Why Sunflower Oil? 🌻

You may have heard that we recently switched our recipe from olive oil to organic high-oleic sunflower oil. Since day one of our company, we've used olive oil in our Granola Butter® but prices have SKYROCKETED in the last several months & we had to make the difficult decision to pivot. Because if we continued to use olive oil in our product, we would either go out of business or need to essentially DOUBLE our prices 🤯

We chatted about our options internally as a team *a lot* and we landed on organic, expeller-pressed, high-oleic sunflower oil. It's neutral tasting, has a long enough shelf life, and creates the same delicious creamy texture you already know & love.

A little more background into some common questions we've been getting:

Re: allergies - sunflower seed allergy is not too common, but it does occur. Like the other oils, the allergic reaction is caused by proteins in crude sunflower oil. Those proteins are mostly removed during the refining process - Oat Haus uses an organic high-oleic RBDW (Refined) expeller-pressed sunflower oil. As only trace amounts of the protein that can cause an allergy are present after refining, most people with an allergy to sunflower seeds are fine consuming refined sunflower seed oil. Nonetheless for folks with a very severe sunflower seed allergy (including anaphylaxis responses), refined sunflower oil may still pose a threat and we recommend discussing with your doctor.

Re: online claims about seed oils - the majority of claims we see online that seed oils are not healthy come from non professional sources and are not based on clinical studies. Contrary to these opinions, most studies show that sunflower oil is indeed a healthy fat - see Mark Sisson's explanation. Furthermore, the sunflower oil that we use in our Granola Butter® is organic and high-oleic, meaning it is higher in monounsaturated fats which are good for heart health. TLDR - not all sunflower oil is created equal, but we're using the best of the best!

To sum it up - our goal is not to be an exclusive wellness brand that's only available to a small percentage of people. We want to make Granola Butter® as accessible as we can to as many people as possible. One of the hardest parts about running a business is knowing that you can't make everyone happy and for everyone this change has impacted - we hear you and we see you 🫶🏼 We know change isn't always easy, but we try to be as transparent and real with you all as we can - it's tough running a small business & navigating these waters, so we appreciate your support endlessly. Always here to listen to feedback, questions, comments & concerns, so don't hesitate to get in touch 🩷

XO,

The Oat Haus Team