Essay on Health Effects of Vegetable Oil

Introducton

Discussions whether vegetable oils are good or bad for health has always been conducted on the social media and the health-related forums. Vegetable oil is amongst the most used product in the world and has its demand increasing despite many negative comments by experts. Some of the researchers have urged that they are horrible because they cause health problems with others depending on them. Due to that reason, experts trying to prove some facts about the olive oils have written several articles. This paper outlines some health benefits and problems of vegetable oil as discussed by health experts.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

A journal published by Livestrong.com in October 2017 outlined some of the health benefits of vegetable oil. For instance, it stated that in a study that was conducted in a university in Italy about causes and control of cancer, it was concluded that those who always use olive oils and other vegetable oils have a low risk of developing cancer than those who do not. Vegetable oils decrease the risk of being attacked by heart diseases as it was concluded in a study that was conducted at the state university in New York. In the same study, it was also noted that vegetable oils prevented such diseases as increased sugar levels in the blood, increased serum cholesterol level, and increased blood pressure. For pregnant women, vegetable oil helps then correct their vitamins deficiencies. Pregnant women should include vegetable oils in their mills to boost their vitamin level. It also helps to soften cracked feet and smoothening of the skin.

Everyone has ever experienced roughness in the feet at a particular life stage. Therefore, before going to bed, those victims should rub their feet with vegetable oil (Abdullah et al. 163-174).

Other journals have greatly criticized vegetable oils terming them very dangerous to human health. In an article published by the Health line Company, some of the problems associated with vegetable oils were highlighted. The experts argued that sometimes the oils have excess trans-fat because of the methods and the chemicals that are used to harden them. These excess trans-fats are very harmful to the body because they may cause some dangerous chronic diseases such as obesity, cancer, and diabetes. They also argued that oils are easily oxidized. Oils that are polyunsaturated usually contain a double bond that makes it easily oxidized. Those fats are also incorporated into very harmful membranes for storage because they cannot be stored as fat tissue (Taticchi et al. 572-578). This becomes very harmful to your body because those membranes can easily be degraded into dangerous compounds. The Health line also argues that vegetable oils usually contain large amounts of Omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid. When the saturated fats are mixed with the omega-6 fats, they increased the risk of acquiring deadly diseases. Some of the fats contain cholesterol that is a component of the cell membranes where most of the essential molecules such as hormones are usually produced. When one consumes more oils and fat, he subjects their body to risks of increasing their cholesterol content to a level that is harmful to their bodies.

Another article that was published by Manorama daily company tried to outline the truth about cooking oil. According to the article, some of the functions of fat in the body are: They help to cover some specialized cell membranes in the body. Fats are also significant components of somebody organs such as the brain and nerves. They also add taste to one's diet and helps during digestion as they help in absorbing some of the vitamins I the body. Also, the article analyzed the issue of 'smoke point' in fats. Smoking point in oils is the temperature at which boiling oils start producing smoke. The smoking point varies from one brand of oil to the other. What happens when smoking point reaches is that triglycerides break to fatty acids and glycerol, the glycerol further breaks down to produce fumes and some free radicals that are harmful to our body. Some of the low smoking point oils are butter and olive oil, and they cannot be used for high temperatures cooking because they reach the smoking oil point easily (Zhao et al. 781-788).

Conclusion

According to the above arguments from science experts, it is clear that vegetable oils are associated with more hazardous effects than the advantages they contain. They are associated with many health problems that are very dangerous to people's lives. Cancer and heart attacks are among the most dangerous diseases in the planet as their treatment is unique and expensive. Lives have been lost due to this reason, making people stay scared because they know once somebody contracts cancer, for instance, chances of dying are very high. People should, therefore, look for alternative sources of oil such as animal oils to substitute the vegetable oils. The governments from all over the world should support companies that extract other sources of oil and look for ways of reducing the production and consumption of such oils.

Works Cited

Abdullah, Mohammad MH, Stephanie Jew, and Peter JH Jones. "Health benefits and evaluation of healthcare cost savings if oils rich in monounsaturated fatty acids were substituted for conventional dietary oils in the United States." Nutrition reviews 75.3 (2017): 163-174.

https://www.livestrong.com/article/412988-what-are-the-health-benefits-of-vegetable-oil/Taticchi, Agnese, et al. "Effect of an olive phenolic extract added to the oily phase of a tomato sauce, on the preservation of phenols and carotenoids during domestic cooking." LWT-Food Science and Technology 84 (2017): 572-578.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/are-vegetable-and-seed-oils-bad#section2Zhao, Xue, Guangyi Gong, and Shimin Wu. "Effect of storage time and temperature on parent and oxygenated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in crude and refined vegetable oils." Food chemistry 239 (2018): 781-788.

https://english.manoramaonline.com/wellness/health/everyday-health-truth-cooking-oil-effects-good-bad.html