Is palm oil really that bad ? Or is it just a victim of bad company ?

Is palm oil really that bad ? Or is it just a victim of bad company ?

Water with whiskey makes you drunk

Water with rum makes you drunk

Water with vodka makes you drunk

Ergo - common factor water makes you drunk and must be bad for you.

While this is a joke, in real life this is exactly what seems to have happened with palm oil.

Is palm oil really that bad ? Or is it just a victim of bad company ?

If for some reason olive oil/ghee were to get as cheap as palm oil and all these packaged and street food vendors start using it, then in 20 years we would all be blaming olive oil/ghee for deteriorating health. 

From a nutrient composition perspective palm oil is quite similar to most oils and very close to ghee. There are zero clinical or scientific studies on any adverse health effects of palm oil. The only concern is high saturated fat - but that's the case with ghee as well.

Now, while its production has also raised environmental concerns, particularly regarding deforestation and habitat destruction - that’s not what is at debate here.

Here is my 2 cents on this :

• Because palm oil is cheap, is stable on high heats and ideal for frying, it gets consumed for everything fried. Especially large scale packaged foods and street vendors selling snacks. 
• In order to cut costs further, it gets used multiple times for frying causing the release of trans fats.
• Specifically for street foods, it also gets used at lower temperatures (just a bad cooking practice) causing higher oil absorption.
• Packaged foods and street foods are easily available, cheap and tasty - leading to over consumption. 

All the blame goes to palm oil since that is the common factor. The problem is we ignore the other confounding and common factors

• These foods also have high sugar, salt and carbs
• Consumed in higher qty and frequency
• Contain too much fat because of bad cooking techniques.

Correlation is not causation. Be informed, not influenced. There is no bigger truth in nutrition than "Moderation".

PS: Influencers make 100 reels about how sugar is bad but then the same influencers compare one icecream brand with another and say this one has palm oil and this one has milk fats. But wait! What about the sugar content in both? Isn’t sugar the bigger enemy ? 

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#palmoil #oil #nutritionfacts #nutritiondata #commonsense #packagedfood #betterforyou #fooddata #indianfooddata #api #calorietrackers 

Data source : USDA 2023 and IFCT NIN 2017

Other oils is Average of Olive oil, Peanut oil and rice brand oil

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