Wednesday, February 25, 2015

The Nutrition Debate #291: Salad Dressing Oils: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

While reading the MyFitnessPal article linked to here and in The Nutrition Debate #290: “My Healthy, Homemade (Vinaigrette) Salad Dressing,” I noted their choice of salad dressing oils included “olive oil, grape seed oil, sesame oil, nut oils and avocado oil.” Also, two of the three recipes featured used “olive oil” and the third, the Asian Vinaigrette, “vegetable oil.” To their credit, they did not mention either soybean oil or canola oil, the vegetable oils now most used (previously it was corn oil) in the processed food industry’s bottled salad dressings. So, I decided to do a lipid analysis of the oils they did include, using the very useful USDA's National Nutrient Database. My research produced the following table:
Salad dressing oils (%)
PUFA
Mono
SFA
n-6
n-3
n6/n3
Olive oil
10.5
73.0
13.8
9.8
0.8
12.3
Avocado oil
13.5
70.6
11.6
12.5
1.0
12.5
Canola oil
28.1
63.3
7.4
18.6
9.1
2.0
Peanut oil ('nut oil')
32.0
46.2
16.9
32.0
0.0
Sesame oil
41.7
39.7
14.2
41.3
0.3
137.7
Corn oil
54.7
27.6
12.9
53.2
1.2
45.8
Soybean oil
57.4
22.8
15.7
50.4
6.8
7.4
Walnut oil (nut oil)
63.3
22.8
9.1
52.9
10.4
5.1
Grapeseed oil
69.9
16.1
9.6
69.6
0.1
696.0
For my analysis I have arranged all the oils listed in ascending order of their polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), The second column is monounsaturated fat content and the third the saturated fatty acid content. Then I list the Omega 6 percent, the Omega 3 percent and the ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3. Omega 6s and Omega 3s are PUFAs and are “essential fatty acids.”
If you are reducing your consumption of Omega 6s, and improving your Omega 6/Omega 3 ratio, or balance, you are no doubt aware that you should avoid foods fried in vegetable or seed oils, and store-bought baked goods made with these oils. For the same reason you should avoid virtually all popular brand bottled salad dressings. See table below for details.
To make your own salad dressing (see #290), which oil then should you use? Well, olive oil (EVOO) is the clear winner, equally for the reason that it is both highest (73%) in monounsaturated fat (the “good” fat) and lowest (10.5%) in PUFAs (the “bad” fats). Avocado oil and Macadamia nut oil, the latter not listed in the USDA Database, are both very good but also very expensive. Canola oil isn’t bad, but is contains almost 3 times as many PUFAs (and about 10% fewer Mono’s) as olive oil. Besides, Canola Oil is made from a GMO dominated crop (see additional citation about the GMO issue below).
Peanut oil and sesame oil are up to four times as high in PUFAs as olive oil and have ugly n-6/n-3 ratios. (Peanuts are not nuts actually, but legumes.) And corn oil and soybean oil have five times as many PUFAs and only a third as much Mono as olive oil, so why would anyone (except a processed food manufacturer) ever dream of using them?
Walnut oil is laden with over six times as much PUFA as olive oil and less than one third as many monounsaturated fats as olive oil, and then grapeseed oil is the ugliest of them all: almost 70% PUFA with a n-6/n-3 ratio of almost 700.
Popular Brands of Salad Dressing and the oils they use:
Hidden Valley Ranch (The Clorox Company), all varieties*: soybean and/or canola oil
Kraft Salad Dressings (Kraft Food Group), all varieties*: soybean oil
Wish Bone (Unilever), all varieties*: soybean oil
Annie’s Naturals (General Mills), all varieties*: expeller expressed canola and/or sunflower oil
Brianna’s Homestyle (Del Sol Food Co.), Real French Vinaigrette: canola oil
Newman’s Own (Newman’s Own Fndn.), most varieties*: soybean and/or canola oil
Newman’s Own Balsamic Vinaigrette: soybean and/or canola oil, then EVOO
Newman’s Own Olive Oil & Vinegar: Olive oil blend (OliveOil/EVOO), then soybean and/or canola oil
Ken’s Steakhouse (Ken’s Foods): most varieties*: soybean or soybean and/or canola oil, then HFCS
Ken’s Steakhouse: Red Wine Vinaigrette: olive oil, then soybean and/or canola oil, then HFCS
Ken’s says they are “the number three manufacturer of salad dressings in the United States behind Kraft Foods and Wish-Bone,        including contract manufacturing for companies such as Newman's Own.” What happened to Hidden Valley, I wonder?
*  except “lite” and “fat free,” in which corn syrup or HFCS (sugars) are substituted for vegetable oils (soybean and/or canola).
So, why doesn’t Kraft, et al., use olive oil in all their industrially processed bottled salad dressings? Could it be that we don’t grow olives commercially here in the U. S., and we grow lots of soybeans and corn? Could it be that soy bean and canola oil are cheaper than olive oil? Canola oil is produced from a low-acid cultivar of rapeseed, a member of the mustard family. As of 2005, 87% of the canola grown in the US was genetically modified (GMO). That reminds me of a favorite quote:
“People are fed by the FOOD industry, which pays no attention to HEALTH and are treated by the HEALTH industry, which pays no attention to FOOD.” The quote is from Wendell Berry. 

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