What Are The Lies Cooking Oil Companies Tell Us, Why Liz Truss Resigned, Psychedelics And Raids On PFI
Years of media campaigns and clever branding by cooking-oil companies have led people to believe that refined oils do not have any health risks. But the devil lies in the fine print, in the details.
Refined oils are widely used in Indian homes, eateries, and restaurants for cooking and are generally considered safe. But the reality is that all refined oils undergo multiple steps of chemical processing. This gives them a translucent, almost see-through look, typically equated to ‘purity’. The cooking-oil companies stealthily slip words like ‘health’ or ‘healthy’ in their brand names to create mass appeal. On the other hand, alternative oils sourced by cold-pressing techniques are a notch above. But they are extremely expensive.
Oil makers are slipping terms like “health” into their brand names with a caveat buried in the fine print. A prime example is Adani Wilmar’s refined soybean oil that goes by the brand name ‘Fortune Soya Health’ in bold letters on the front of the pack. But the back of the pouch reads: “The word ‘health’ is only a brand name and does not represent its true nature.”
Whole Foods has branded one of its snacks as “low-calorie multigrain bhel”. […] To a layperson, this would suggest that the snack is low in calories. But on examining the nutrition label closely, it’s evident that the 100-gram pack has 468 kilocalories (kcal). According to the FSSAI regulation, the threshold for claiming that any snack item is low-calorie is less than one-tenth of that, or 40 kcal per 100 grams. Oil companies use varying terminologies to brand their oils— ‘Light’, ‘Extra Light’, and so on—but each oil contains the same calorie content: 900 kcal per 100 grams, says a senior executive from a reputed oil company.
Oil is highly reactive and volatile. Frying moisture-laden refined-flour dough or vegetables like potatoes eventually renders the oil rancid. “Exposure to moisture leads to the chemical bonds of oil breaking up into toxic components called total polar compounds (TPC). TPCs include short-chain fatty acids like aldehydes, ketones, and alcohols. Such components are cancer-causing elements,” explains a scientist at FARE labs. They declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak with the media.
Any refined oil, including the cheaper options, undergo intense chemical processing to extract the maximum quantity of oil from its seeds. “Hexane is used in the solvent-extraction process for refined oils. After the extraction, the oil undergoes a process to ensure that the oil does not contain traces of Hexane,” says Ashish Khandelwal, managing director of BL Agro Industries. The oil further undergoes bleaching and deodorising to obtain the silky translucent texture and remove any aroma or odour.
It has been estimated that refined oils extracted with hexane contain approximately 0.8 milligrams of residual hexane per kg of oil (0.8 ppm).
D Mathur, managing director of Gurugram-based FARE Labs, says he does not understand Indians’ obsession with “good-looking cooking oils”. An array of refined oils, including the newer types—canola and rice-bran oils—or the more traditional ones—sunflower, groundnut, and sesame oils—undergo multiple steps of chemical processing. This gives them a translucent, almost see-through look, typically equated to ‘purity’.
— The slick claims of India’s ‘healthy’ oils
Since we are on the subject, here’s a good explainer about something important…
So Liz Truss is out and Rishi Sunak is in… But do you know why Liz Truss left?
The U.K., like governments around the world, has been borrowing a ton of money in the bond market in recent years without getting punished, without really being charged higher interest rates for it. And this was a bit of a mystery because according to classical bond market rules, borrowing with abandon is seen as bad, or it's supposed to be. You know, it's supposed to be seen as risky. Bond buyers generally would, you know, get freaked out and stop buying. And that would push interest rates up at least until those bond buyers felt like they were being adequately compensated for that additional risk, and then they would come back. But this - you know, this whole thing kind of shifted about 10 years ago in the aftermath of the Great Recession. It kind of seemed to suspend this rule. […] So governments were able to borrow a ton of money to help fund stimulus to stop economic spirals around the world. And interest rates went down instead of up like they were supposed to. So basically that made governments and bond buyers more comfortable and maybe a little bit more liberal with all that borrowing. So over the years, governments just kept borrowing more and more money year after year, and rates just stayed low. And then to fight the pandemic and its effects, the U.S. government and the U.K. borrowed even more. And for a minute, it looked still fine. Inflation stayed low. Interest rates stayed low. Like, maybe those old rules were permanently broken.
We seem to have hit some kind of threshold or some kind of tipping point in the economy because, as you may have noticed, interest rates and inflation did not stay low. […] So what happened was Liz Truss' administration basically threw in their mini-budget, a bunch of unfunded tax cuts, into this mix, you know, with this backdrop of high inflation. And bond traders took one look at the mini-budget, and they said, absolutely not. If you want to borrow money, you are not getting it from me, or you're going to have to pay up, meaning bond traders were suddenly demanding way higher interest rates just like in the olden days. And very suddenly it seems like these old rules apply again. If governments are going to borrow more, they're going to get charged higher rates for it, which is bad news for the U.K. and obviously bad news for Liz Truss' administration, which is now over. But it's also bad news for governments everywhere who were hoping they could still borrow with abandon, like maybe ours.
— The Indicator from Planet Money
Have you heard of ACID and psychedelics?
In either case, I would suggest catching up on this fun and informative Netflix documentary on trips!
Among others, it also stars Deepak Chopra (if you know the guy).
In case you wanted to learn more and catch up with recent developments about psychedelics, here’s a good podcast from Economist whose description reads: Psychedelic drugs—such as LSD and psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms—may be. Research into their use to treat mental health conditions was long blocked by law and stigma. But in recent years, there has been a revival of interest in the drugs, which are now being trialled to treat conditions such as depression.
