The Oil that Spoil you

Over a period of time, I was trying to educate people why Dr. Mantena Satyanarayana Raju is against seven various tastes viz., Salt, Sugar, Ghee, Oil, Red chili powder, Tamarind and Masala. Why he calls them the 7 harmful tastes in your food. I already published few of them in my previous updates. Today I am going to throw some light on cooking oil.

As you all know that Obesity is one of the major causes of concern for a modern man today. Many people ask me; they write me asking suggestions for losing weight. I am not sure about Westerners but I am certainly sure that cooking oil is the major factor responsible for causing obesity among Indians. Being an Iyengar yoga practitioner I come across many yoga friends from different parts of the World. I found one thing in common among all of them is the oil consciousness which the Indians lack very much.

I would like to share a very interesting story of mine. It was probably 5 years ago, I saw Dr. Mantena Satyanarayana Raju on TV preparing a recipe without using oil. I broke out into a big laughter thinking that man has gone crazy. I thought even the dogs are not going to eat that food. I made fun of him calling all my brothers and showing them the stuff he was making. What was funnier was that he cooked vegetables without salt and masalas in addition to non use of oil.

There was a strong reason behind my thinking. To be honest, I do not know till that time the food can be cooked without oil. I haven’t seen anybody cooking vegetables without oil before him. I never saw any one at home, at my relatives, at parties, hotels or any other place cooking vegetables without oil. Though I knew people occasionally cook food without salt and masalas if they have serious health issues like high blood pressure or ulcers. But I haven’t heard or seen anyone cooking without oil.

But one thing did strike me, I remember my mother using mustard oil for cooking food earlier, then shifted to ground nut oil, to palm oil and finally to Sun flower oil and sometimes rice bran oil. Going through this understanding, I got a very interesting question. All these oils came into the market only after industrialization but human race existed for millions of years and which oil did they used to cook their food? I was surprised; why this question has not strike me before?

I asked many older people and they all said to have remembered their parents cooking food with castor oil or mustard oil or sesame oil but even they do not remember of having food without oil. I then searched on Google to find out the facts and got very interesting information about cooking oil.

History of Edible Oil:

Edible Vegetable oils, used as cooking oils, come from various plants and seeds like olive, sunflowers, soybeans, cottonseed, peanuts, almonds, sesame seeds, palm fruits, coconut, rice and many other fruit seeds.

Edible vegetable oil came into existence few hundred years before Christ. Chinese people used to extract soy bean oil and the Europeans down south used to extract olive oil for their cooking needs. They understood that by having the sun heat the seeds and plants, oil came to the fore and could be used for cooking.

People later on became more sophisticated and started to press the plants and seeds in order to extract the oils. They even started to heat them. Initially people just used a mortar and pestle to extract oil. With the advancement of technology different varieties of oil came into existence.

The Civilization as we know is about 6000 years old and the industrialization started in the earnest only in the 1800s. Industrialization in India started only after Britishers came to India but the real industrial boom took place few years after independence. To the best of my knowledge and information, oil production and consumption gained momentum over the last 20 years only.

Nutrition Profile Oil:

Here are some nutrition facts of Healthy Hearts brand Sunflower oil:

Nutrition facts of Refined Sunflower Oil	Value of 100 gms
Energy in Calories	900 Kilo Calories
Total Fats	100 gms
Saturated Fatty Acids	12 gms
Mono Unsaturated Fatty Acids	21 gms
Poly Unsaturated Fatty Acids	67 gms
Trans Fatty Acids	Nil
Cholesterol	Nil
Proteins and Carbohydrates	Nil
Sugar	Nil

If you pay attention to the nutrition table carefully; you will find that Oil is 100% fat and has no other nutritive value. There are numerous types of fat. Your body makes its own fat from taking in excess calories. Some fats are found in foods from plants and animals and are known as dietary fat. Dietary fat is a macro nutrient that provides energy for your body. Fat is essential to your health because it supports a number of your body's functions. Some vitamins, for instance, must have fat to dissolve and nourish your body.

But there is a dark side to fat. Fat is high in calories and small amounts can add up quickly. If you eat more calories than you need, you will gain weight. Excess weight is linked to poor health.

