It’s in literally EVERYTHING, even the “healthy-ish” stuff. “Canola and/or sunflower.” I’d rather not have make my own hummus if I can help it.
Do a web search for oil free hummus, as there’s several brands. If I do buy the kind with oil, I’m usually having it with so many vegetables, greens, and whole grains that the percent of the meal from added oils is very small.
If I see added oils on an ingredients list, I check out how much fat a whole serving has compared with the amount of carbs and protein to gauge whether it’s a major ingredient. Sometimes it’s on a label but obviously not contributing much to the finished product.
Eat a whole foods diet? Assuming the vast majority of your fat intake is from good fat sources (olive oil, high quality meat, ghee, butter, coconut oil, nuts, fish, etc) then occasionally intaking seed oils shouldn’t do much harm. I occasionally have some things that contain sunflower oil and while I’m not always the best feeling after it if I’m having a flare up of issues, it’s not much of an effect in general.
I can’t have Hummus from the store anyway, since citrus isn’t a good friend to me. But if I’m honest, organic chickpeas, a little mayo or cream cheese(or a little peanutbutter/tahini depending on the flavour profile), is basically the flavour spread of Hummus. Just mash your ingredients “et voilà” it’s cheaper anyway
Stick to whole foods and try to avoid anything packaged. Limit seed oils as much as you can but if you have some, it’s not the end of the world. Read labels well because even some seasonings can have seed oils. Basically anything that comes in a package will likely have seed oils.
Cook with avocado oil.
Consume olive oil uncooked (like on your salad, or as a dip with your fancy bread).
Cook with butter.
Cook with ghee.
Bake with avocado oil or butter — or ghee.
It’s relatively easy.
Read package labels. Don’t buy the ones with seed oils.
You’re right, though; if you dine out, it’s safe to assume there’s seed oil in the cooked food.
Sorry to say this, but hummus?? Hummus is easy!
Buying groceries takes longer since you have to read all the labels, but there’s almost always options.
For humus, have you considered going to a middle eastern market or even a donair shop? It’ll probably be healthy, made fresh, and taste more authentic!
If you try REALLY hard you can find things like non seed oil based hummus and stuff.. But perhaps its a good clue to eat less processed or more simple whole foods, and just make stuff on your own more often.
Same as anything else you want to avoid, buy ingredients and not prepared foods. Then you’ll only eat what you put in yourself. If you find a prepared food that doesn’t have anything you object to eating, you can remember it and have more options next time.
I am not too fanatical about this personally, though. We can say there’s no known safe amount of alcohol, tobacco, or trans fats (though there may be consumption levels that are low enough risk for individual people to feel comfortable), but nothing like this has been proven about seed oils. For instance, if I consume a teaspoon of canola oil in my whole wheat tortillas (lists 1g of fat per tortilla; if we rounded it up to 2g I’d need 7 tortillas to have as much total fat as a tablespoon of oil), I am not really worried about that personally because it’s such a small amount and I’m not getting a lot if any from other foods (none in carrots, sweet potatoes, milk, fat free refried beans, oranges, guacamole, no oil added almond or peanut butter, etc). However, if I wanted to avoid it entirely I could get corn tortillas or pita bread or make my own tortillas. I’ve got choices.
I do go for the low/no added fat options where possible though. These oils don’t even taste good to me. But hey, I’m disabled, low income, and have limited cooking equipment at the moment, so there’s going to be some compromises. Even if I reached 1 total tablespoon of canola per day in various foods, I’d be surprised if my risk reaches the level of say one serving of alcohol per day, which I don’t drink but recognize is fairly low. Life isn’t all or nothing, so start with the commitment you can make now.