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Refined Corn Oil
Refined Corn Oil
Refined Corn Oil
What is it:
Refined corn oil is a type of vegetable oil that is extracted from corn kernels through a process of refining. It starts with the mechanical pressing of corn to extract the oil, followed by a series of refining steps to remove impurities and enhance its quality. These refining processes typically include degumming, neutralization, bleaching, and deodorization. Degumming removes phospholipids, neutralization reduces acidity, bleaching removes pigments and undesirable compounds, and deodorization eliminates any remaining odors or flavors. The result is a clear, pale-yellow oil with a high smoke point, which is commonly used in various culinary applications such as frying, baking, and salad dressings.
Rating:
Corn oil is rich in many beneficial compounds, including polyunsaturated fatty acids, antioxidants, and vitamin E. Health benefits such as improving cholesterol and lipid profiles have been reported with consuming corn oil. However, studies demonstrating health benefits are normally conducted using non-heated or low-heated corn oil. Corn oil is normally used for cooking methods such as crying or sauteeing which exposes it to much higher heat. Heating corn oil can decrease beneficial compounds and increase the development of trans fats, which are extremely harmful to health. Corn oil is highly refined with many chemicals such as hexane, which the use of can have harmful effects on the environment, people, and animals.
Resources:
- Fatty acid content of corn oil and their effect on health (review)
- Corn oil has a more favorable impact on lipoprotein cholesterol compared to olive oil (randomized controlled trial)
- Corn oil improves the plasma lipoprotein lipid profile compared with extra-virgin olive oil in adults with elevated cholesterol (randomized controlled trial)
- Increasing the cooking temperature and time of corn oil increases trans fat content and decreases polyunsaturated fats
- The development of trans fats from frying corn oil
- Frying chicken filets in corn oil increases trans fats in oil but not in chicken
- Corn oil composition and processing
- Hexane as an environmental pollutant
- EPA Toxicological review of hexane
How we rate ingredients
Health is like a bank account, certain ingredients make a deposit into your health bank, meaning they add to
your health. Certain ingredients withdraw from your health bank. We want health promoting ingredients in our diet. To keep things simple, we rate ingredients on a green, yellow, red scale:
Clean
It is naturally occurring in food and has no harmful effects on the body. It is real food. It is health promoting.
Caution
It goes into one or more of the below categories
- It is not naturally occurring in food but doesn’t have data showing it has a harmful effect on the body (additives like Gellan Gum)
- It is naturally occurring but can have some harmful effects on the body (added sugars, oils, gums etc.)
We Avoid
It is known to have a harmful effect on the body (ex. All food colorings, Natural Flavors, MSG, Potassium bromate, aspartame, artificial flavors)
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