RE: wheat germ oil vs. palm oil for vitamin E

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/23/03 8:40:55 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

s.fisher22@... writes:

> ------>i wouldn't presume they're based on large amounts of research at

> all!

> i believe much of her food composition figures come from the USDA database,

> which i'm sure you already know is not a particularly reliable source.

Whoa, no I don't know that. Can you explain why? I believe USDA figures are

unreliable mostly due to the variance of nutrition within given foods. That

doesn't mean they aren't based on sound and honest research to best determine

the average nutritional value of any given foods.

of > course she lists other citations for different parts of the book,

I was referring to the citations for chapter four, which is the chapter that

lists the tocopherol and tocotrienol levels of different fats and oils.

but i > don't think we can automatically *assume* she got her food comp #s

> for WGO

> and palm oil from " enormous multi-volume lipid encyclopedias " . in fact, she

> specifically cites the USDA on the composition of fats and oils for the

> chapter where she lists the fatty acid and vit. E content of WGO and palm

> oil.

That's true, in addition to numerous lipid encyclopedic texts; however, I

fail to see why this would diminish any credibility.

so i think it's much more reasonable to assume that that is the source

> for her #s.

Why?

in any case, my only point was, dismissing data from commercial

> sources carte blanche is not a valid approach. and when they throw a wrench

> in your paradigm, perhaps it's worth taking a closer look and maybe

> revising, rather than dismissing them off hand.

Suze, there is no wrench thrown in my paradigm. In fact, the figures on the

site you mentioned fully support my contentions. I chose to dismiss them

because they are based on three samples, and I assume that Enig's data is based

on

more comprehensive research, though I can't prove that. I also chose to

dismiss them because they are on a commercial site, but I didn't realize the

data

were from non-commercial sources, although the one figure for palm oil that is

significantly lower than Enig's has no citation.

The three samples of palm oil, compared to the figures for wheat germ oil, on

that site are 38%, 45%, and 49%, whereas Enig has palm oil containing 44% by

mass the vitamin E of wheat germ oil. So while one number is lower, the other

two are higher.

And in fact, the average of those three number is, 44%! That's the exact

same ratio I got from Enig's data. So if I were to redo all of the math that I

did from Enig's data with the averages from the site you linked to, I'd get the

same result.

Furthermore, the data on the site are based on several individual studies

that are all very old, whereas all of Enig's data is much more recent and

therefore is probably more comprehensive (in addition to being based on

compilations

of research rather than specific studies). And it's worth noting that you

linked to this site specifically to dispute that palm oil had a fuller spectrum

of E, specifically the tocotrienols, even though this sites data show wheat

germ oil to have only 28% of the total tocotrinols of the average of their three

palm oil data.

While it's true that they show no beta tocotrienol for palm oil, there are

two things to consider. One is that the data are very old, and perhaps old

enough that they weren't looking for beta tocotrienol. (I don't know when it

was

discovered or began to be studied.

More importantly, Enig's data shows that palm oil contains all the

tocotrienols, which clearly trumps this data in that we know palm oil at least

has the

potential to contain tocotrienols. Since this site specifically refers to RBD

palm oil as their only source of palm oil when comparing it to other foods for

tocotrienol below the chart, that indicates that they might have been using

RBD palm oil for the figures in the chart.

Plus, Tropical Traditions should be expected to have the highest figures for

palm oil, rather than the lowest.

Also, this site, as you already mentioned, confirms the absence of two of the

tocotrienols among wheat germ oil, so thus far we do have sources finding all

tocotrienols in palm oil, but no sources that claim to have found the two

missing from wheat germ oil.

>

> as to the rest of your post, thank you for succinctly stating your main

> point in this email regarding the cost. i barely spend a fraction of $500 on

> WGO a year! LOL more like $40/year. however, if your latest calculations are

> correct, then it's obviously a poor investment.

Yes Suze, which is why you are getting practically nothing out of it! My

point isn't that in order to take WGO you have to spend hundreds of dollars, my

point is that you don't get any worthwhile amount of vitamin E from it *unless*

you spend hundreds of dollars.

>

> and now that i realize i read the SP WGO label wrong, i really don't need

> convincing that WGO is not a worthwhile investment as a vit. E source. since

> i misread the lable, i had been thinking all along that i was getting 385

> IUs *vit E* from each perle. (btw, SP claims WGO is 65% by weight the most

> biologically active forms of vit E, so it wasn't unreasonable to believe

> there could be 385 IUs in a perle.)

