Things you should know about palm oil

Palm oil is currently on everyone's lips, due both to its potential effect on both the environment and on health caus, causing a social alarm similar to what other products have caused in the past. Most of the products we offer our children contain palm oil : cookies, buns, chocolate spread ... But

Palm oil is currently on everyone's lips, due both to its potential effect on both the environment and on health caus, causing a social alarm similar to what other products have caused in the past.Most of the products we offer our children contain palm oil

: cookies, buns, chocolate spread ... But more than the carcinogenic potential of palm oil, we should be concerned about its sugar content , whose effect on health is not potentially harmful but harmfulper se .Why not give food with palm oil to children

Palm oil and its derivatives come from the African palm, Elaeis guineensis, an original plant from Africa, where it has been consumed for thousands of years. Lately its cultivation has expanded to regions of South America and Southeast Asia, with Malaysia and Indonesia being one of the main producers. In the 1980s, in an attempt to eliminate saturated fats, palm oil from food was replaced by trans fats, but to this day it is known for sure that these are tremendously harmful to health.

-Palm oil is one of the cheapest and most commercialized in the world. At room temperature it is semi-solid, and it is used for cooking because of its high resistance to high temperatures. Palm oil has only fat, it does not contain carbohydrates or

protein, although it also contains a large amount of beta-carotene and vitamin E. 50% of its fat is saturated and is in the form of palmitic acid. - Given its content in saturated fats, its consumption could be considered harmful to cardiovascular health, since these fats contribute to increase cholesterol levels. However, research published in prestigious scientific journals have found evidence to the contrary, so that, in principle, consumed within a balanced and healthy diet,palm oil does not pose an extra risk to cardiovascular health.- The EFSA (European Food Safey Authority) published in May 2016

an opinion document that has given rise to the dissemination that palm oil is carcinogenic . This publication ensures that the glycidol present in palm oil is a potentially genotypic and carcinogenic product, according to studies carried out in experimental animals. Glycidol is formed by refining vegetable oils at high temperatures. The refining process -process through which undesirable colors and flavors are eliminated- of palm oil can, although it does not have to, reach 200C.

- With regard to formula milk containing palm oil, the most recent study (published in January 2017) made with about 100 different types, shows the presence of glycidol in samples that did not contain palm oil, in quantities similar to those of samples with palm oil, probably from the refining of the oils used in its composition.

Having all this information, any vegetable oil whose refining reaches 200C will contain glycidol, and will therefore be as potentially carcinogenic as palm oil.