Palm oil in Wundrbar

[cbreum]

Hi,

Why are you using palm oil in the WonderBar?? It's really disappointing since it's connected with so many health problems and is one of the worst oil you can eat if it has been processed and I guess it's what your palm oil has been?

"One Green Planet has plenty of posts on the ethics of palm oil. We all know that palm oil is an environmental disaster; it is a major cause of deforestation and habitat loss, specifically for orangutans. The WWF has a good report on the various impacts for further reading. Even the human impact of palm oil has been questioned, as growing evidence shows the exploitation of human labor in the edible oil’s production. Most recently, palm oil has been in the news for more positive reasons. The huge palm oil company Wilmar committed to end its deforestation practices and exploitation in its production of the major crop. Whether they manage to keep this promise is yet to be seen, but it’s a huge step in the right direction.

With all of this talk about the ethics of palm oil, a person might wonder whether eating it is healthy in the first place. The oil itself is derived from the fruits of the oil palm. It is consumed in both oxidized and fresh forms. As a fresh food, it contains health benefits, such as the reduction of blood pressure and the risk of arterial thrombosis. Unfortunately, much of the commonly used palm oil is in an oxidized — that is to say, processed — form. Once the oil is oxidized, it poses health dangers on the psychological and biochemical levels, such as reproductive toxicity and organ toxicity, impacting organs such as the kidneys and lungs."

Read more here: http://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/is-palm-oil-good-for-your-health/

[anon48729828]

I am interested too, not only the bars have palm oil but also the shakes. Would be necessary to know the answer and if is there any plan to use an healthier alternative.

[cbreum]

Thanks srjuanjo. Yes, it's in the shakes too. There is also flaxseed oil in the shakes. I wonder if it's cold pressed and not reheated. If not it's also a bad choice. Could someone from Queal please comment on the oils used and how it is applied?

Thanks in advance.

[cockbeard]

I had a look at the page you linked, and couldn't see a single peer reviewed study. Just lots of links to other webpages which led me down quite the merry path. Now the internet is a big place and research is unfortunately not immune to the influence of politics or economics and one of the great thing about facts is (as Stuart Lee said) "You can use facts to prove anything"

The WHO seem to be quite sure that mentions of palm oil as a health risk are inaccurate http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/media/en/gsfao_cmo_068.pdf

Also the World Journal of Cardiology wrote the following piece as well
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4365303/

Note that in the animal experiments the rats taking the oil were compared to a group that took no oil, not a group that took the same amount of a different oil, so of course there would be some adverse affects. If there were various controls groups having their diets supplemented with sunflower oil, flax oil, corn oil, cod liver oil, or even Total motor oil etc then we might see results that were specific to palm oil as opposed to others

I'm not saying that palm oil is good for you but I'm also not seeing studies that legitimately single out palm oil as being particularly worse than any others. Obviously be careful about what you put into your body, and doing research is always a good thing, however headlines can be misleading, and as I said earlier you can use facts to prove almost anything

[Lieke_Queal]

In our Queal products we make use of a sustainable palm oil which is approved by WWF and others. You'll find more information about this palm oil via this link: http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/agriculture/palm_oil/solutions/roundtable_on_sustainable_palm_oil/

Concerning the health problems; we only make use of the 'good' fats by excreting the trans fats. A more detailed description regarding fats in Queal is our blog: https://queal.eu/fats-facts/. The flaxseed oil is indeed produced by cold-pressing. It is sourced from the EU and adheres to all strict EU food, health and safety regulations. We incorporated the oil into the powder using a micro-coating technique to eliminate the need for separate oil-adding in your shake.

When you guys have any questions left about this topic, don't hesitate to ask us!

[cbreum]

Yes, the internet is full of incorrect statements about food. Anyway it's hard to make a study concluding about palm oil is good or bad. Like with most food one have to make up his mind if it's good or bad. One golden rule is if it comes without an ingredient list then it's probably better than if it is processed (like Queal). I also is a firm believer that heated oil no matter the source is potential dangerous for you.

Anyway science to back the claims is prefered, but with food it's hard and not all studies have the right conclusion.

Thanks for your input.

[cbreum]

Thanks to Queal for clearing the question about flaxseed up. Very very good is cold pressed.

Regarding palm oil....it's cheap and not good for you. It's processed and heated and therefore potentially dangerous for you. Sadly I can't back that claim. http://humanfoodproject.com/palm-oil-maybe-not-such-a-good-idea-after-all/

"Turns out, that compared to a high-fat diet formulated with either milk fat, rapeseed oil, or sunflower oil, one that includes palm oil resulted in higher inflammation in “plasma and adipose tissue” as measured by a number of markers. Interestingly, rapeseed oil resulted in much lower inflammation"

Regarding any trans fat. It's a no brainer since it's not allowed in Denmark and I guess in the rest of EU as well.

