Cholesterol in plants

JoeyFrappuccino

Hey, somewhat new to MFP and I was surprised to find cholesterol in a food I logged yesterday as it didn't list any animal products in its ingredient list. They were Royal Asia Vegetable Spring Rolls and the ingredients were listed as

SPRING ROLL INGREDIENTS: Pastry wrapper (wheat starch, modified tapioca starch, sticky rice powder, vegetable oil, salt, sugar, water), onion, jicama (yam bean), edamame (soybean), carrot, sweet potato, soybean protein, cabbage, wheat protein, bamboo shoot, sugar, vegetable oil, soy sauce (water, wheat, soybean, salt), salt, pepper
CONTAINS: Soy, Wheat

My understanding has always been that cholesterol only comes from animal sources, which don't seem to be in these. However, the nutritional label lists 5mg of cholesterol per 113g. So am I wrong or is there something in these I don't know about? I found some articles online stating that plants can contain cholesterol but they lacked sources and seemed contrarian. If anyone knows anything about this I'd like to find out what I was eating!

chani8

Google is your friend. Yes, apparently there can be small amounts of cholesterol in plants.

sbarella

Plants need chemical compounds called sterols, just like we need hormones to function properly, so yeah, they produce a tiny bit of cholesterol. Don't sweat it.

eta: (also, I wouldn't worry too much about dietary cholesterol coming from animal sources either, but the debate is far from over)

jenilla1

That's news to me. I had always thought that cholesterol was only found in animal based products. The little bit of reading I just did suggested a tiny, tiny amount of cholesterol in some plant based foods - certain oils and such. Interesting...

JoeyFrappuccino

Alright thanks for the feedback guys, I guess it's nothing to worry about after all. I'd just never seen this before so it seemed unusual but it must have been something in the oil they used.