The whats, whys and hows of vegetable oils in Queal.

March 10^th 2021

So far, our ingredients posts covered the whole grain oat flour, soy flour, whey- and vegan proteins and vitamins and minerals in our complete meals. This month it’s time to talk about the vegetable oils, coming from sunflower- and flax seeds. Ever since the upgrade to our 2.0 recipe (and we’re at 5.0 now), we’ve found a way of including these oils into our powder. Wonder how this works, and why these two types of oil are included in our meals in the first place? Then sit back and read on.

What is it?

Both of the oils in our complete meals come from seeds, one is extracted from sunflowers and the other from seeds of the flax plant, also called linseeds.

For both the extraction of sunflower- and linseed oil, the seeds are pressed using a mill. In the case of sunflower oil, the seeds need to get peeled first. For linseed oil, this is not needed as the peel is very thin and edible.

How do we use it?

In our Steady powders as well as Ready, both linseed- and sunflower oil are present through a technique called micro-coating: a spray dryer converts the liquid oil into powder so that it will stick to the isomaltulose in our recipes. In both the Go bars only sunflower oil is used, which gets added to the recipe in liquid form. Our new vegan Go Dark Chocolate bar will also contain some soy oil, which is also a vegetable oil and is extracted from the seeds of soybeans.

Linseed- and sunflower oil are the 5th biggest ingredients in all of our diet types of Steady. In both recipes of Ready the mix is the 7th biggest ingredient, as well as the sunflower oil in our Nuts & Apricot Go bar. In the new Go Dark Chocolate bar soy- and sunflower oils are present in smaller quantities because of the cocoa butter that is used.

Why do we use it?

Not surprisingly, the oils are used to serve you with a good dose of healthy fats, as that’s part of a balanced diet. More specifically, we chose to use linseed- and sunflower oil because they’re both low on saturated fats (the unhealthy kind) and nicely interact with each other when it comes to omega 3, 6 and 9 fatty acids. While the oil from sunflower seeds is particularly high in linoleic acid (omega 6), it lacks alpha-linoleic acid (omega 3). Linseed oil covers that shortage contains, in contrast, little omega 6. Both sources of oil are adequate in terms of oleic acid, omega 9 fatty acid.

Want to learn more about fats and its functions? In this article, our CEO Floris Wolswijk tells you all about it!

Where does it come from?

Hard working Belgian flax plants are responsible for the linseeds, which get pressed/processed in Belgium too. For whomever has been to France: a big part of the sunflower seeds come from those nice looking yellow fields full of sunflowers, another part comes from Spain. The production from sunflower to sunflower oil happens in France.

Allergens.

Neither of the oils in Queal Steady and Ready recipes are allergens. Nevertheless, a tiny fraction of the population is allergic to seeds and need to be careful with seed oils too.