Tag: oxidation

How Popular Cooking Oils Stack Up in Terms of Oxidation

Follow the series “Debunking the Fat Dogma” here. Vegetable oils have been recommended as a healthier alternative to saturated animal fats for decades. But emerging data suggest the opposite—at least when it comes to the heavily refined, denatured seed oils most people are consuming. Most vegetable oils, which primarily consist of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, are…


Coping With the Oxygen Paradox

Oxygen is essential to our survival, and yet this toxic, mutagenic, and highly reactive gas also has the capacity to destroy us. The destructive side of oxygen is called oxidation. Slow oxidation turns cut apples brown and hard metal brittle with rust. Rapid oxidation destroys things more quickly, in an exothermic chemical process of combustion,…