Vegetable Oil is taking over!! page

[Polecatz]

Since going primal I have been on the look out for vegetable oil (and by this I mean rapeseed, sunflower, corn) and am on some sort of crusade to avoid it but it is IN EVERYTHING!!

Shop bought houmous - most use veg oils although the premium brands use olive oil thank God cos I love houmous. I want to make my own but I bet the tahini paste has veg oil in it as well!!! Veg oil is so WONDERFUL, lets just stick it in everything for the hell of it.

Even ready meals from reputable outlets (M&S and Waitrose in the UK) all use rapeseed oil. I try to avoid ready meals anyway but I was shocked to see this as they tout themselves as decent retailers - what an insult to their customers. They could at least use olive oil.

Ice cream - made with vegetable fat! What a disgrace. I saw that and almost keeled over. Straight away I went and bought some whipping cream and felt smug as I was thinking to make some ice cream at home for a visiting friend.

I was wondering if other people are as annoyed about this as I am?

I have noticed that I get reflux if I have something made with vegetable oil. I know its the oil cos I feel queasy and can kind of taste the oil when I belch (sorry).

[MichaelH]

Yeah, I find vegetable oil in foods that I might otherwise be interested in, like mayonnaise.

I think that much of the population is deceived into thinking it's healthful due to the word "vegetable." I saw a sign at a Chinese restaurant declaring that they "proudly use" only vegetable oil, not lard.

[Bushrat]

Vegetable oils are added to things that don't need it. I looked at a Satay sauce the other day and they had added vegetable oil and done the same with a pasta sauce. In both cases it was redundant to the recipe. I suspect companies need a way to dump their crap so they are convincing food manufacturers to stuff it into foods that have no use for it. I wouldn't be surprised if the companies who make vegetable oils are paying other companies to put the crap in their food (since the vegetable oil companies are paid by the US government to the grow the crap in the first place and they need to use it somehow).

[ProtoAlex]

Many of these vegetable oils are actively marketed to food manufacturers as a way to boost nutritional profiles with "heart healthy" fats. Additionally many of these products need the looser consistency of the polyunsaturats for the machinery (the easier the product goes through the system the less the system needs to be reinforced) and most consumers have thoroughly adapted to the mouth feel afforded by these oils.

[geekgrrl]

yep. It's insanity. I find there's barely a commercial product I can buy - it's particularly frustrating as I cook for a family, not just for myself - so sometimes I want a 'convenience' food. It really is just so ridiculous.

Cooking from scratch is really the only answer. I'm thinking of getting a food dehydrator so I can make my own dried vegetables and fruits for trail mix and so on.

I remember a while back there was a big noise about McDonalds here in Oz switching from lard to vegetable fat - I'd love to see a graph of health issues against the timeline of that, since so many people eat it at least a few times a week. In fact a graph of heart health against seed oil consumption/sales would be really, really interesting! even if it's only correlation and not causality )

[tfarny]

That's why you basically have to cook all of your own foods from scratch, and "give up" when eating out. You can avoid gluten and sugar when out and about, but not veggie "oil".

[Grumpycakes]

You know, soybean oil is so overabundant and so worthless that raw cashews are more expensive than soybean oil-roasted ones.

[Pooka]

Yes, vegetable oils, HFCS, and Soy Bean by-products are in EVERYTHING now. Once you start actually paying attention, it's mind numbing.

[Stabby]

Yup best way to avoid gratuitous seed oils is to make everything from scratch. A little more work but it's worth it.

[GreenLightJerky]

That's why you basically have to cook all of your own foods from scratch, and "give up" when eating out. You can avoid gluten and sugar when out and about, but not veggie "oil".

Yup!