OILS AND FATS – A TOPICAL QUESTION (INTRODUCTION)
Which of all the oils and fats provided by nature is the best for our consumption? This question is a difficult one to answer. To start with, the criteria for judging or evaluating an oil or fat must be clear in our mind.
Today, oils and fats are primarily rated according to their content of unsaturated fatty acids. It has been found that these are necessary to guarantee the normal growth of many body cells and also to keep them healthy. Furthermore, we know that premature aging of the vascular walls, above all, the arteries, can be caused by a lack of unsaturated fatty acids. Even a cancerous degeneration of the cells has been attributed to this deficiency. Unsaturated fatty acids are therefore a vital factor, and we cannot remain healthy without them.
But it has not yet been proved that an oil or fat should be judged only by the amount of unsaturated fatty acids in it. It almost goes without saying that when a vital substance is discovered, it is at first highly overrated, such as once was the case with vitamins and the great fuss that was made over them. While this fanfare was going on, it was all but forgotten that minerals, the nutritive salts, are just as vital as vitamins. For example, olive oil has only a modest content of unsaturated fatty acids and therefore tends to be unjustly downgraded.
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