Vegetable oils are NOT healthy!!

Way too often I find myself saddened and unpleasantly surprised by the lack of easily accessible, reliable information and data concerning food, nutrition and health. Truthfully, looking back, it’s amazing how little I myself knew, before I started down this long, self-initiated, ongoing path of nutritional education and empowerment of the past 10+ years. I am often reminded these days that I live in a bubble of sorts, surrounding myself virtually and otherwise with bloggers, healers, nutritionists and content creators whose lifestyles mirror my own. Reading books, listening to podcasts and following doctors and researchers creating and sharing important information and research about health and nutrition. I tend to forget and maybe I even take for granted, how much I do know and often I find myself making sweeping assumptions that everyone else knows most of it, too. I know for so many of you this post and this information is old news, it’s a rerun, you’ve heard it before. But if this post reaches even one new person, if I can send my new nutritional clients, who are still cooking with vegetable oils, here to learn more, then it’s a success!

Often, when I chat with both my nutritional clients, as well as my close friends and family members, the number one thing I see among their food choices, that I immediately want to remove from their pantries and toss aggressively into the garbage: is vegetable and seed oils. In my opinion, vegetable oils are far worse than any overly refined carbs, white sugar or high fructose corn syrup. This deadly, highly manufactured, lab-created “food” (if you can even call it that) is wreaking more havoc on people’s health than possibly anything else and sadly it’s being overlooked. Much of this comes from Western medical practitioners who are sadly uneducated in nutrition or those whose nutritional education is sorely dated, built on antiquated and debunked health myths of previous generations. Furthermore, industrial agriculture food industry in most Western countries has a large stake in corn and soy production and these have become, by far, the cheapest crops growing, thanks to government subsidies. Take a look at most packaged and processed foods and you will find one or both of these foods somewhere on the label.

The edible oil industry has sought to demonize tropical oils and other saturated fats and in turn, promote their own products, like corn and soybean oil. This great movement toward the excessive use of polyunsaturated fats and the demonization of saturated fats came with the advent of the “Lipid Hypothesis” — which featured the suspect research of Ansel Keys who made unsubstantiated claims that saturated fat and cholesterol were the cause of heart disease. This has not been for the improvement of health, the research now shows. 

What Are Vegetable Oils?

Vegetable oils are oils that are extracted from seeds, germs or beans, such as corn, sunflower, safflower, soybean, or rapeseed (canola oil), etc. These were non-existent until the early-1900’s, and are undeniably one of the most unnatural “foods” you can find. Vegetable oils are PUFAs, which stands for Poly-Unsaturated Fatty Acid. In chemical terms, that means that the fatty acid has more than one (poly) double bond in the carbon chain. They are unsaturated because they’re missing out on what saturated fatty acid has — hydrogen atoms. This creates incomplete or unstable bonds which in turn make for highly unstable fats that are prone to oxidation in the presence of heat and light, during cooking, sitting on the shelf in the grocery store or in your kitchen pantry and even in your body. They turn rancid, which your body reacts terribly. The body attempts to respond to and neutralize the oxidization by utilizing its stores of antioxidants. This oxidization process causes cell mutation, which creates chronic inflammation, the source of most of the worst illness plaguing society including diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

The most common vegetable oils on the market are:

·       Soybean oil

·       Canola oil (rapeseed oil)

·       Sunflower oil

·       Corn oil

·       Cottonseed oil

·       “vegetable” oil

·       Safflower oil

·       Peanut oil

·       Grapeseeed oil

·       Rice bran oil

·       Margarine

·       Shortening (made from above oils)

·       Fake butter or spreadable butter-type spreads (i can’t believe it’s not butter, earth balance, smart balance)

Thankfully less and less people are cooking with these oils at home but this is an insufficient solution. Many/most processed foods contain these oils. Salad dressings, condiments like mayo, sauces, crackers, cookies, chips… check your ingredients. Most restaurants are cooking in vegetable oils, because they are so cheap! Unless a restaurant specifically states otherwise, their fried foods are all cooked in soybean, cottonseed or some other highly toxic vegetable oil.

(Note the term “vegetable oil” does NOT apply to healthy fruit-based plant oils like olive oil or coconut oil, which are extremely healthful)

Why Avoid Vegetable Oils

Omega-6 Fats.

These oils contain very large amounts of biologically active fats called Omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are harmful in excess. You may have heard of the importance of Omega-3 fats, which are essential to your health, especially because your body cannot manufacture them. However, as beneficial as Omega-3s are, it’s more about the ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fats that is critical to good health. The fat content of the human body is about 97% saturated and monounsaturated fat, with only 3 % polyunsaturated fats. Half of that three percent is Omega-3 fats, and that balance needs to be there, meaning simply an abundance of Omega-3s doesn noy equate to being healthier. The same goes for Omega-6 fatty acids. The Standard American Diet (SAD) contains far too many omega-6s and too little omega-3s, resulting in a grossly distorted omega fat ratio of nearly 19:1. The ideal ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats is 1:1.

Vegetable oils contain a very high concentration of Omega-6 fatty acids. These highly unstable fatty acids oxidize very easily when exposed to heat, light or oxygen. Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to reduce inflammation and protect against cancer, however an imbalanced ratio of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fats have been linked to many types of cancers and a host of other problems. Research suggests that “Excessive amounts of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids and a very high omega-6/omega-3 ratio, as is found in today’s Western diets, promote the pathogenesis of many diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and inflammatory and autoimmune diseases” 

Most Western diets are higher in Omega-6 fatty acids and too low in Omega-3’s and this has not gone unnoticed by the food industry. Often the labels on vegetables oils advertise “a good source of Omega-3s”– meanwhile the Omega-6 levels are so high this is just further exasperating the issue. The addition of industrial, highly refined polyunsaturated fats in the human diet is, without question, the single most prevalent dietary change in recent history.  Carbohydrate, protein and saturated fat consumption have shifted very little but polyunsaturated fat consumption has increased over two-and-a-half times , and is still climbing.

