Vegetable Oil in Dates, Raisins etc.. AAHH!

[Up LEAP 100 Billion]

Hi,

Can someone please make me happy and say that vegetable oil is raw and ok!! I KEEP seeing vegetable oil in all the different makes of raisins and dates. It says only 1% vegetable oil on most, but that isn't the point. 1% vegetable oil is just as bad as 50% as far as I'm concerned!! My thoughts are that vegetable oil is dates and rasins is a NO NO? Can anyone confirm?

[Lunar*Fey]

I don't think its raw...look for the packages that say simply "raisins" or "dates" for ingredients. I think the Sun-Made namebrand might be raw...it says dried naturally in the sun and there are usually no other ingredients...no preservatives or anything. I don't know if you have Sun-Made namebrand around you, if not you can probably find raisins at a health food store or order them online if you can

[Up LEAP 100 Billion]

Lunar - Just this moment recieved the Sun Maid raisins - YES they have no other ingredients - just 100% raisins :) I'm pretty sure their Raw too. I can't seem to find any sites selling Sun Maid dates tho. :rolleyes:

[Up LEAP 100 Billion]

Lunar - Just this moment recieved the Sun Maid raisins - YES they have no other ingredients - just 100% raisins :) I'm pretty sure their Raw too. I can't seem to find any sites selling Sun Maid dates tho. :rolleyes:

[exurb]

yeah, the veggie oil is usually not raw. I have even seen hydrogenated oil on such things. If you shop at a bulk place, make sure you check the ingredients of their stuff. Even though you might just think they're raisins, they could be coated with all sorts of crap. For example at The Bulk Barn here in Canada, when I last looked, the walnuts were coated with all sorts of stuff, preservatives, etc. :eek: The coconut usually has propylene glycol (antifreeze). It's a good idea to always check the ingredients, even of these things that you don't think would have any "ingredients"

[juliebove]

Most likely vegetable oil would not be raw, and if it doesn't specify what kind, it may well be soy. There is no oil in the dried fruit that I buy, but I usually get it at the health food store. They buy it in bulk, freeze it and package it as needed.

[Brianna]

The vegetable oil is not raw, but there is a lot of dried fruit without vegetable oil. Most important, when you buy rasins, make sure they are organic because grapes are one of the most heavily sprayed crops. When I started eating organic raisins then one time had some that weren't organic, I could taste the pesticides on them and I didn't even like them. I've never eaten any raisins except organic since then.

[veganman]

I talked with Tracy at Glaser Farms yesterday as I was concerned about this issue as well. I think some of the bulk raisins identified as raw and listing ingredients as only raisins might sometimes have the oil added to separate the raisins. Tracy at Glaser specifically said that theirs are non-oiled and they separate them by gloved hands.

[Lay-Lay]

wow, I have never seen a package of them with any oils added.

[veganman]

I don't know if the package would say or not.....I think it is a very tiny amount.

[Up LEAP 100 Billion]

No it's pretty much black and white - I think the manufactorers HAVE to label any/all ingredients used in a packeted item, however minute amount. Anyhow I have now found dates and raisins now that are purely just dates and raisins alone with no added oil. You can just tell by looking at them the ones with added oil and not.

[dreamrawalwz]

I doubt it's raw. I would question big brands like SunMaid. They may use the word "sun" in the title, but it dosen't mean it's completely raw. I suggest call them to make sure?

[Up LEAP 100 Billion]

Ok, this is from the official Sun-Maid website about the whole process of the raisins:

http://www.sunmaid.com/healthyliving/grapes_and_sunshine

I can't see ANYTHING wrong with the Sun-Maid Raisins from the link above, I am delighted to say :D. It clearly says they are ONLY sundried - they just leave the grapes and the sun to do the work. It says temperatures usually go over 100 degrees, whether they hit 115 degrees I don't know but I doubt it, but knowing it's just the sun doing it's natural thing makes it raw enough to me :D.

[dreamrawalwz]

Ok, this is from the official Sun-Maid website about the whole process of the raisins:

http://www.sunmaid.com/healthyliving/grapes_and_sunshine

I can't see ANYTHING wrong with the Sun-Maid Raisins from the link above, I am delighted to say :D. It clearly says they are ONLY sundried - they just leave the grapes and the sun to do the work. It says temperatures usually go over 100 degrees, whether they hit 115 degrees I don't know but I doubt it, but knowing it's just the sun doing it's natural thing makes it raw enough to me :D.

K, thanks for checking! Not that I eat them anymore lol. I have heard that other "sun dried" fruits like figs and dates are not really sun dried...like "sun dried tomatoes' aren't really sun dried.

[GreenPrince]

Ok, this is from the official Sun-Maid website about the whole process of the raisins:

http://www.sunmaid.com/healthyliving/grapes_and_sunshine
:D.
Thanks for the link to SunMaid – nice information.

For fun I did an experiment and measured the temperature of some fruits of the kind often dried in the sun.

I opened a 1 lb package of SunMaid raisin, and put a handfull on a plate beside some fresh dates and a tomato. Then I let the plate be in the sunshine in a windprotected terrace for an hour.
The temperature was measured with an IR-thermometer without physical contact with the fruits.

Background parameters:
Air temperature: 84 F (29 C)
Air humidity: 32%
Sun angle above the horizont: 48 degrees.
Sky: blue with slightly haze.

RESULTS and DISCUSSION
Raisins, dates and tomato: 120 F (49 C). I then changed the angle of the plate to the sun to imitate a hot zenith sun. The temperature raised to 134 F (57 C). This means that the raisin temperature in the sunshine was: 36 F (20 C) above the air temperature, and 50 F (28 C) for the zenith case.

A was a little astonished, because I never want to raise the food temperature in a dehydrator above the highest (fever) temperature we human being can get.

The reason why we and the vegetation don't get to hot in the sunshine is an effective cooling system; water evaporation needs warmth and the temperature decreases. I think it would be of interest, if somebody measured the temperature with a food thermometer inside a fruit still on the tree in the sunshine.

[mrsalf97]

I just discovered that my walnuts have corn oil. :mad: