Partnering palm and soybean oils

Tag : Palm Fatty Acid
Nature has been generous in endowing palm oil with a compositionthat is uniquely balanced between the saturated and unsaturatedfatty acids. Even when programming this higher level of saturatesin the oil, natures consideration for optimisation was alreadyapparent  the biology of the oil palm dictates that this saturatebe in the form of palmitic acid (C16:0), the same saturated fattyacid that is most abundant in our body and throughout most ofnatures creations.

As if further serious thought was given to this composition bynature, most of the palmitic acid in palm oil is placed within thetriglyceride molecule. This is in stark contrast to palmitic acidfrom animal sources.

Within the modern concept of optimum nutrition, and in a food basedenvironment that is reflected by highly processed foods, palm oilshould have been rated higher by the nutrition gurus of this world.Unfortunately, the fat-world is overwhelmed by a predominance ofhow unhealthy saturated fats are and how these are implicated in anumber of degenerative diseases, including coronary heart diseases(CHD).

Dietary recommendations are thus numerous, with many authoritativerecommendations targeting lower and lower levels of saturated fatintake even when it is obvious that such efforts would be futilesince product functionality and consumer acceptance are oftensignificantly compromised.

The story behind palm oil is indeed a classical case study.Publications in the science and lay press were highly successful inconvincing the often uninformed consumer that saturated fatconsumption must be lowered to reduce increasing CHD risk. Therewas much merit in these concepts but the down side was the factthat the type of saturates was never differentiated from each otherespecially if they were of plant or animal origin.

In the 1980s, palm oil as a food commodity oil began makingsignificant inroads into the marketplace, often at the expense ofsoybean oil. The anti-palm, anti-tropical oil campaign that poppedits ugly head in the mid-1980s created the scare tactics thatresulted in the removal of palm oil from many food applications,especially those of solid fat formulations. The anti-palm oilcampaign is now openly acknowledged as a commercial ploy by thecompeting oils against palm oil so that they could take advantageof the marketplace. The void left by palm oil was flooded by theuse of partially hydrogenated oils and fats that were often toutedto be far more heart healthy than the palm oil components that theyso effectively replaced.

This indeed signaled the rapid increase of trans fatty acids in ourfoods and recorded peak levels of consumption in North American andEurope during these periods. These trends were often fueled byhealth messages that sought to position polyunsaturated margarinesand related fat formulations as the healthy alternative tosaturated tropical oils despite higher content of trans fattyacids (TFA).

The writers can be contacted by e-mails kalyana@mpoc.org.my,yusof@mpoc.org.my