Industrial Processing

Vegetable oils were non-existent until the early 1900s where the invention of certain chemical processes and a need for “cheap” fat substitutions, created this new product.

·       Factory-processed PUFA oils are created under high heat and extreme pressure, exposing the oil to all sorts of oxidative damage.

·       Chemical solvents are also used to extract every last bit of oil out of the seeds, or corn, or soy.

·       Some of the chemical (usually hexane) remains, and yet another chemical is added to deodorize the rancid PUFA oil’s smell. In that process, the small amount of omega-3 present in oils like canola, actually transforms into trans fatty acid.

·       BHT and BTA (both known carcinogens) are then added as chemical preservatives, since any naturally-occurring preservative substances, such as antioxidant vitamin E which were once naturally found in the food, have been thoroughly destroyed through processing. 4 

·       Even organic expeller-pressed vegetable oils undergo tremendous processing and are exposed to heat and therefore oxidize easily resulting in a toxic food. 

·       Additionally, vegetable oils, if not organic, are likely derived from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s), another important reason to avoid them.

 Compare that to the processing of butter…

·       Milk a cow.

·       Let cream separate naturally.

·       Skim off cream.

·       Shake until it becomes butter.

Inflammation & Free Radical Damage. 

Polyunsaturated Fats are very fragile and oxidize very easily. Free-radical forming oxidation of the PUFA happens when it is exposed to heat, light, or oxygen. This is hard to avoid that when you are cooking with these oils and most restaurants exclusively use these oils not only for cooking, but for extreme high-heat frying! Many vegetable oils are rancid before you even purchase them simply from exposure to light and moderate heat.

A small amount of inflammation is necessary to the healing process, which is why Omega-6s (from healthful sources) in the proper ratio to Omega-3s actually play an important role in both the immune system and the body’s ability to properly and effectively heal. Excess inflammation however, leads to disease, diabetes and even cancer. Omega 6 fats not only fuel your body’s inflammatory pathways, but also reduce availability of anti-inflammatory omega 3 fats in your tissues, resulting in more inflammation. Excessive inflammation in the body from PUFAs happens because of the presence of free radicals formed in the processing of the industrial oils (like vegetable and canola), which renders them rancid. Free radicals are atoms with an unpaired electron floating around, which causes them to basically go nuts. These compounds attack cell membranes and red blood cells, and they even cause damage to DNA and RNA strands, leading to cellular mutations in the body’s tissues. In skin, it causes wrinkles and premature aging. In blood vessels, the buildup of plaque. In tissues and organs, it can set the stage for tumors to form.

Hydrogenation & Trans Fats.

PUFA’s are at their very worst when they are partially or fully hydrogenated. This chemical process is used to make PUFA’s solid at room temperature and more “shelf stable”. Trans fat is the artery-clogging fat that is formed when vegetable oils are hardened to make margarine, vegetable shortening, and often vegan butters and cheeses. It is found in many other foods besides margarine and shortening, including fried foods, cookies, pastries and crackers. The process involves introducing small particles of toxic heavy metals that bond to the fat and then it is exposed to high heat. Structurally, trans fats are synthetic fatty acids; 14 of them are produced during the hydrogenation process. (They are not naturally present in either animal or vegetable fats.)  Trans fats prevent the synthesis of prostacyclin, which is necessary to keep your blood flowing. When your arteries cannot produce prostacyclin, blood clots form. 

What Oils Should You Be Eating:

·       Coconut Oil

·       Tallow/ Suet (beef fat)

·       Lard/Bacon Fat (pork fat)

·       Butter

·       Ghee

·       Goose, Duck or Chicken Fat

·       Extra-Virgin Olive Oil*

·       Avocado Oil*

·       Palm Oil**

Other fats (not necessarily for cooking, but essential to good health) include meats, eggs, dairy, and fish (nuts are also good in moderation as they have a high level of polyunsaturated fats).

* olive oil and avocado oil are both high in monounsaturated fats which are moderately stable so they are best used in non-heat or low heat, avoid extreme high-heat cooking.  They are also great in salad dressings, homemade mayonnaise, for drizzling, etc.

** Please find from a trust-worthy and sustainable source for your palm oil. Today much of the palm oil is being harvested in horrific ways. When in doubt just stick with coconut oil.

Oils To Use Sparingly

The following oils are fine when used sparingly. Most contain high levels of Omega-6 fatty acids, so they should not be consumed freely and in excess. But they are considered natural fats, and do have health benefits. They are not great for high heat cooking, but acceptable in dressings, mayonnaise, and other non-heat foods. Always look for organic expeller or cold-pressed forms.

·       Walnut Oil

·       Flaxseed Oil

·       Macadamia Nut Oil

·       Sesame Oil

How To Tell If An Oil Is Chemically Processed:

AVOID all fats, oils and the products that contain them if the following processing terms are listed ANYWHERE on ANY food label:

·       Refined

·       Hydrogenated

·       Partially-Hydrogenated

·       Cold-PROCESSED (do not confuse this trick phrase with Cold-PRESSED)

INSTEAD, look for these safer processing terms on your fat/oil labels:

·       Organic

·       First-cold pressed or Cold-Pressed Expeller-Pressed

·       Unrefined

·       Extra Virgin

Note: These “safer” processing techniques help to retain the antioxidant profile found in fats through low- temperature, low-light and low-oxygen extraction methods. Naturally occurring antioxidants protect fats from oxidizing (turning rancid) during extraction.