The concern with some types of dietary fat (and their cousin cholesterol) is that they are thought to play a role in cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes. Dietary fat also may have a role in other diseases, including obesity and cancer.

Research about the possible harms and benefits of dietary fat is always evolving. And a growing body of research suggests that when it comes to dietary fat, you should focus on eating healthy fats and avoiding unhealthy fats. Simply stated, fat is made up of varying amounts of fatty acids. It's the type and amount of fatty acid found in food that determines the effect of the fat on your health.

Many creatures just thrive on green vegetation. What fats are making them energetic, healthy and reproductive? Then why should a man needs oil, ghee, meat to give him energy and fats? Why are you consuming oil? Is it because you need it for the body, or is it because you are used to the taste of it? Try to drink a spoonful of oil directly! Observe if it is absorbed by the body or sent out through stool. You will understand what discomfort the intestines undergo. The food that isn't harmful for the body moves easily into the intestines, gets digested quickly and joins the blood.

When you are causing harm to your body in so many ways, isn’t it natural that you fall sick? In fact you should wonder if you don’t fall sick. You don’t have to be surprised if you get some disease!

Dangers of Cooking Oil:

There are many theories of cooking oil. Every day hundreds of commercials were played on electronic, print and web media claiming their oil is good for health. People are really confused in selecting which oil to consume. Some say, palm oil is good, other say sun flower oil is good and another claim olive is really better for health. Now let’s analyze whether cooking oil is really harmless as the manufacturer’s claim. I collected some data from Dr. Raju’s talks and few health sites on internet which is as follow:

1. Increases Cholesterol: Cooking Oil increases cholesterol in the body hardening and narrowing the blood vessels wherever it concentrates. Hardened blood vessels affect free blood circulation. As a result air and food do not reach properly and the respective parts of the body start getting a pain. If this problem occurs in the heart, you get heart trouble that may be called heart attack. If it happens in the brain it causes paralytic stroke, affecting your speech, writing and movement. To avoid such a situation better you refrain from oily stuff, dairy food, eggs and meat.

 

For a very long time I was wondering whether cooking oil has cholesterol or not. Dr. Raju used to say that no plant food contains cholesterol and all animal products contain cholesterol. For example, oil is extracted from Almonds, Coconut, Peanut, Sesame seeds, Mustard, Palm seeds, Rice, Corn and many other seeds. You refer to the nutrition analysis of any of these products; you don’t find cholesterol in it. While in that case how can the cooking oil extracted from them contains cholesterol?

On one hand doctors also recommend not to eat oily food as it leads to cholesterol and on the other hand the oil companies openly print on their product claiming zero cholesterol. A common man is really in confusion whom to believe, the doctor or oil manufacturer as both of them are reliable sources. There can’t be any greater authority to know about health than a doctor, therefore he cannot be questioned. When it comes to Oil Companies’ claim of zero cholesterol on their product also cannot be suspected as they go through thorough quality checks and approval of quality control authorities appointed by the Government.

This confusion was there in my mind of many days. One fine day I was going through some of the talks of Dr. Raju, I realized that oil companies are not wrong in claiming their product as zero cholesterol but as the oil is heated to a certain degree while cooking food that leads to cholesterol. The manufacturer’s responsibility ends till he sells the product cholesterol free and the consumer’s responsibility begin thereafter. Does the consumer eat the oil without cooking or heating? No! Never! So he is responsible for the consequences.

If the plant products mentioned above from which oil is extracted is taken in their natural form without tampering their natural qualities, they don’t form any cholesterol. In fact, they help in increasing HDL or good cholesterol to keep your heart healthy.

2. Leads to Obesity: Cooking oil leads to obesity as it has no other nutritive value other than fats. Let us try to understand how this oil fat leads to obesity in no time without your knowledge in a lay man’s language. According to Dr. Raju, fat is divided into indirect fat and direct fat. All the fat that is there in natural form in the seeds and nuts is called indirect fat. Indirect fat is healthy and recommended in your diet. The fat that is extracted from these seeds and nuts is called direct fat. This leads to obesity very quickly. There are two reasons for that. One you have tampered the natural built of the food and another you consume more direct fat than indirect. For example, you might get 250 grams of oil from 1 kilogram of peanuts. You consume that quantity of Oil when you eat 4 somosas and tell me how long will it take to consume 1 kilogram of peanuts? If you want to lose weight, just avoid the oil for one month completely and see how much weight you lose.

