Jon Burras Wellness Newsletter #14

"Would You Give This OIl To Your Dog?

     Take a plant by the name of rapeseed. If you want to extract an oil from it for human consumption, you would be out of luck. Unfortunately, it contains high levels of erucic acid. Erucic acid has been thought to create fatty hearts as well as thyroid and adrenal degeneration in rats. So, in order to reduce the level of erucic acid from the normal 5 percent or higher to 1 percent, you have to breed out the plant. Thus far, you might actually have an edible oil.
    But, how do you get large quantities of the oil out of the plant? Following the typical procedure used by oil producers, you cook the seeds at about 248 degrees. This process creates cracks in the seeds and the resultant exposure to air creates some rancidity: but, the yield is much greater (you can take care of the rancidity later). Next, you take the cooked seeds and mechanically press them under extremely high pressure. This creates its own heat, usually up to 195 degrees Fahrenheit, and further oxidizes the oil. If you want "unrefined" oil, you stop here.
    Usually 9-18 percent of the oil is still in the pressed seed meal that is left over after mechanical compression. To extract that, you use a solvent. If you are like a lot of oil producers, you use hexane or heptane as solvents (yes, that is right, gasoline!) Then you have to boil off the solvent, once again heating the oil and creating more rancidity. Now in order to get usable oil, you need to degum it, refine it, bleach it, and deodorize it. Degumming can be done by heating it to 140 degrees with water and phosphoric acid. Refining occurs when the oil is mixed with an extremely corrosive base, such as sodium hydroxide (yes, that is right, it is the same as what is in Drano!) The mixture is agitated and then allowed to separate. Bleaching requires heating it to 230 degrees for 15 to 30 minutes and passing it through acid-treated clays or fuller's earth. This creates some toxic peroxides and conjugated fatty acids. Deodorization is done under steam distillation at 464-518 degrees for 30-60 minutes.
    This causes some of the fatty acids in the oil to transform to trans-fatty acids and also creates changes in the oil that are considered by some to be capable of damaging genes (mutagenic). Deodorization removes the peroxides produced during refining and bleaching.
    You now have an oil that you can sell. But first, you must give it a name that sounds healthy... say, something that rhymes with "granola". Yes, this is how canola oil is made. Canola oil is Canadian rapeseed oil. To make matters worse, a genetically-engineered rapeseed plant has been developed that is being used in Canada."

     This excerpt was taken from "The Myth of Cholesterol" by Paul Dugliss M.D. and Sandra Fernandez, M.S.P. H.

This is the typical way that most oils are processed. Even if the oil starts out as a healthy oil, the processing turns it into something less than appealing.