Imagine heatwave, drought and flood; one after the other hitting the same people
That is the story of most farmers in Uttar Pradesh, a story it appears all major media houses missed. Or deliberately did not cover. Please, and I cannot stress this enough, please watch this 6-minute-report from Gaon Connection. And also perhaps subscribe to their channel.
Raids on Popular Front of India (PFI)
Below is a transcript of the conversation from Newslaundry’s weekly podcast, Hafta.
Abhinandan: The popular front of India is an organization, that is predominantly an Islamic organization. It’s not a trade union but it is like, take it as a mirror of RSS. I don’t know much about it. […] I have read a couple of articles. Now, they have been raided, 40 of their offices around the country have been raided. There are all these student unions affiliated with PFI in some way or the other, and they have been accused of anti-India activities. So I was seeing what the allegations are against them. One is radicalization. So I was like, if that is the criminal activity then RSS, Yati Narsimhanand whatever’s organization, the Juna akhada, dam-dami takhsal they should all be… because they are all radical organizations. What are they doing? So what I have understood of the PFI, I’m no fan of the PFI. I think all ultra-religious organizations should remain within temples and mosques but should have no social function. But if this is a crime then everything RSS does is also a crime.
Coming to how it was covered in mainstream media. “Biggest terror crackdown” - nothing terrorist has been proved yet. How can you run that ticker? So the message going out was that this was the biggest crackdown on terrorism. It has been established by the [news] channels.
The second thing is the Allahu-Akbar chanted in front of the temple. India Today has been running that video and in case they have never had the news that is friendly to hearing-impaired but in this case, it was because they had the literal text - Allahu Akbar Alllahu Akbar. In case you can’t hear what the guy was saying. Saying in front of the temple. Dude! Every other week there a Hindu procession would go deliberately through a Muslim area not just chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ but also ‘Mulleh kaate jaayenge to Ram Ram chillayenge’ (Mulla/mulle is a derogatory term used for Muslims. Slogan translates to, when mulle would be slaughtered they will shout ram-ram). That is not shown. It is only shown by some online platforms. So we are already living in a Hindu Rashtra purely by how one religious thought is treated and how another is treated. And the channels have embraced it wholly and fully. We keep thinking it will happen as if it’s an event. I was just today sitting and watching television. We are waiting for the event to happen and it has already happened. We didn’t notice.
Raman Sir: PFI… they have been building up the case against PFI… That’s how I think most of us came to know of them. Since 2014, if you see, whether it is NIA, ED or CBI or state governments where BJP is ruling […] They are bringing up single cases or a couple of cases, even Kappan was called a PFI sympathiser. They are trying to build up a narrative, a negative image of this organization. We don’t know much about it except that they come out with some kind of newspaper, and also they come up with statements in favour of their community. But We don’t know much about their terror activity. In fact, nothing has been proven. And in all the cases in court against so-called individual PFI activists, nothing has been proven against them.
Abinandan: There is more evidence against members of RSS, whether it was cases some of them are still happening, hearing happenings, one of them is an MP now. I read about the organization. It is a not-for-profit volunteer-based organization. It is ideologically, I have gone over the utterances of some of their leaders. But still, I haven’t figured out specifically […] like the objective of RSS is Hindu-rastra, whether they state it or not. Like Hindu ko ek kare and Hindu rashtra. I have seen some of the statements from PFI and much unfair reportage from mainstream channels and I still don’t know much about it. And I think 80% of our audience knows nothing about it. Like who they are, what is their objective? It was a merger of two outfits, one from Tamilnadu and another from Kerala.
Mehraj: Some in Karnataka also.
Abhinandan: Why did they merge?
Mehraj: That’s part of the reason why a lot of people don’t know about it because much of it is in the south. I don’t claim to know much about it myself. Basically, it was a collection of a lot of these sorts of conservative Muslim organizations, socio-religious organizations in the mould of Jamaat-Islami which say that they want to transform Muslim society, more religion, more morality, this that and everything. But I think what I have understood from talking to people […] the reason they are going after them is that PFI is mostly active in Kerala and the coastal part of Karnataka, along the Malabar belt and that’s where RSS, all these Hindutva organizations are trying to do their thing, and these guys, they are like standing in their way. More than that, in that part of the world lot of people, have worked in the gulf and they have come with a lot of wealth and they have come up and set of businesses, huge malls, this and that which doesn’t sit well with local, you know the Hindu-Muslim divide. These are the people, at least in that part of the world, which you cannot simply roll over.
There are serious allegations only against them especially in Karnataka/Kerala, like being accused of political killings. [laugh] But so is CPI. Are you going to ban them tomorrow or raid them?
Jayashree: I don’t know much about PFI except that I know that the Indian government has time and again cited them for things like CAA protests, Delhi riots, Hathras, and the Karnataka Hijab conspiracy they said that students were in deep collusion with PFI and such.
Raman: Max they have come up with is these PFI individuals were going for some protests. That is the maximum crime, corroborative evidence they have got.
Abhi: For me the clincher was, [mocking typical Indian news anchor voiceover) accusation number 2 radicalisation! Maine kaha saale, bloody, if radicalisation was the issue then most channels should shut down ya. How is that a crime?
If you have seen Kantara movie then maybe this audio would interest you:
Not sure how many enjoy classical music and instrumental, but below is a great piece from Zakir Hussain and Niladri Kumar. Just a tip: If you are new to classical listening, make space in your heart and then listen with a clean mindspace. Persist yourself for few minutes and then it will grow on you.
That’s all for this one. Thanks for reading so far. Keep yourself safe and hydrated. Breathe well!