What's in Nutella?

My Dear Sexy Readers,

I was at a pastry shop with some friends from my native Belgium and we somehow got to talk about Hazelnut chocolatey spreads. My friend explained to me that there was a massive boycott against a famous "chocolate spread" (my faaaaaaavourite miam miam!!) because it contains palm oil which causes cancer! :/

Of course, this is again one of those affirmations that really needs to be clarified because I haven't heard of any studies showing this! So I told her I would look into it...

Hazelnut/Chocolate spread ingredients

Mine (because yes, I do ALWAYS have one jar on the go!) says it contains:

Sugar, Vegetable oil, Hazelnuts (13%), Fat-reduced cocoa (7.4%), Skimmed milk powder (6.6%), Whey powder, emulsifier (Lecithin of soya), Vanillin.

Note: If you're wondering what an emulsifier is, I'm writing "Did you Know #3" post about this, There's already a little bit of info here: Did you Know #2

So, we all know what skimmed milk powder, cocoa, hazelnut, sugar and vanillin (component of vanilla extract) are.

Whey Powder is a left over product from the production of cheese from cow's milk. It is used as a nutritional supplement. It is the liquid remaining after the milk has curdled. Research shows that whey proteins are highly beneficial for your health, immunity, cancer, infection, learning and aging to name but a few (Krissansen, 2007).

We are left with the dubious name Vegetable oil which could be anything from olive oil to grapeseed oil. The problem that people have here is that sometimes it stands for palm oil and manufacturers deliberately hide the palm oil name under vegetable oil (see below).

Palm oil

From HERE

Extracted from the red pulp of the palm tree fruit, it makes a reddish oil that is rich in saturated fats.

The difference between monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats and saturated fats has been covered in a previous post entitled "Olive oil, better than butter?". (If you are interested in different oils and Omega-3, -6, please check out SSS series on Omegas)

In brief, the type of fats that you ingest will influence the metabolism of cholesterol in your body such that ingesting:

Saturated fats increase LDL and HDL synthesis

MonoUnsaturated fats decrease LDL and maintain HDL synthesis

PolyUnsaturated fats decrease LDL but in too much quantity can decrease HDL synthesis

TransFat increase LDL and decrease HDL synthesis

The choice between LDL and HDL synthesis is crucial for your health as only HDL transport the cholesterol to its final destination, such as the liver. The LDL, when in too many numbers cannot be taken up by the cells and are eaten by macrophages. Those macrophages form plaques that are trapped in the blood walls and cause all the undesired effects that we know such as heart attacks and strokes.

=> Hence, the vulgarized translation HDL=Good cholesterol and LDL=Bad cholesterol.

Usually oils are rich in mono- and poly-unsaturated fats which make them better for your health than say butter. Here, Palm oil is rich in saturated fats and is definitely not as good!

As in everything (except smoking which is bad even in small doses), doses matter. Don't go on binge eating butter, chocolate spread nor olive oil, it cannot be good!!!

Carcinogen?

But can it cause cancer, like my friend was saying she heard?

To this day, there is no scientific studies showing adverse effects of palm oil and palmitic acid
(Fattore and Fanelli, 2013). Quite the contrary according to many studies as palm oil could have anti-proliferative effects against melanoma or other types of tumours (Komarasamy and Sekaran, 2012), be natural anti-inflammatory drugs due to their high content in tocotrienol (Nesaretnam and Meganathan, 2011), etc etc... The scientific litterature is Rich with studies showing the many health benefits of components of palm oil.

Why the fuss then?

The problem here is not a scientific one but an ethical one. 

But we are so afraid of the word cancer, whatever is said to cause cancer, we try to stay away from it - unless it is alcohol or cigarettes it seems.... So it's easier to spread a rumour that this chocolate spread is bad because it contains carcinogenic palm oil than explaining the truth.

The truth is that palm oil business is MASSIVE and to make space to all these palm trees from which the oil will be extracted and purified, a LOT of rainforests have been destroyed in Indonesia and Malaysia to name but a few countries and this of course has had a big incidence on the living conditions of some animal species. As a result, orangutans are on the verge of extinction!

Now because this is not a scientific matter, I'd prefer staying clear of this ethical question and refer those of you who are interested in this to this website which explains a little bit more about it.
Palm oil is in a LOT of products, you can find a list of which on this website.

 

See you soon for more SSS,

References

Krissansen, J Am Coll Nutr. (2007) 26(6): 7135-7235. Emerging Health properties of Whey proteins and their clinical implications.

Fattore and Fanelli,Int. J. Food Sci Nutr. (2013). Palm oil and palmitic acid: A review on cardiovascular effects and carcinogenicity.

Nesaretnam and Meganathan, Ann N Y acad Sci (2011) 1229:18-22. Tocotrienol: Inflammation and cancer.

Komarasamy and Sekaran, J. Oleo Sci.(2012) 61(4):227-39. The anti-prolitive effects of palm oil-derived products and its mode of actions in human malignantmelanoma MeWo cells.