[DEL1337]

Anyway science to back the claims is prefered, but with food it's hard and not all studies have the right conclusion.

It's not "preferred", it's the only sane path. What are "the right conclusions"? The ones that confirm your bias? Also, define heated oil please. Heated a certain degree? Before the smoke point?
You seem to get your information from non-scientific websites. Processing is generally not preferred when it comes to oils but that doesn't mean it's always bad in all cases. If you are a person that uses the natural fallacy as an argument often then meal shakes might not be for you, since not much about it is "natural".

[cbreum]

Yes science is prefered and the right path of course. I'm a scientist myself, but not related to food. If you have been following the advice based on food studies the last 30 years you should be very confused. Sugar was back in the 90'ties claimed NOT to cause weight gains. It was fat that was the problem. The fact was based on studies that made the "right conclusion". Right? It showed out to be a wrong conclusion. There are so many examples of "right conclusions" that later will be discarded as wrong conclusions. Therefore ANY claims by scientific studies should be investigated further and probably for many years before you can conclude the claim to be true. Another NOT correct myth is that all calories is equal...not true at all.. etc..you can find many more examples.

You can look up heated oil yourself and compare to cold pressed.

What is your background since you take the time to answer my post? Would be nice to know why your post should be taken more seriously than mine. You also make claims that are not documented like Processing is generally not prefered...why? (but I agree with that)

[DEL1337]

I don't have a scientific education and I never said mine was to be preferred. However, if you take your stance of food from all kinds of non-scientific websites I tend to take you less serious because I have experience with people using YouTube as a source or linking to vague vegan sites that think that The China Study is actually a study. Glad you're not one of them. "I'm a scientist myself, but not related to food" That's kind of vague. What's your field and title?

[Vanda_Let]

Although we are not sure about the palm oil effects on health, there is also this ecology issue... I would prefer to avoid it if possible. Maybe its cheaper but I don't think the effect would be bigger than a couple of cents per bag.

[wildegnux]

https://queal.com/fats-facts/ states that "Regarding “the bad” saturated fats, Queal has 2.95gr per meal. That is well below the maximum 7.67gr allowed by EFSA regulations." However a Wunderbar contains 10g of saturated fat... i.e. well over the limit in a single bar.

[Onno_Queal]

Hey there!

Actually, that article is worded a bit ambiguously.

The EFSA recommends a maximum of 10% of calories out of saturated fats, which for a diet of 2100kcal comes to 23 grams. The article goes on to explain that it is not so much about the quantities of the fats, as it is about the ratios between the different types of fats, and keeping the HDL and LDL levels in check.

Having said that, eating 5 WundrBars (needed to get to 2100kcal) is not recommended.
Queal WundrBars can replace any meal, but not every meal.
For that, we'd recommend the Queal powder.

After all that, I must say that the issue with Palm oil and fats is trans fats, not saturated fats. A WundrBar only has 0.2g of trans fats.

[cbreum]

Trans fat is not legal in more EUROPEAN countries. You have to remove the 0.2 g trans fat even it's not much. It cause cardiovascular diseases.

"This is a concern, as consumption of only 5 g per day is associated with a 23% increase in the risk of coronary heart disease. "

Europe leads the world in eliminating trans fats

[Onno_Queal]

This is simply not true.
And the article you are citing is not corroborating what you are saying either.

Some European countries have set certain limits to trans fats, in an effort to decrease the consumption of such fats in the population. These set limits are 10 times higher than what is in WundrBar.

And consuming trans fats does not cause cardiovascular disease.
Significant overconsumption (over 50 times the amount in Queal!) has been shown to be correlated with a statistically significant increased risk of coronary heart disease.

[cbreum]

You are sadly wrong.

"Latvia has banned the use of trans fats in domestically produced and imported food, joining ranks with Austria, Hungary and Denmark- but campaigners are pushing for an EU-wide ban."

Latvia becomes latest EU country to ban trans fats

[Onno_Queal]

Please read more than just the headline.

That article actually mentions how in Latvia the limit will be twice as high as in, for example, Denmark.
Up to 4g of trans fats per 100g, or 20 times higher than of that in the WundrBar.
Also, it won't be enforced until 2018.

[edkorho]

The headlines bares no relation to the facts in the article. You need to learn that headlines are usually just bait.