WTH Is Wrong With Seed Oils!? Are They Tolerable Or Toxic? And Should They Wear A Warning?

Photo: David Wirzba, Unsplash

Fearmongers Vs. Researchers; FIGHT!:

So, let’s play another game of home food chemistry.

This time, it includes at least some amount of internet sensationalizing.

One side says when you spin the wheel and land on “Bankrupt”, it means you have poison in your kitchen!

The mystery gets deeper than that, because you might never even know it.

Especially because we assume everything we buy at the store is safe.

But a few biochem detectives are pushing back on that…

The Short Answer:

• Sometimes it’s hard to know when caution goes too far.
• We assume everything at the grocery store is safe.
• But we may be engaging in at-home biochemistry more than we think.
• The current debate over seed oils seems a bit like a furor.
• The caution camp cites both manufacturing and potential health problems.
• Harvard and Tufts biochemists push back with studies that show both lower rates of heart-disease and mortality.
• The case they make may have some holes in it.
• There could still be several long-term unknowns.
• Researchers may also count on too many things going exactly right.
• We may not actually have enough information.
• When in doubt, the best solution seems to be food ingredients that have less processing done to them.
• Also, options with fewer alleged problems like Olive Oil just seem safer.
• Besides, people on The Mediterranean Diet seem pretty healthy!

Read on to find out the details…

What You Eat Vs. How Much You Eat:

So a big part of nutrition isn’t just how much you eat, it’s also what you eat.

Parts of the high-quality approach include reducing sugar, high-glycemic carbs, saturated fat, and ultra-processed food.

There is a possibility that even if you counted calories, but got all kinds of “bad” food, you may stay at a “healthy” weight, while still being unhealthy otherwise.

UPFs Came First, Now There’s A Seed-Oil Furor:

But there are other things that can make you unhealthy.

And along with the recent furor over Ultra-Processed Foods,

Another one has tagged-along just after it.

The furor over Seed Oils.

So what’s the problem?

The Anti Seed-Oil Camp Lodges Their Complaints:

There are a few main contentions in the anti-seed-oil camp:

1) They are not all cold-pressed like olive oil
2) They are often extracted through caustic chemical processes
2a) The components of these include:
  i) Heat
  ii) Lye
  iii) Bleach
  iv) Solvents
3) A possibility of oxidation through these processes
4) A possibility of them creating by-products that stay in the oil
5) A possibility of arriving oxidized or rancid at the store
6) Inclusion or break-down into toxic oxidizing compounds
7) Increased cardiovascular disease by changing your blood-chemistry
8) Cellular damage and increased rates of disease from 6)
9) Exaggerating imbalances between Omega 6 & Omega 3 levels in the body

Seed Oil Gets Accused Of Causing Health Problems:

The critics say all of these add up to studies that showed:

A) Higher inflammation
B) Increased blood-pressure
C) Decreased lifespan

But wait, because there’s another side to the argument!

There are other sources that have come out to say that seed oils, even Canola, are fine and not unhealthy.

These include responses from Harvard doctors and also Consumer Reports.

Biochemists Counter The Seed-Oil Critics Claims:

They dispute all the above claims in the following ways:

1) The higher amount of Omega-6 is not inflammatory to humans the way it is to lab mice & rats
2) Omega-6 does not raise the risk for heart disease
3) Men with the highest level of Omega-6 had a 43% lower rate of mortality (2018 study)
4) Supposedly, our Omega 6:3 ratio is not as out of whack as the alarmists claim
4a) (the number I’ve heard most-quoted is 10x higher than normal, not 25x)
5) There are no solvents (hexane) present in the oil you use
6) The only cooking method that builds up lots of toxic compounds is deep-fat fryers (for french fries, etc)

How Do We Choose Between The Two Camps?:

So between the two sides, how do we choose?

There are two main guidelines I like to use.

What is the least-processed option?

What is the safest option?

So before we get to the conclusion, here are a few counter-arguments to the doctors in service of those guidelines.

A Few Small Things To Consider:

1) Lab rats aren’t humans may not be a good-enough argument
2) The heart-disease & mortality studies on CR don’t tell you what source people were getting their Omega-6 from
3) Our Omega 6:3 ratio, even at 20:1, is still too high
4) It’s unlikely that seed oils are tested by producers for contaminants or toxic by-product compounds
4a) Consumers will not test them for compounds or even freshness
5) We don’t know that cooking with seed oils doesn’t oxidize them or create toxic by-products
5a) Seed oils are advertised for their high smoke-point, so high heat cooking may be encouraged
6) The main source of the toxin 4HNE is seed oils
7) The FDA is less restrictive than their EU counterpart, even when it comes to seed oils
8) There may be a small chance the biochemists are considering only ideal scenarios for their seed-oil defense
9) Many studies may not be designed to detect all the possible problems, especially over time

Why Not Just Keep It Simple And Play It Safe?:

So those are the main points.

Now to go back to the previous and first sections,

Olive oil is almost un-processed and has not been associated with any of the criticism leveled at seed oils.

There is much less of the easily-oxidized Omega-6 in olive oil.

And it’s the centerpiece of one of the healthiest eating plans in the world, The Mediterranean Diet.

So why not just use that?

If you don’t like the smell or taste and want something closer to Canola, just use the ultra-light stuff!

It’s Great That Researchers & Docs Are Addressing This:

I think it’s great that biochemists are making some kind of counter-point to what could be sensationalism.

But if you have an option that you know is much safer, why not just go that way?

Because if any of the internet-sensationalist suspicions are right, especially about 4-HNE,

Then you absolutely could have a bottle of poison that you cook your food in, sitting right there in your kitchen.

Footnote. My Own Personal Experience:

I do realize anecdotes are not data and that self-diagnosis is risky.

But I used to eat at one specific restaurant and kept getting headaches and feeling depressed 2 hours after the meal of salad with chicken.

This didn’t happen at any other place.

The likely culprit? The oil that was in all the different dressings!

References & Links:

• Sources:
   •Twitter – Sam Parr’s Question
   •Reddit
   •Harvard News
   •Consumer Reports
• More Coverage: America’s Test Kitchen, Rancid Oil