More consumers are taking the time to educate themselves and wise up to the serious health problems associated with consumption of polyunsaturated vegetable oils. These health villains include soy, corn, canola, safflower and sunflower which quickly become rancid and laced with free radicals when processed. Food manufacturers are slowly but surely starting to respond to this change in consumer preference.
Why has it taken so long you might ask? That’s an easy one. Food manufacturers and their shareholders love polyunsaturated oils. Partially hydrogenated or not, they are incredibly cheap to produce and make the bottom line very attractive to corporate shareholders.
Fortunately, there is a healthy fat that can be used in processed foods in place of those nasty polyunsaturated vegetable oils that meets the profit demands of food company shareholders and also satisfies the ever growing consumer clamor for a healthy, traditional fat.
That fat is palm oil.
Wary consumers such as myself have been delighted to see palm oil becoming a more frequent player on the ingredients list of all sorts of packaged foods in recent years. The different types of palm oil can be confusing, however. Are they all equally healthy, you might wonder?
Many Names for Palm Oil – Are You Confused?
The names I’ve seen used are palm oil, palm fruit oil, and palm kernel oil. There is also red palm oil which is a very strong tasting oil that can be purchased for home cooking in ethnic grocery stores. It is not used in processed foods, at least the ones I’ve examined.
I like to keep explanations simple as overly complicated things will rarely be remembered. This is especially true at that critical moment when you are about to decide in the store whether or not to buy a food based on what you see on the label.
The bottom line is that palm oil is a healthy fat regardless of the name used on the label. Â Palm oil, palm fruit oil, and palm kernel oil are all just fine and dandy.
The difference is the amount of saturated versus monounsaturated fat in the various types of palm oil. This variation is determined by the part of the palm fruit from which the oil is obtained.
Palm oil (Palm Fruit Oil) Benefits
Palm oil is derived from the fleshy part of the palm fruit. Hence, it is sometimes referred to as palm fruit oil.
It is approximately 50% saturated fat and 40% monounsaturated fat (oleic acid – the same type of fat in olive oil). The remaining 9-10% is polyunsaturated fat in the form of linoleic acid. This is a very low amount of these inflammatory type of fat, which is excellent.
Neither saturated nor monounsaturated fats are easily damaged by processing so this fat is a healthy shortening to include in a snack item.
The mild flavor and pale color of palm oil also works well for blending with a variety of foods.
Palm Kernel Oil Benefits
Palm kernel oil is derived from the hard and innermost, nutlike core of the palm fruit. It contains 82% saturated fat, much higher than regular palm oil.
The remainder is about 15% monounsaturated fat and only 2% polyunsaturated fats. Both of these amounts are significantly lower than palm oil.
Palm kernel oil is healthier than regular palm oil for 2 reasons.
Closer to Coconut Oil
First, the higher amount of saturated fat makes palm kernel oil a closer match to coconut oil than palm oil. This is a good thing as I try to limit the amount of monounsaturated fats in my diet as they can contribute to weight gain. In 1994, the journal The Lancet published a study which noted that fat tissue is primarily composed of monounsaturated fat. Could this be a contributing reason for middle age weight gain that is so common in Mediterranean countries (Eat Fat Lose Fat, p.70)?  Being of middle age, this is definitely something that I watch out for!
Rich in Lauric Acid
Secondly, palm kernel oil is a rich source of lauric acid, that magical medium chain saturated fat that is highly antimicrobial. It is specially produced by the mammary gland for a breastfeeding baby to ingest and benefit from.
Coconut oil is also high in lauric acid which is one reason it is such a wonderfat being studied by scientists all over the world for it’s anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal properties. This characteristic is particularly valuable in the face of the worrisome problem of increasing antibiotic resistance.
Hence, if I can get a food that includes palm kernel oil versus a similar one that has palm oil, I will personally choose the palm kernel oil every single time. Note that food manufacturers remove some or all of the lauric acid from MCT oil. It is also called liquid coconut oil, but it does not confer the same benefits.
Is Palm Oil Sustainable?
