Blog

A TV commercial for a popular cooking oil spray claims that the product won’t leave sticky residue behind. Neither will cooking with sustainable palm oil. Plus sustainable Malaysian palm oil has many health advantages. The Malaysian Palm Oil Council recently reviewed and updated 15 health facts, based on the latest scientific literature, well-documented research and expert recommendations.

Here are some of the highlights:

Palm oil is extracted from the flesh of oil palm fruit, solely by cooking and pressing. It should be clearly distinguished from palm kernel oil and coconut oil because it has lower levels of saturated components. Another benefit over coconut oil: palm oil has no significant capric, lauric and myristic acid levels.
Palm oil contains an equal proportion of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids.
Like all other vegetable oils, palm oil is cholesterol-free.
For most food uses, palm oil does not require hydrogenation, thus avoiding the formation of trans-fatty acids.
Refined palm oil, as used in foods, is a rich source of vitamin E tocopherols and tocotrienols.
Palm oil is an excellent frying oil. Unlike unsaturated oils such as soy oil, corn and sunflower, it has a lower tendency to oxidize which means it is resistant to the formation of potentially dangerous chemicals.
Palm oil is readily digested and absorbed as an energy source.
A number of recent controlled human studies conducted in Europe, the U.S. and Asia have confirmed that there is no significant rise in total serum cholesterol when palm oil provides most of a person’s dietary fat (i.e. is used as an alternative to other cooking oils).
In the above mentioned studies, the level of HDL (good cholesterol) was unaltered or significantly enhanced when palm oil was the primary source of dietary fat.
The content of lipoprotein in blood plasma, a potent risk indicator of coronary heart disease, was significantly reduced when palm oil provided most of the dietary fat.
The minor constituents in palm oil, namely carotenoids, tocopherols and tocotreinols, have beneficial health effects including antioxidant, anti-cancer and cholesterol-lowering effects. In addition, carotenoids in palm oil are biologically active pro-vitamin A.
Palm oil reduces the number of chemically induced tumors in rats.