PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED. This mayonnaise contains gluten.

I was buying vitamins a few days ago when I saw flavored safflower oil in the weight loss section for something like $20 a bottle. Safflower oil for weight loss was a new one to me.

I recommend Hain’s Safflower mayonnaise for anyone with soy allergies. It tastes good, its not GMO and its dairy-free and soy-free. Yes there is canola mayonnaise but safflower oil is high in vitamin E and canola is often GMO. I personally just don’t like canola mayonnaise. That said, it would never have occurred to me to recommend safflower (or any other mayonnaise) for weight loss. Tasty yes, slimming..no…not really. I was trying to prevent anaphalaxis…not pot bellies.

So I Googled it.

The original study is available in its entirety and the web address below. To summarize, if you are female, obese, diabetic, and post-menopausal there may be some benefit to consuming safflower oil.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2728639/?tool=pubmed

The original study was done in 2009. This one is more recent and it confirms the earlier one, which at least indicates that for that group pf people (obese, diabetic, women over the age of 50 or so) there is a benefit.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21295383

This one indicates that it also helped belly fat in rats. This brings to mind some hilarious images of rats and tiny measuring tapes, but it did help the rats and what works in rats often (but not always) works in humans.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21406612

I found nothing to indicate that it worked on men, younger women, or humans that were not diabetic.

That said, if you want to try safflower oil, changing mayonnaise brands is one of the yummiest and least expensive ways to add safflower oil to your diet.

You can get it through Whole Foods and you can also get it at Vitacost for about $4 for a 12 oz jar…far less than the cost of that safflower oil supplement I saw at the vitamin store. Hain’s is of course gluten and dairy free.

Here is the quick link to Vitacost
http://www.vitacost.com/hain-pure-foods-safflower-mayonnaise

So for me personally, as a pre-menopausal, non-diabetic, normal weight female, I will continue to use this mayonnaise simply because it is as healthy as mayonnaise gets, it is reasonably priced and it is low in allergens. I don’t expect any special slimming benefits. That said, if someone can prove that spinach-artichoke dip is going to make me thinner…. I will be pretty happy about that.

PLEASE NOTE: This product contains gluten. It is in the “natural flavorings” I wrote to the company and called them twice before I got a straight answer. I hope that we can pressure them to change their formulation.