3. Leads to Cancer: It is observed that the usage of unsaturated and polyunsaturated oil is one of the reasons for increase in the number of cancer patients.

4. Give rise to free radicals: Free radicals are atoms or groups of atoms with an odd (unpaired) number of electrons and can be formed when oxygen interacts with certain molecules. Once formed these highly reactive radicals can start a chain reaction like dominoes. Their chief danger comes from the damage they can do when they react with important cellular components as DNA, or the cell membrane. Cells may function poorly or die if this occurs. To prevent free radical damage the body has a defense system of antioxidants.

When oil is heated, the water molecules mixed with the carbon chains in the fat go out and oxygen molecules come back this time with carbon chains. That is why oil changes its smell and taste when boiled. Oxygen mixed thus with carbon chains is called free radical.

5. Leads to Polymerization: Polymerization is a process in which relatively small molecules called monomers, combine chemically to produce a very large chain like or network molecule called a polymer.

The change that occurs in the fat cells during the heating of oil is called polymerization. When boiled at 375 – 400 degrees, all the fat cells in the oil come closer to each other, thereby forming new cells. These new cells instead of helping the body cause harm. Oil gets thickened, at the heat of 200°c itself. Thickened oil cannot be easily digested in the intestines.

Unless heated at 400 degrees vegetables or any item cannot be fried properly. Will there be any life left in the vegetable if it is boiled at that temperature. Don’t you call a lifeless creature a dead body? Will such a dried, heated, dead item be helpful for anybody’s health? No! Nobody eats it for health; he eats it only for taste.

Most of the snacks are deep fried in oil! That is why you feel very thirsty after you eat them. The body requires more of water to digest unnatural food and to send out its waste. Researchers observed that the foodstuffs with less cholesterol, fried in oil at 375 to 400 digress caused blocks in blood vessels of rats, though that foodstuff had less of cholesterol. When they tried again without boiling the oil, the blood vessels remained normal.

You take any of your favorite snack, breakfast or sweet in India like Somosa, Kachori, Bajji, Vada, Bonda, Puri, Pakoda, Pani Puri, boondi, mixture, Gulab Jamun, Rasgulla, Jalebi and you name it, all these items are deeply fried in the boiling oil. All of these items are mouth watering and tempts you the moment you look at them. But have you ever seen how are they made? How much oil they use to make them? I recommend one and all to become conscious about oil only then you become healthy.

            

Let me share a short story of my friend who came to me suffering from severe irritating bowel syndrome, constipation and fishers leading to blood motions. He suffered one year continuously with blood motions without relief using all sorts of medicines. I treated him with some yogasanas and diet routine recommended by Dr. Raju. After 29 days, he passed on the stool without blood. I inspired him to eat oil free food for 3 months more without fail. He did that and succeeded in overcoming his problem. Few months later he happened to eat outside food in a tiffin center. Since the problem is solved, he ordered two vadas for his breakfast. When he touched it he sensed his hands became sticky. So he felt the vadas are too oily and he requested the waiter to get some tissue papers. He then put the vadas in those tissue papers and squeezed. 12-15 tissue papers got soaked by oil. He wondered, oh my God! I had been consuming this much oil everyday all these days? He never suffered from the problem again. When consciousness rises, you become alert and awake. Therefore I recommend one and all to know the process of making also not just eating. This brings lots of change.

6. Damages the Skin: Oily food causes wrinkles and makes the skin look old at young age. The reason behind this is the free radicals produced at the time of boiling oil.

7. Leads to Gas trouble and Ulcers: When you eat oily stuff, the intestines have to produce a larger quantity of digestive juices. When the quantity is more than required, the quality of work automatically lessens. The intestines have to work hard to digest. Since they work more, they lose their energy. Consequently the intestines lose their resistance power against disease. The production of hydrochloric acid in the stomach doesn't stop at once even after the digestion of fats. The acids formed in the stomach in the absence of food lead to ulcers.

8. Oily food makes you thirsty: When we eat oily stuff, we feel thirsty during and after eating that food. By drinking water before food gets digested, the process of digestion slackens and our stomach will be heavy for a longer time.

I hope you liked this article and keep watching the space for more updates.