Real Food Oils vs. Processed Oils – What is the difference?

I had a lovely reader ask me why I was concerned with Canola Oil as a hidden ingredient in a product that I recently purchased. You can read about my label fail here, this is where I talked about the hidden canola oil.

There is a lot of information out there about the oils that we cook with & it can be quite “sciencey” regarding health impacts of using these oils. In this article I am just going to give you a quick run down on why I don’t eat industrial & seed oils.

There are so many different oils on the market & they all seem fairly natural. Grape seed oil, bran oil, olive oil, vegetable oil, canola oil, sunflower seed oil & the list goes on. They are not all as natural as they appear.

The majority of seed oils that are on the market today, never used to exist until the 20th century.  This is simply because the technology to extract the oil from the seed did not exist. Now we do have the technology, but it is not as simple as just pressing the seeds & the oil pouring out.

Seed oils & other oils are manufactured by using highly toxic chemical extraction involving harsh extraction processes such as bleaching, deodorizing & solvents. In short these products are chemical laden.

These oils are in most processed foods because it is cost effective & cheap. They are also widely available to us in supermarkets & most often they are much cheaper than virgin olive oil & virgin coconut oil.

The bottom line is that if you are converting to a Real Food Lifestyle, seed oils are off the list. Oils that are on the list are naturally pressed oils as follows:

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Virgin Coconut Oil
• Grass Fed Butter
• Avocado Oil

Why put chemical laden products in your body when you can enjoy natural products that benefits your health?