Water-Based Cooking Oils Are Killers!

Doctor Onyameba Kofi Asare, the chief executive officer of Pama Health, says hydrogenated cooking oils currently on the Ghanaian market are part of the cause of such rampant cardiovascular diseases as blood pressure, high cholesterol levels in the heart veins and other related heart ailments.

Trans fats come from adding hydrogen to vegetable through a process called hydrogenation; this makes more solid than natural oil, extending its shelf lifespan, the medic explained.

He also disclosed that, within the last 30 years or so, foods sold on the country’s markets have largely been those cooked with trans fat or hydrogenated oils. He also announced that a research he conducted recently had shown that foods sold in restaurants, food joints and such desserts as kelewele, plantain chips and pastries – doughnuts, bread, cake and the like are prepared with hydrogenated oils which are health-wise dangerous.

In an interview with The Heritage newspaper, he reckoned that the worst culprits of the spread of trans fat are the plantain chips producers. Over the last eight years, plantain chips have grown so popular that they now dominate the snack industry as the most popular, cheap and most accessible snacks.

He mentioned traditional foods such as kakro and koose which were fried in coconut, the heart friendly edible oil, but now been ignored or are now being fried in trans fats. He observed that coconut oil was once prevalent in the country and that, even in such Western countries as the United States. With a long shelf life and a melting point of 76degrees, it was the favourite of operators in the baking industry.

But a negative campaign launched against the saturated fats in general, and tropical oils in particular, has killed the interest of consumers, with most manufacturers abandoning coconut oil in recent years in favour of hydrogenated polyunsaturated oils which the body system finds it difficult to digest.

There is an economic interest behind the push for water-based oils. According to Dr. Asare, the hydrogenated polyunsaturated oils come from some major cash crops in US: particularly, soy, which contains trans fatty acids.

He mentioned diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, stroke and many degenerative diseases formerly rare or even unknown in Ghana being now common household names. It will be difficult to find a single working-class family in the cities of Accra, Kumasi, Cape Coast, Takoradi, Tema or any of the big towns in the country where any of these diseases have not already visited, he feared.

In order to stem the cardiovascular-related and other diseases, he advised Ghanaians to switch back to coconut oil.