Daybreak - No, your refined cooking oil cannot be heart-friendly nor can it control your diabetes

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Over the years, the more health conscious we became, the more cooking oil-markers pushed different variations of words associated with 'health' in their branding. But they've been burying the caveat in the fine print. For example, Adani Wilmar’s refined soybean oil goes by the brand name ‘Fortune Soya Health’ in bold letters on the front of the pack. But if you turn the pouch around, you'll notice at the back, in small tiny letters, it reads: “The word ‘health’ is only a brand name and does not represent the product's true nature.” Tune in to find out how cooking oils brands available in the Indian market have been knowingly misleading consumers and how bad refined oils can be for you health. Recommended reading: Fortune Vivo oil meets its inevitable sticky endDaybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me. My interruptions, my analogies and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

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I will play for you today one of my favorite older daybreak episodes. It is an oldie but a goodie because it is about something that is still very relevant to us. It's about the dangers of refined oil. Now, one of the most commonly used refined oils, as we all know, is palm oil. And lately, India's imports of palm oil have only been increasing. In fact, it's been predicted that this year it is going to hit an all-time high, especially after the government allowed license-free imports of palm oil. Now, of course, it does help to keep oil prices under control in the country, but farmers, for

examples, the ones who grow mustard are running into losses. Meanwhile, cooking oil companies have been misleading us with words like healthy and active in their branding. So, here goes. The Indian edible oil market was estimated to be close to 10. two-lac-crow rupees in the year that ended in March 2021. Let's face it, we Indians love fried food. And that kind of explains why the packaged food market is rapidly growing in India.

And so is the edible oil market along with it. And among all the different types of refined oils, it is palm oil that is really fueling this growing market. Why? Because it's cheap. The sales of ultra-processed food, think cereals, chocolates, chips, is expected to reach 8 kilos per capita by 2024. Less than two decades ago, it was just 2 kilos per capita. Most of the ultra-processed food that we consume uses some amount of palm oil.

But domestic supplies of oil have been stretched lately. And the price of cooking or edible oil, as we all know, has gone up to. significantly. So last week, the government of India announced that traders will be allowed to import refined palm oil without license beyond December 2022. The idea is to increase domestic supplies and bring down prices. Now, if there is one thing that immediately strikes you when you think of refined edible oils in India is that they all claim to be healthy. Think of all the brand names. We have Fortune Soi Health, Dara Health Refined Sunflower Oil, Sappola Active, there are so many more.

All these brand names give us the impression that not only are these oils safe, but they are actually healthy for us, right? Well, we are wrong. And today, I will tell you how cooking oil companies in India have been misleading their consumers. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Kent. I'm your host, Nick Da Sharma, and I don't chase the news cycle. Instead, thrice a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays,

I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Wednesday, the 14th of June. The belief that the cooking oils we use in our homes every day are healthy is an outcome of years and years of targeted media campaigns by oil companies. Remember this iconic sun drop refined oil ad from the 90s? It featured a young boy in a yellow jumpsuit bouncing around on puris and Gulab Jammons. Over the years, the more health-conscious we became,

the more oilmakers pushed different variations of words associated with health in their branding. But like they say, God, or the devil in this case, is in the details. Oil makers have been generously throwing words like, health in brand names, but they bury the caveat in the fine print. Take for example, Adani Wilmars refined soybean oil that goes by the brand name Fortune Soy Health in bold letters on the front of the bag.

Turn the pouch around and add the back in small, tiny letters it reads, and I'm quoting, the word health is only a brand name and does not represent its true nature. end quote. We know that most packaged snacks in India are made using cheap oils. But what is surprising is how companies get away by misbranding them as low calorie or calling them light. Companies bypass the Food Safety Standards Authority of India or FSSAI's regulations by including terms like Healthy in their brand names to increase consumer appeal. Take, for example, one of Haldi Ram's so-called healthy range of snacks called low-calorie multi-grained hale.

One would immediately think it is what it says it is, right? Low calorie. But read the nutrition label carefully. The 100 gram pack has 468 kilo calories. But according to the Food Standard Authority's regulation, the limit for claiming that any snack item is low calorie is for 10. kilo calories per 100 grams. Halthiram's low calorie bhael is more than 10 times this limit. So now I'm going to drop a few truth bombs about the edible oils that we consume in India.

