Can't eat vegetable oil? Is leached oil harmful to the human body? After reading this article, let's eat oil healthily!

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Recently, on a short video platform, a user who claimed to be a "university professor, doctoral supervisor, and advocate of the big health industry" posted a video titled "Do You Still Dare to Eat These Vegetable Oils?"

The video states that you should not buy oil with the words "extraction method" written on it, because the extraction method is to use a certain chemical solvent to first dissolve soybeans and corn, and then separate the oil and solvent. This process can easily produce various harmful chemicals, so soybean oil and corn oil are equivalent to chemical products.

In addition, the video also stated that eating vegetable oils has led to the high incidence of chronic diseases in our country, and it praised the ancients for eating animal oils such as lard, and belittled modern people for eating vegetable oils.

Is leached oil safe? Can we still eat vegetable oils such as soybean oil? Are animal oils really better?

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Is leach oil safe?

The so-called "extracted oil" actually refers to the process of extracting oil from vegetable oils.

At present, there are two main technologies for extracting oil from vegetable oils: pressing and leaching . The oil produced by pressing is called "pressed oil", and the oil produced by leaching is called "leached oil".

Pressed oil is a method of extracting oil from oilseeds by mechanical pressing. It is also the most traditional method. Many local oil presses are actually pressed.

Extraction of oil is the process of using chemical solvents to dissolve the oil components in oil and then separate them from the solids. It is also called extraction. It is the same as the principle of using water to extract sugars from beets and using alcohol to extract the active ingredients of traditional Chinese medicine.

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The oil yield of the pressing method is low, while the efficiency of extracting oil by the leaching method is much higher, which can also reduce waste. In addition, the scale of leached oil can be made very large, which is also impossible to achieve by the pressing process. Therefore, the leaching process has gradually become the mainstream practice of oil processing plants. In developed countries such as Europe and the United States, more than 90% of vegetable oils are produced by the leaching method.

Many people worry that chemical residues will remain after the oil is soaked in chemical reagents. In fact, the "vegetable oil extraction solvent" used in the extraction method is a food-grade solvent specially produced by the country for vegetable oil extraction. It does not react chemically with oils during the entire production process and will be completely removed in the subsequent refining process.

Therefore, whether it is the pressing method or the extraction method, as long as the finished edible vegetable oil is produced in accordance with national standards and meets national food safety standards and product quality standards, it is safe.

Do vegetable oils such as soybean oil lead to an increase in chronic diseases?

The video said, "Soybean oil was originally used for lighting. Later, the soybean oil refining process was invented abroad. After it was introduced into China, the proportion of various chronic diseases gradually increased."

Are vegetable oils really the culprit for chronic diseases?

In fact, it is too biased to blame the increase in the incidence of chronic diseases on vegetable oils such as soybean oil.

In fact, there are many factors that lead to chronic diseases, and they are very complex. For example, modern people stay up late more often, smoke and drink more, but have less physical activity...all of these can lead to chronic diseases.

From a dietary perspective, other reasons may be much more serious than vegetable oil. For example, the salt intake of Chinese people is about twice the recommended amount, and excessive salt intake will also increase the risk of various chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

In fact, our problem is not eating too much vegetable oil, but eating too much oil in total. The "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022)" recommends that the daily intake of cooking oil per person should not exceed 25-30g. At present, the average daily intake of cooking oil per person in China has reached 43.2g, which far exceeds the recommended amount.

The pros and cons of vegetable oil and animal oil

The above video advocates eating animal oils such as lard. Are animal oils really better?

In fact, animal oil is not better than vegetable oil.

Like animal oils, vegetable oils are mainly composed of triglycerides. Different oils have different fatty acid compositions. Common fatty acids include saturated fatty acids and unsaturated fatty acids.

According to current research, excessive intake of saturated fat increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. Therefore, the latest guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend that adults and children reduce their saturated fatty acid intake to 10% of their total energy intake; it is recommended to replace saturated fatty acids in the diet with polyunsaturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids from plant sources, or carbohydrates from foods containing natural dietary fiber (such as whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and beans).

Generally speaking, animal oils such as lard and tallow are rich in saturated fatty acids, while vegetable oils are mainly unsaturated fatty acids. From this perspective, animal oils are actually not as good as vegetable oils.

We need to remind you that a few vegetable oils, such as palm oil and coconut oil, have a particularly high proportion of saturated fatty acids.

Fortunately, in my country, people rarely use animal oil to cook, and only 5.7% of our fat intake comes from animal oil. The main food source of saturated fatty acids is pork and other livestock meat. Currently, only about 30% of people exceed the recommended amount of saturated fat.

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How to eat oil healthily?

Finally, here are some tips for healthy oil consumption↓

1. Pay attention to eating less oil and eat oil in moderation. The key point of eating oil at present is that we eat too much oil, which is nearly twice the recommended amount. Oil is an essential nutrient for the human body, but you can't eat too much. You should still pay attention to controlling the amount and use less oil.

2. Give priority to vegetable oils such as soybean oil, rapeseed oil, and peanut oil, and use less oils with high saturated fatty acids such as lard, butter, palm oil, and coconut oil.

in conclusion

As long as it is produced in accordance with national standards and meets national food safety standards and product quality standards, the extracted oil is safe.

In addition, animal oils are rich in saturated fatty acids, while vegetable oils are mainly unsaturated fatty acids. From this perspective, vegetable oils are relatively healthier.

Author: Ruan Guangfeng, Deputy Director of Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center

Reviewer: Zhang Yu, researcher at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, supervisor of doctoral and master's degree candidates

Planning丨Zhong Yanping

Editor: Li Mengxin

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