Again, I don't know what they *meant* by that, but this is clearly

unreasonable for reasons I stated earlier, if taken to mean tocopherols and

tocotrienols.

i have no idea how i missed the fact

> that this is actually the *WGO* amount. never mind the vit E in *CLO*, i

> get

> a ton more from my multivitamin! so now that i've checked various sources,

> plus read some of your figures, the vit. E content in 385 mgs WGO is so

> small that it's clearly not worth buying for a vit. E source. however, palm

> oil doesn't look like a particularly abundant source either. LOL they're

> both a lot lower than i'm looking for.

palm oil remains the best source of whole foods vitamin E. you can't get

more unless you take isolated vitamin E supplements. (per cost and per pufa).

synthetic vitamin E is not worthwhile, and isolated vitamin E will not have the

spectrum palm oil has unless it is isolated from palm oil. If one eats a diet

rich in fat and includes grass-fed butter and palm oil, or includes grass-fed

butter in the summer, and palm oil during the rest of the year, one shouldn't

need isolated vitamin E.

moreover, it seems vitamin E has mostly been studied for it's antioxidant

activity, so taking isolated tocopherols might lead us to be missing out on the

chance for other parts of the E spectrum that play other roles. Price valued

vitamin E for it's tissue-building properties, but does that come from

alpha-tocopherol, or from another part of it? Royal Lee suggested that the

tocopherols were not true vitamin E but functioned to protect the active

component from

oxidation. I don't know whether that's true; it doesn't seem anyone has

bothered to research it in the subsequent decades.

oh well, other than isolated vitamin

> E extract supplements, palm oil seems to be a reasonable natural source,

> although whether any given brand contains all the tocotrienols and

> tocopherols seems unclear. perhaps the data showing some samples of palm oil

> only contain 4-7 of the 8 vit. E compounds is from *RDB* palm oil..? but i

> do like the fact that it's quite saturated and has a good amount of

> carotenes.

Now see that's why I'm dismissing the figures you posted. I'd said before

that I do NOT think that because that data came from a commercial source it is

necessarily correct or uncorrect in relation to Enig's data. Rather, we don't

know enough about the given samples to choose one datum over another,

therefore, we should go with the most comprehensive data, which is presumably

Enig's.

Moreover, since only some samples of palm oil do not contains specific

tocotrienols, it seems reasonable that the highest quality palm oil (such as TT,

as

opposed to most of what's sold), would reflect the better figures rather than

the worse figures.

Whether Enig's data is from USDA or from the other sources she lists on lipid

compositions, I assume that more than a handful of samples were taken for the

data.

But anyway, since Tropical Traditions palm oil I believe comes from volcanic

soil, and since they are clearly one of the most conscientious companies to

buy oils from, that seems to take care of the two main factors I could see in

the variance of composition-- soil quality, and processing care. So I would

expect TT to have palm oil reflected by the good figures, not the bad figures,

and perhaps be *better* than what Enig claims, but doubtfully worse.

Chris

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/24/03 8:17:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

s.fisher22@... writes:

> chris, can we wind this one down? please? LOL i thought it was over when i

> understood that i had read the WGO label wrong and agree that it's not worth

> buying as a vit. e source. i honestly don't mean to be rude, but my time is

> very limited right now and this thread is settled as far as i'm concerned -

> i'm in agreement with you that palm oil is a better bang for the buck. and

> i've got nearly 230 posts in my " unread " folder that i'd *really* like to

> catch up on. so i'm only replying to a fraction of what you wrote, but

> again, not at all meaning to be rude :-)

Sure. I think I've got about 500! Dunno exactly what you mean by winding

down, but I think I'm running out of stuff to say anyway.

> ----->yes, plus:

>

> a) sample size (which is often 1 or zero or otherwise very low. i don't know

> where the data comes from when they list " 0 " samples.)

>

> processing method (for palm oil the USDA database doesn't mention whether

> it's RDB or not, but i'm guessing it is since the tocopherol content is

> exceptionally low). obviously the processing temp, method etc will effect

> what nutrients are left afterwards

I understand the potential problems with nutrient databases. What I don't

understand is why the USDA database would be any more or less credible than the

source we no basically nothing about that you posted. It seems these problems

are problems with basically any such database, especially without detailed

knowledge on our part.

And we still have no knowledge of whether the figures we were quoting from

Enig actually came from USDA or not, since there are several other encyclopedic

texts cited, which they could have come from, or not.

> i'm just suggesting that she seems to

> rely heavily on the USDA data, which is not a particularly reliable source.

Maybe this is semantics, I'm not sure, but I would say that the USDA database

has reliability problems, but I wouldn't use the word " particularly " in terms

of its unreliability, because I see no reason to think it's any less reliable

than another source.

> i could be wrong, but i think that was pointed out before on this list, and

> i did notice it myself. all that means, is that we shouldn't automatically

> assume her data are from a wide variety of sources.

Ok, fair enough.

> >>>>Suze, there is no wrench thrown in my paradigm. In fact, the figures

> on

> the

> site you mentioned fully support my contentions.

>

> ----->not the contention i was referring to, which was your premise that

> palm oil contains the full spectrum of tocopherols and tocotrienols, that i

> think you wrote in your first post.

Ok, but when I dismissed those figures I also wasn't continuing that line of

argument at all, so it's not really pertinent to the posts I made without

taking those figures into account.

however, i do think that the samples

> showing missing tocopherols or tocotrienols are likely RDB samples. my

> point

> was simply to look at more than just one data source and if it doesn't fit

> the pattern, check out *why* rather dismissing it automatically. that's all.

