> Carol:
> Personally, I wouldn't call anything so refined as to suffer no
> change until 140 F a food.

So, water and salt are not foods? :-)

> Foods, by my way of thinking, should be as unprocessed as possible, and
> will therefore always have a variety of substances within them.

But vegetable oils are very special. Their composition is:

Water:         0%
Protein:       0%
Carbohydrate:  0%
Fat:         100%
Minerals:    tiny amounts
Vitamins:    essentially vitamin E.

The naturally occurring cis-form can be turned into "trans" at high
temperatures, but not at 140 F. Oils can also oxidize, but if this
happens, the odor should be noticeable. There are no proteins or
carbohydrates in oil, therefore no possible Maillard reaction. There
is no water, therefore no bacterial or enzymatic activity.

Now, you are right to say that cold-pressed oils are "processed", but
what is important is that (to my knowledge) they produce no
ill-effects, the molecules they contain are natural, and they have
cholesterol-lowering properties.

--Jean-Louis Tu <[log in to unmask]>