Seed Oils Are Doing...What?!

"I'm going to give a persuasive speech on why you shouldn't eat seed oils, and I need some help."

These were the words my 13-year-old niece Andi just told me on a FaceTime call.

I'm not going to lie, hearing these words was such a great feeling. I've never been so proud of my niece—out here being a social justice warrior for traditional fats.

Proselytizing for butter and shedding light on the dark, untold truth of the illegitimate colonial settler project that is the seed oil industry. Your voice is your power, Andi! ✊🏻

My years of influence (indoctrination) are paying off.

I told her there are four angles to the argument against seed oils. I'll share them here, too, because we all need to 👏🏻do👏🏻 the👏🏻 work.

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Seed oils are new to the scene    

This one's hard for me because I love new things. I hate thrift shopping and live for groundbreaking innovations that advance humanity. Namely, bluetooth speakers, federalism, cold brew coffee, Nordstrom, and the written word.

But sitting next to critical theory, tie-dye, The Notebook, and seeing a lifeless desert and thinking this would be a great place for city!, seed oils are one of mankind's worst ideas.

Seed oils didn't appear in our food until the twentieth century because we didn't have the ability to eat seed oils before then. But as the story goes, cottonseed oil—the first seed oil—was being used as a lubricant for heavy machinery, and someone had the idea that this oil should replace butter.

From this misguided idea, the seed oil industry was born and has been on its anti-butter crusade since.

Seed oils' arrival come in lockstep with a host of food-linked diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and dementia. Prior to the twentieth century, metabolic diseases were virtually nonexistent. So too were seed oils.

Are seed oils to blame? Knowing what they do to the body, how are they at least not partially to blame?

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What seed oils to do the body

Like my ex, seed oils are unstable and toxic, causing all sorts of mischief.

Traditional fats like butter and olive oil are made up primarily of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids. Seed oils, on the other hand, are composed of polyunsaturated fatty acids. These guys are problematic in excess.

I've written an extensive (boring) piece breaking down the biochemistry of fats, but the gist is this: nature-made fats like butter reduce inflammation, and nothing ignites inflammation better than seed oils. Metabolic diseases are driven by inflammation.

The next time your doctor tells you to lower your saturated fat (butter) intake, tell him you appreciate his interest and care, but that he's dead wrong.

Butter—an ancient food—is not to blame for heart disease, a modern malady. I'm happy to talk to (or debate) anyone on this topic. I will not stop running on butter, and if you want to be healthy, neither should you.

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Use your intuition and critical thinking

A general principle I like to reinforce is that if you cannot make a food in your own kitchen, you probably shouldn't be eating that food. The process by which companies extract oils from plant seeds necessitates excessive pressurization, industrial centrifuges, and extreme temperature fluctuations.

Seed oils are not something your trusty KitchenAid could whip out.

Watch this video on how canola oil is made. Does this really seem healthier than butter from cows like our queen Butterscotch?

Don't suppress your common sense. If you're convincing yourself that seed oils are harmless, you're stifling your intuition and desensitizing your discernment.

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Traditional fats taste better

Finally, trad fats are just straight-up better tasting than seed oils. Butter and olive oil are preferred by the world's top chefs because, well, they add flavor to a dish. But because seed oils taste so gross, companies "neutralize" seed oils so that they're odorless and tasteless.

Another 🚩: if you have to mask the flavor and smell of an ingredient, why are you using that ingredient in the first place?

Cook and bake with flavorful fats: tallow, lard, olive oil, coconut oil, and the food that brings me the most joy—🧈