Four myths about Palm oil

Marianna Mirzoyan, N+1

Palm oil is obtained from the fruits of the oil palm and is used for cooking all over the world. However, its production can damage the environment, and therefore products marked "without palm oil" began to appear in Western countries.

In Russia, such a mark also appeared, but for a different reason. We have popular horror stories about palm oil: from journalists, State Duma deputies and even representatives of the food industry, you can hear that palm oil is not digested and is not excreted from the body, prevents children from absorbing calcium, harms blood vessels and even causes cancer.

Let's deal with these myths separately.

"Not digested"

Palm oil, like any other oil or fat, breaks down in the intestine into glycerin and fatty acids. "If a person is healthy and his pancreas produces enough lipase, digestion and absorption approaches 100 percent," says gastroenterologist Alexey Paramonov. – If there is not enough lipase, excess oil will come out with feces. An example of oils that are not absorbed in the intestine can be served only by vaseline and machine. But they are also called oils only because of their external similarity, being chemically hydrocarbons. Nature did not assume that we would swallow refined petroleum products, and provided enzymes only for oils and fats of vegetable and animal origin."

"Worsens the quality of baby food"

Is it harmful for children to eat mixtures with palm oil? It is not the oil itself that is added to baby food, but palmitic acid isolated from it, and this is done to reproduce the composition of human breast milk, where this acid is also present. There are studies demonstrating that a mixture with palmitic acid from palm oil is absorbed worse than baby food without it. The acid from palm oil forms insoluble compounds with calcium, which are excreted from the child's body with feces. On the other hand, there are works that compare how much calcium children absorb by eating breast milk, baby food with palm oil and without. And breast milk loses, while remaining the best food for babies. Thus, it is wrong to say that palmitic acid worsens the quality of baby food.

"Causes cardiovascular diseases and cancer"

Palm oil, milk fat, beef and pork fat, coconut oil, as well as hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils (vegetable oils that have been converted from liquid to solid) belong to solid fats. The most harmful thing that can be in solid fats is trans fats, they cause significant harm to health, increasing the risk of developing cardiovascular and oncological diseases. Trans Fats are found in meat and dairy products, hydrogenated oils. For example, 100 grams of butter contains 1.5 grams of trans fats, 100 grams of soft margarine – 7.4 grams, and 100 grams of solid (it is more often used in the food industry) – as much as 20 grams. But there are no trans fats in palm oil. It, like meat and dairy products, contains saturated fats. Saturated fats have long been considered almost as harmful to the cardiovascular system as trans fats, but new evidence suggests that moderate consumption of saturated fats does not significantly affect the risk of coronary heart disease, although it increases cholesterol levels.

In the media, you can find information that palm oil has a carcinogenic effect, but its connection with oncological diseases has not been established. A review of research published in 2013 showed that there are few publications on this topic, and the evidence is contradictory.

"It is of low quality"

Another myth: allegedly, technical palm oil is being transported to Russia, and no one controls its quality. These words have nothing to do with the real state of affairs. The quality of palm oil supplied to Russia is controlled by the Customs Union, and it does not allow the product to be used in the food industry if the maximum permissible standards for toxic elements, radionuclides, molds, yeast, etc. are exceeded. There are special regulations for this.

But the following position is no longer a myth:

Harms the environment

Russian media rarely recall that the production of palm oil is associated with a serious threat to the environment. In order to expand oil palm plantations, tropical forests are being destroyed in South Asia, which are home to endangered animal species, such as orangutans and Sumatran tigers. People also suffer through the fault of unscrupulous manufacturers. In Malaysia, clearing new forest areas, farmers burned trees and drained swamps on the site of peat bogs, which eventually led to terrible fires on the islands of Sumatra, Borneo and Java.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  09.12.2016