories from saturated fat
Unsaturated fat is healthy, it’s good for you and it’s required in our diet as our bodies need it and can’t make our own.
I feel like my calorie tracking app is really harsh about saturated fats
It gives a D grade to even the tiniest bit of coconut
Might be because fats are very energy dense. They net about 9 calories per gram. However, if the app is only tracking calories without context, it is going to miss calories-over-time and satiety. Fats tak longer to metabolize and tend to be good at triggering and maintaining feeling sated.
A lot about health and diet isn’t understood very well. There are a number of advocates for saturated fats over PUFAs, with some (but not universal) evidence to support it. It’s entirely possible that it’s a case of correlation vs causation, but nothing has been proven with certainty.
Pretty sure this is how we ended up with Olestra; the oil substitute that gave people leaky anuses.
That’s the problem with most substances with no caloric value, the body can’t absorb it and tries to get rid of it by inducing the shits. Your colon is like: “Wtf is this dude eating mud?”.
This is why those sugar-free gummy bears give people epic diarrhea, they are almost completely sugar replacements. The brain and nose/mouth love it, but the intestines can’t do anything with it and want to get rid of it ASAP.
I’m not sure there is a way to fix this, which is kinda sad because I really want to lose weight, but also stress eat sweets.
Reverse chirality sugar may be a way forward, but nobody has figured out how to make it cheap in large quantities.
What sugar substitute do they use in that? Cuz aspartame and Splenda (the two most common substitutes I am aware of) ain’t never gave me the shits like Olestra chips did. Your body did literally nothing with that stuff so it came out the same way it went in, giving you an oily discharge.
Sorbitol and xylitol are common sugar alcohols used in gums and gummies. Sorbitol is naturally occurring in fruits in varying amounts, and, in conjunction with fiber, contributes to the medicinal effects of prunes and prune juice.
Ah… I actually go out of my way to avoid sorbitol just because it’s one of the things that’s really toxic for dogs. Not that I’d give them a gummy bear; but if they should get into them while I’m not looking I wouldn’t want it to be something that could kill them.
You should probably spend a bit more time avoiding xylitol then, if that’s your reasoning. Sorbitol isn’t toxic to dogs for the most part. Xylitol on the other hand is.
oily discharge
I really dislike these words in this order.
Got a bottle of 99 Banannas liquor once. Its got to be using the same sweetener as the cursed gummybears. I never threw out a bottle of alcohol before that moment. 2 shots and an hour later on on the toilet praying for death.
We tried that in the 90s, it went poorly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat#History
We probably could, but I think it would be a lot of effort for a relatively small gain. If you’re concerned about saturated fat intake, the most effective thing to do would be to cut back on meat and dairy products, since those are much more potent sources.
I’m no dietician, but I can’t imagine cooking oil makes up a significant portion of saturated fat intake for most people, when you consider the popularity of dairy in all its forms in western cuisine.