So be prepared. Here is the first one. All refined oils go through multiple purification processes that use harmful chemicals like hexane. Short-term exposure to high levels of hexane causes mild central nervous system effects, including dizziness, giddiness, slight nausea and headache. Chronic or long-term exposure to hexane in the air is associated with polyneurropathy in humans, with numbness in the extremities, muscular weakness, blurred vision, headache and fatigue. Neurotoxic effects have also been exhibited in raps.

So why do we use hexane if it is so bad? The intense chemical processing of oils using hexane is to extract the maximum quantity of oil from the seeds. The MD of BL Agro Industries told again that after the extraction, the oil undergoes a process to ensure that the oil does not contain traces of hexane. After this, the oil is again bleached and deodorized. This is to get that silky, translucent texture that for some reason we are so obsessed with. But wait, if you're thinking the hexane has been removed from your oil, again, you are wrong. It has been estimated that refined oils extracted with hexane still contained around 0.8 milligrams of residual hexane per kilo of oil.

And now for the second truth bomb. Reusing refined oil, which is a very common practice at restaurants and even homes in India, produces toxic elements that may cause cancer. Let me explain this better. Oil, by nature, is highly reactive and volatile. Frying moisture-laden, refined flour dough or vegetables like potatoes eventually makes the oil rancid. A scientist at Fair Labs broke it down for us.

They said, and I'm quoting, exposure to moisture leads to chemical bonds of the oil breaking up into toxic components called total polar compounds or TPCs. TPCs include short-chain fatty acids like aldehydes, ketones and alcohols. Such components are cancer-causing elements. End quote. And finally coming to truth bomb number three. The health risks increase even more when oils are turned into solid fats like,

shortening or margarine. These are called partially hydrogenated oils. They are mostly used in ultra-processed food like chips, numkines and baked items like cookies and cakes. These contain harmful trans fats which have been linked to an increased risk of heart attacks. The WHO has actually been trying to eliminate trans fats from the food supply chain. In fact, they plan on doing it by 2023, which is this year.

And here is where palm oil comes in. Palm oil has up to 50% saturated fat content and it helps the process of solidification of other oils faster during the process of hydrogenation. It also helps control levels of trans fats in hydrogenated vegetable oil mixtures. Shami Agarwal, the director of FMCG brand Pansari Group, told the Ken that palm oil comes cheap. Pansari imports 4,000 to 5,000 metric tons of crude palm oil worth 30 to 40 crore rupees from Malaysia and Indonesia every month. The company then supplies refined palm oil to large FMC companies like Nestle, ITC and Britannia for manufacturing ultra-processed foods like noodles and biscuits.

Our consumption of such ultra-processed food is going up by the minute. This probably also explains why one fourth of the Indian population that has a body mass index or BMI of over 25 is fighting obesity. So what is the alternative? Multiple insiders from the industry that the Ken spoke to very reluctantly admitted that these refined oils have an alternative. And it is organic cooking oils. They said that the oils sourced by cold pressing techniques, are better than the oils that are mass produced through processing. But if you ever bought cold press oil,

you will know that they are super expensive. One litre of cold pressed or extra virgin coconut oil can cost up to $1,000. Plus, it doesn't help that the organic cooking oil market in India is poorly regulated. Also, the whole point of cold pressing is lost if you use cold pressed oil to deep-fry food. Now, research on fats so far is pretty conflicting, which is why the whole good fat versus bad fat debate is still raging.

Some say eating vegetable fats instead of animal fats is healthier, but honestly, science is still divided on the matter. But if we go by the increasing amount of evidence, vegetable fats are not necessarily always healthy. And though we do not know when we will get an answer to this debate, one thing that we know for sure, is that cooking oil brands available in the Indian market have been knowingly misleading consumers and it is about time, someone does something about it. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken India's first subscriber-focused business news platform.

What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters, subscribe-only apps, and podcast extortals. Head to the ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. I am Sneqdha Sharma your host and today's episode was edited by my colleague Rajiv Sien.