Palm Oil

Why palm oil is rated low

Palm oil sits at low because it is fat and essentially nothing else. The rating is estimated from what the oil is made of rather than from a weighed serving, and a pressed or refined oil has no fermentable carbohydrate left in it for the gut to work on. The ladder records Any typical portion as low, which covers the amounts people actually fry, bake and dress food with, so there is no cap to watch on the oil itself. What the rating does not cover is the company palm oil keeps. It almost always arrives inside something else, so the question worth asking is what is cooking in it and what else is on the plate.

What changes your risk

• Serving size Any typical portion is recorded as low, and a heavier pour does not change that, because there is no fermentable carbohydrate in the oil to scale up. Read that as a statement about the oil, not a blank cheque for the dish it ends up in.
• What cooks in the pan Onion and garlic pieces left sitting in hot palm oil are the usual source of trouble. Cooking whole cloves or large chunks and lifting them out before serving gives you the flavour without the solids, which is the same principle behind garlic-infused oil, and it only works if nothing solid is left behind.
• The rest of the meal Stacking is about the total FODMAP load of a whole sitting rather than any one ingredient. Palm oil adds nothing to that running total, which means the entire margin belongs to the bread, the sauce and the vegetables around it.
• Blends, spreads and shortenings Palm oil turns up as one line on the ingredient list of margarines, pastry shortenings, biscuits and chocolate spreads. Once it is blended into a finished product, that product's own ingredients decide the rating, not the oil.
• Heat changes nothing Frying, roasting and deep frying neither create FODMAPs nor remove them. Food comes out of the pan carrying what it went in with, so a high FODMAP vegetable does not become a low one by being cooked in a low FODMAP fat.

What else works

Every plain oil behaves the same way here, so olive, canola, sunflower, rice bran and coconut oil are all interchangeable with palm oil on this diet, and garlic-infused oil is the one flavoured version that genuinely works as long as the solid pieces have been strained out. The lookalikes to treat as separate foods are the palm derived products rather than the oil: margarines and spreads built on a palm base, palm shortening inside a filled pastry, and any bottle sold with garlic or onion pieces still floating in it. A cream or milk based sauce and a dressing sweetened with honey or agave are not equivalents either, even though the fat underneath them would have been fine on its own.

How to keep it low

Palm oil is semi solid at cool room temperature and turns clear and pourable in a warm kitchen, so spoon it into the pan rather than judging by eye if you want to know what went in. It takes high heat well, which makes it a sensible choice for searing and shallow frying, jobs where the delicate flavour of an infused oil would cook off anyway. Keep the jar capped, away from the stove and out of direct light so it does not turn stale. When you shop, look past the front of the pack: plain palm oil has a single ingredient, while a cooking fat or spread that merely lists palm oil among several others is a different product that needs its own check.

Common questions

is palm oil low fodmap

Yes. Palm oil is rated low, and the ladder records Any typical portion as low, so the amount you would cook or bake with is fine. That rating is estimated from the fact that palm oil is fat with no fermentable carbohydrate rather than from a measured serving.

can i use palm oil during the elimination phase

Plain palm oil is suitable during elimination at Any typical portion. The thing to check is the marinade, rub or sauce it is cooking alongside, since that is where onion and garlic usually arrive.

does frying in palm oil make food higher in fodmaps

No. Frying neither creates nor destroys FODMAPs, so food leaves the pan carrying whatever it brought to it. The one thing to watch is solid garlic or onion cooked in the oil and then served in the dish, which is why infused oils have those pieces strained out.

what oil can i use instead of palm oil

Olive, canola, sunflower, rice bran and coconut oil are all low and do the same job. For savoury depth, garlic-infused oil covers the flavour without the solids.