Corn oil is NOT a health enhancing food….

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Today's post: Monday, 4-2-2007

Corn oil is NOT a health enhancing food….

In recent news I read that the corn oil industry recently was given the OK to put a label on corn oil saying it was good for your health.

1. It’s NOT good for your health.

2. The information presented to support the application for this label is outdated AND woefully incomplete.

3. Corn growers have no worries if you never buy or eat corn oil again.

(It’s quite salable as an ingredient for biodiesel fuel. And, since the demand for biodiesel is rising rapidly as it’s a somewhat sustainably produced fuel & is mostly NOT made from petroleum & can be produced in the United States.)

1. Corn oil is NOT good for your health.

a) Most people in the United States now eat as much as five times too much omega 6 oil
-- in oils containing it, in grains that contain it, & in beef & poultry that has been penned up & forcefed grains high in omega 6’s.

And most people in the United States now eat or ingest about four times too little omega 3 oil.

As a result, instead of getting equal amounts of each, they are getting twenty times as much omega 6 oils as omega 3’s with the result that:

their immune systems are weaker than they should be;
they experience excessive amounts of inflammation;
their moods are worse & they experience more irritability than they should; they think & learn less well than they should;
there’s some evidence they are much more likely to experience heart problems;
& when children eat this way, recent research suggests that they learn more slowly, perform worse in school, & their brains grow more slowly.

Corn oil has virtually no omega 3 oils & is quite high in omega 6 oils.

For this reason alone, corn oil not only is NOT good for you, eating as little of it as is possible is wise.

In addition, I’ve read that cooking with corn oil, & other oils high in omega 6’s, tends to produce health harming chemicals some of which cause cancer much more than cooking with oils like almond oil or olive oil that are mostly monosaturated fats.

For this reason, it’s important for your health to eat foods (like wild caught fish & seafood or beef fed ONLY grass) that are high in omega 3’s or supplement with purified fish oil & DHA (an omega 3 good for your brain) & to limit ingesting omega 6’s to the best of your ability.

2. The information presented to support the application for this label is outdated AND woefully incomplete.

People who eat a diet high in saturated fat & use a lot of butter for cooking who switch to oils like corn oil that are high in omega 6’s, which are polyunsaturated, DO lower their LDL cholesterol.

But corn oil & other polyunsaturated oils high in omega 6’s are NOT good for your heart.

Stopping the analysis there is incomplete – dangerously so.

Doctors used to think that just lowering total cholesterol or LDL cholesterol prevented heart disease. And, to some extent this IS true.

But, what more recent research & analysis has found, is that increasing HDL cholesterol is MUCH MORE important for your heart & more predictive of longevity than just lowering total cholesterol or LDL cholesterol.

And, CORN OIL, & other oils high in omega 6’s, LOWER your HDL cholesterol.

So, they INCREASE your risk of disease & death if you eat much of them or eat them often.

Olive oil also reduces LDL cholesterol; but it does NOT lower HDL.

And, extra virgin olive oil also has antioxidants that keep your HDL & LDL from oxidizing – which is also important to good health. I’ve even seen some reports extra virgin olive oil INCREASES your HDL cholesterol.

Eating avocados & nuts like pecans, almonds, & walnuts to some degree, also lower LDL cholesterol without harming your HDL’s. They tend to be high in monosaturated oils & have sterols that lower LDL cholesterol. (So do many vegetables.)

So, saying corn oil is health enhancing by reducing LDL cholesterol is like saying if I give you quarters & you pay me back a dollar for each quarter I give you, you’ll get richer -- & NOT saying that each quarter you get will cost you a buck.

It simply isn’t so. Corn oil is OK for biodiesel. It is NOT a health enhancing food or even a desirable food.

3. Corn growers have no worries if you never buy or eat corn oil again.

(It’s quite salable as an ingredient for biodiesel fuel. And, since the demand for biodiesel is rising rapidly as it’s a somewhat sustainably produced fuel & is mostly NOT made from petroleum & can be & is produced within the United States.)

I grew up in Iowa in the heart of the corn country. So I would actually like to see corn farmers do well indeed. The economy based on corn growing supported me when I was a toddler -- & supported both my parents until they were young adults.

But the trends seem to indicate they’ll make a lot more money selling their corn oil for biodiesel than they will selling it as food.

And, you’ll be healthier if you never eat or buy corn oil again.