There is a downside to all forms of palm oil and that is the issue of sustainability. Â Deforestation to make way for palm plantations is certainly an extremely troubling environmental concern as is the loss of habitat for the orangutans in some locations such as Borneo.
As a result, it is important to support companies that use a sustainable source of palm oil so that your food dollars do not contribute to these environmental problems.
Another alternative is to just make as many of your snacks at home as you can using traditional fats that you have sourced yourself from reliable, green manufacturers.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Related Information
Coconut Sugar: Â A Healthy and Sustainable Sweetener
Five Healthy Fats You Must Have in Your Kitchen
Walnut Oil: Healthy Sub for Flax Oil
Dr. Oz Gets it Really Wrong about Pumpkin Seed Oil
Selecting a Healthy Cooking Oil and Reusing it Safely
Caution When Using Chicken Fat for Cooking
not everyone can afford to buy organic food and I would never use palm oil , you say buy sustainable but how do you know that the big companies arent pulling the wool over our eyes as far as that goes. The palms do not grow overnight do they ?
Palm oil is not sustainable it’s also not healthy. Coconut oil beats palm oil hands down as being healthier but no oils are good for you. They are oils… not Whole Foods and Whole Foods will always be healthier for you than anything processed.
Palm oil is very much sustainable AND healthy! Did you even read the article?
what is palm olein?
Even sustainable palm oil is no guarantee that what you’re buying is truly sustainable. I’ve done a fair bit of research into this (you can read about it here: sustainablejungle.com/sustainable/palm-oil-free/ and in most cases “sustainable palm oil” is just marketing lip service to make us consumers think that the corporates of the world are being responsible. The inconvenient truth is that palm oil is the most efficient (and therefore the cheapest) vegetable oil around. But don’t get me wrong, this is no excuse for finding a solution to the unsustainable palm oil industry.
Palm oil isn’t suitable for deep frying, that why i don’t love it so much! If i want my recipes to have a hint of taste from the shortening, can i use coconut oil or else as the substitute for palm oil?
Beef tallow is actually most ideal for frying. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/video-rendering-beef-tallow/
Today palm oil production is the largest cause of deforestation in Indonesia and other equatorial countries with dwindling expanses of tropical rainforest. Indonesia’s endangered orangutan population, which depends upon the rainforest, has dwindled by as much as 50 percent in recent years.
Here is one of hundreds of articles you can find online confirming this is true:
scientificamerican.com/article/harvesting-palm-oil-and-rainforests/
The article specifically states to buy certified SUSTAINABLE palm oil. Then, you can enjoy the benefits of palm oil without harming the environment.
The same could be said for GMO soy and corn which is like in everything processed practically these days. Brazilian rainforest is being leveled by the thousands of acres to plant GMOs for animal feed and processed food production. Answer? Buy organic.
I disagree with your stance on promoting palm oil. It is now a well known fact that orangutans are being endangered by the extension of palm oil plantations. I recently read about a mother orangutan in Borneo that was starving. She strayed out of the (deforested rainforest for palm plantation) with her baby and was tortured by locals. They saw her as a threat to their livelyhood. It is not possible to ascertain exactly if the palm oil which is labelled as sustainable is actually from sustainable sources; there are too many loopholes. Please do your research and rethink.
Hi, I ordered red Palm oil from radiant life. It smells and tastes rancid. Can the red Palm oil be rancid? Is this how it usually smells/tastes? Just wanted to get your input. Thanks!
It’s a common misperception by the West that rainforests in Borneo are being cut down for palm oil. That is just downright ridiculous. They are cut down for timber, and a very small percentage are then bought by palm oil companies to be used as farmland. If these denuded hills are not used for cultivation, they will just regrow into secondary forest.
What the article left off is that while (organic/sustainably harvested) palm FRUIT oil may a healthy choice…palm KERNAL oil is not: they use toxic solvents to extract the oil from the kernel. Rain forests are being cut down for timber and palm oil.
Hi my friend! I wish to say that this post is amazing, nice written and come with approximately all important infos. I would like to see more posts like this .