> > Carol:
> > Personally, I wouldn't call anything so refined as to suffer no
> > change until 140 F a food.
>
> Jean-Louis Tu:
> So, water and salt are not foods? :-)

Carol:
Not to me, they're not.  Although water is necessary for humans to
ingest (if they want to stay alive) it is in a class all by itself.
Have you ever heard it called a food?  Instead, we say "food and
water", which draws a distinction.  Salt, in the form that we find
in salt shakers, is an unnecessary flavoring agent.

> > 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.

That's why I don't consider them foods in their refined state.

> 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.

I believe that the levels of vegetable oils that are best for humans
can be easily ingested in the form of whole foods.  So many people are
so frightened of saturated fat and cholesterol that they either go way
overboard on the vegetable oils, or they try to cut out fat entirely.
Personally, I don't think the evidence that animal fats cause coronary
heart disease is all that convincing.  If I had to choose right now,
I'd say that it looks like sugar and homogenized milk are the biggest
baddies.

Carol