Sunseed: The Verdict? - PaleoHacks.com

Sunseed: The Verdict?

2011-10-06T10:49:39Z

Hi all,

I live in the UK, and have recently been buying Walkers 'Ready Salted' crisps. I've upped my carbohydrate intake to around 100-300g per day (on a 2,200-3,000kcal daily intake) and are enjoying the results (better mood, better fat loss, better workouts) now that I have adapted to it (took a week or two).

I like these crisps. They make me happy. I've been choosing them because of their ingrediants:

Potatoes Sunflower oil (34%) Salt.

I'd normally avoid any oils outside olive oil, butter, ghee and coconut oil. But apparently these crisps are made from "SunSeed oil" which they advertise as being lower in saturates and traditional crisp cooking oils. Clearly 'sunseed' is a registered trademark, and I couldn't care less about less saturates, I wish there was more, but it seems remarkably low in polyunsaturates (2.2g/100g of crisps), consisting mainly of monounsaturates (27.9g/100g of crisps).

Am I deluding myself? They're made in a factor that handles gluten, but I don't seem to have any problems with trace amounts.

Thanks in advance for your time,

Rick

Answer by Suz - Paleo Oz for Sunseed: The Verdict?

2011-10-06T12:35:24Z

Sunseed oil is a type of sunflower oil - check out this but it sounds like it may also be blended with vegetable oil. There seems to be a lot of secrecy, are you happy to eat something that they aren't prepared to let you know exactly what it is?

Answer by Simibee for Sunseed: The Verdict?

2011-10-06T13:03:48Z

High oleic sunflower oil isn't terrible for you in terms of overall PUFA content, but context is important here. The industrial vats of oil used by Walkers are constantly heated and re-heated to high temperatures - a recipe for rancidity/oxidation.

Another factor to bear in mind is also acrylamide levels in crisps.

Answer by davidinnotts for Sunseed: The Verdict?

2012-09-11T17:34:41Z

Sunseed is a trademarked US-developed non-GM variety of sunflower oil. The oil is lower in saturates than ordinary sunflower oil, as advertised, but more importantly, MUCH lower in omega-6 polyunsaturates and much higher in omega-9 monounsaturates, like olive oil.

Olive oil is more expensive to produce than sunflower oil, so Sunseed should be a cheaper alternative to olive oil. But Simibee has a good point - the high temperature oil extraction, called refining. This (and cooking of the crisps/chips) isn't too good for you if you're super-picky about your food. So extra-virgin (unrefined) olive oil is healthier for you than either Sunseed or regular olive oil.

But there's another option, and you've referred to it: 'vegetable oil'. In the UK, this almost always refers to rapeseed oil (in North America, called Canola oil) which is cheap and much maligned. This is tha best of the common oils because it has omega-6 and omega-3 in balance, and is the only common oil to have any useful amount of omega-3. If you prefer extra virgin olive oil (I do) then you'll go for cold-pressed rapeseed oil, which is the same price as a better olive oil and in most UK supermarkets. I haven't seen cold-pressed Canola yet in the US outside a specialist store.

So, to complete your answer: if you always avoid refined oils, Sunseed will be OK if you can find a producer who does it cold-pressed - raw. But in any case, it's cold-pressed rapeseed oil every time - and it tastes better than olive oil anyway, I reckon. I also use it to oil my skin every day - much healthier than commercial creams and lotions!

Answer by willie for Sunseed: The Verdict?

2012-10-04T22:14:25Z

http://www.naturalnews.com/035320_aldehydes_cooking_oil_neurodegenerative_disease.html