Nutritional properties of palm oil

Chapter 2 deals with the general nutritional properties of oils and fats, and in the present chapter only issues specific to palm oil are discussed. 

The blanket term tropical oils is quite inappropriate, since the composition of palm oil is very different from that of palm kernel and coconut oil. While the latter oils contain 82% and 91% of 

An official review of the consumption of tropical oils in the United States established that they together formed a minor proportion of the saturated fat intake and palm oil in particular was consumed at only 1.2-2.8g/day representing about 1-2% of total food oils and fats (Park and Yetley, 1990). 

The actual amounts consumed would have no significant nutritional effect. By far the major sources of saturated fatty acids in the US diet (and indeed in most Western diets) are meat and dairy products. Since they are the products of domestic agriculture, it was politically convenient, even if nutritionally irrelevant, to focus a campaign on imported oils. 

A review of earUer published investigations of palm oil showed that its nutritional effects had only rarely been studied. The few results available indicated that subjects blood cholesterol level was always lowered on a diet rich in palm oil, as compared with the level on the customary diet. Greater reductions were usually obtained when high levels of polyunsaturated oils were fed (Anon, 1987). 

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