Many have been misinformed about the supposed health benefits of refined oils. Whether the oil comes from olives, coconuts, or sesame seeds, it’s still just pure fat. In this video excerpt of a Q & A session Dr. Graham offers his insights as to how often we can healthfully use oils in our diets.

Transcript included below.

Transcript:

Dr. Graham:

I strongly recommend against using free oils of any kind, for anything to do with food. It’s good on machinery, maybe for wiping your machete blade clean. I put oil on my ice skates, on the blades after I go skating I oil the blades. As far as using it for food, no, no, no, no, no. This is one highly refined product. This is so highly refined that if you read the label, the only thing in there is oil. This is pure fat. This is as much the definition of empty calories as refined sugar or refined white flour or protein powder. This is pure fat. There’s no fiber. Any minerals that were there have been removed. Vitamins that can be gotten rid of have been removed. Antioxidants, vital nutrients, everything’s out of this stuff. The protein’s gone, the carbs are gone.

This is something I really shun. There’s no way to make refined oil without it already having begun to go rancid. It’s an interesting point because although it’s one that I’ve made for a long time, and I’m just so in favor of whole foods, now we see people like Dr. McDougall, Ornish, and Gregor, and of course T. Colin Campbell coming out saying, “It’s got to be whole food.” Each of them gives excellent rationals for abstaining from free oil as being the worst thing you could possibly do for your heart health and for sugar metabolic health. Free oils really mess with your system. Why would you want to use it? What would you want to put oil on that you wouldn’t rather use any of a dozen different nuts or a dozen different seeds or avocado or something else fatty …

I don’t have a recipe use for oil unless … Maybe if I was trying to figure out how to make some kind of a vegetable wrap, a vegetable cracker that I wanted to become more flexible so I put oil into the recipe just to see would that make it stay softer … I don’t know if that would even work but it’s just a thought. Not one I’m going to try. I’m not about to start using refined oils in food. When we talk 80/10/10 we sometimes get really wrapped up in the caloric nutrient ratio. I give my six parameters for determining the quality of food on your plate as: whole, fresh, ripe, raw, organic, plants. Not necessarily because that order represents the importance of each step. I think they’re all equally important.

Whole food is right there at the top of the list. You just can’t get farther away from whole food than an oil, a vitamin supplement, protein powder, these are all as refined as you can possibly get. You either get refined calories or you get refined nutrients. Either way, these are empty calories and empty nutrients that they work against you in a lot of ways. They throw off your nutrient balance of one thing to another. By consuming them you create nutrient inbalances that only the consumption of whole foods can build back up. For me, I’m just not in favor of it.

Somewhere you’ve got to draw the line. How big of a deal is it if you’re going to use a drop or two drops, I guess a teaspoon? Where do you go and how often? Does a little use lead to a lot of use? Personally I would learn recipes that utilize crushed seeds or crushed nuts if I want to get something fatty into my dish rather than using oils.

Narration of closing:

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