> had you explained at the time you reasoning for dismissing the data i

> posted, then i would not have written that.

Ok... but to me it seems clear that palm oil does contain the tocotrienols,

and I would come to the same conclusion you come to above that processing was

the issue. I think that data that finds the tocotrienols there trumps the data

that doesn't. Also, we don't know if they weren't there, or if they weren't

measured. It has a hyphen; it doesn't say " 0 " . Then again, Enig's data just

doesn't list any reported for wheat germ oil, which means that maybe wheat

germ oil does contain them but they aren't reported. Regardless, palm oil has a

superior tocotrienol content by all sources.

So maybe I shouldn't have jumped to say WGO doesn't contain two of the

tocotrienols-- although they are absent from all the data we've found so far.

> ----->not a good assumption. reason listed above.

Fair enough.

Chris

[Guest guest]

chris, can we wind this one down? please? LOL i thought it was over when i

understood that i had read the WGO label wrong and agree that it's not worth

buying as a vit. e source. i honestly don't mean to be rude, but my time is

very limited right now and this thread is settled as far as i'm concerned -

i'm in agreement with you that palm oil is a better bang for the buck. and

i've got nearly 230 posts in my " unread " folder that i'd *really* like to

catch up on. so i'm only replying to a fraction of what you wrote, but

again, not at all meaning to be rude :-)

> ------>i wouldn't presume they're based on large amounts of research at

> all!

> i believe much of her food composition figures come from the USDA

database,

> which i'm sure you already know is not a particularly reliable source.

Whoa, no I don't know that. Can you explain why? I believe USDA figures

are

unreliable mostly due to the variance of nutrition within given foods.

----->yes, plus:

a) sample size (which is often 1 or zero or otherwise very low. i don't know

where the data comes from when they list " 0 " samples.)

processing method (for palm oil the USDA database doesn't mention whether

it's RDB or not, but i'm guessing it is since the tocopherol content is

exceptionally low). obviously the processing temp, method etc will effect

what nutrients are left afterwards

>>> That

doesn't mean they aren't based on sound and honest research to best

determine

the average nutritional value of any given foods.

----->i didn't mean to imply otherwise. they are unreliable for the reasons

stated above, and perhaps others i'm not aware of.

of > course she lists other citations for different parts of the book,

>>>>>I was referring to the citations for chapter four, which is the chapter

that

lists the tocopherol and tocotrienol levels of different fats and oils.

---->right, and she cites the USDA comp of fats and oils in that chapter,

which she does throughout the book for other composition data fo fats and

oils. it may be that some of her other sources had nutrient comp data, but

i'm pretty sure that there aren't a heck of a lot of sources for this type

of info. there are certain organizations (some gov't and some private)

throughout the world that collect and disseminate such data. i'm on an

egroup of these folks and they often share sources, so it seems there is

also some overlap between them as well (meaning the multiple organizations

cite the same source). i'm not at all saying that her other sources don't

contain such data (i don't know!), i'm just suggesting that she seems to

rely heavily on the USDA data, which is not a particularly reliable source.

i could be wrong, but i think that was pointed out before on this list, and

i did notice it myself. all that means, is that we shouldn't automatically

assume her data are from a wide variety of sources.

> in any case, my only point was, dismissing data from commercial

> sources carte blanche is not a valid approach. and when they throw a

wrench

> in your paradigm, perhaps it's worth taking a closer look and maybe

> revising, rather than dismissing them off hand.

>>>>Suze, there is no wrench thrown in my paradigm. In fact, the figures on

the

site you mentioned fully support my contentions.

----->not the contention i was referring to, which was your premise that

palm oil contains the full spectrum of tocopherols and tocotrienols, that i

think you wrote in your first post. however, i do think that the samples

showing missing tocopherols or tocotrienols are likely RDB samples. my point

was simply to look at more than just one data source and if it doesn't fit

the pattern, check out *why* rather dismissing it automatically. that's all.

had you explained at the time you reasoning for dismissing the data i

posted, then i would not have written that.

>>>>Whether Enig's data is from USDA or from the other sources she lists on

lipid

compositions, I assume that more than a handful of samples were taken for

the

data.

----->not a good assumption. reason listed above.

>>>But anyway, since Tropical Traditions palm oil I believe comes from

volcanic

soil, and since they are clearly one of the most conscientious companies to

buy oils from, that seems to take care of the two main factors I could see

in

the variance of composition-- soil quality, and processing care. So I would

expect TT to have palm oil reflected by the good figures, not the bad

figures,

----->that seems reasonable to me.

Suze Fisher

Lapdog Design, Inc.

Web Design & Development

http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3shjg

Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter Leader, Mid Coast Maine

http://www.westonaprice.org

----------------------------

" The diet-heart idea (the idea that saturated fats and cholesterol cause

heart disease) is the greatest scientific deception of our times. " --

Mann, MD, former Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Vanderbilt

University, Tennessee; heart disease researcher.

The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics

<http://www.thincs.org>

----------------------------